We’re the ‘allergy capital of the world’. But we don’t know why food allergies are so common in Australian children
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.
Australia has often been called the “allergy capital of the world”.
An estimated one in ten Australian children develop a food allergy in their first 12 months of life. Research has previously suggested food allergies are more common in infants in Australia than infants living in Europe, the United States or Asia.
So why are food allergies so common in Australia? We don’t know exactly – but local researchers are making progress in understanding childhood allergies all the time.
What causes food allergies?
There are many different types of reactions to foods. When we refer to food allergies in this article, we’re talking about something called IgE-mediated food allergy. This type of allergy is caused by an immune response to a particular food.
Reactions can occur within minutes of eating the food and may include swelling of the face, lips or eyes, “hives” or welts on the skin, and vomiting. Signs of a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) include difficulty breathing, swelling of the tongue, swelling in the throat, wheeze or persistent cough, difficulty talking or a hoarse voice, and persistent dizziness or collapse.
Recent results from Australia’s large, long-running food allergy study, HealthNuts, show one in ten one-year-olds have a food allergy, while around six in 100 children have a food allergy at age ten.
In Australia, the most common allergy-causing foods include eggs, peanuts, cow’s milk, shellfish (for example, prawn and lobster), fish, tree nuts (for example, walnuts and cashews), soybeans and wheat.
Allergies to foods like eggs, peanuts and cow’s milk often present for the first time in infancy, while allergies to fish and shellfish may be more common later in life. While most children will outgrow their allergies to eggs and milk, allergy to peanuts is more likely to be lifelong.
Findings from HealthNuts showed around three in ten children grew out of their peanut allergy by age six, compared to nine in ten children with an allergy to egg.
Are food allergies becoming more common?
Food allergies seem to have become more common in many countries around the world over recent decades. The exact timing of this increase is not clear, because in most countries food allergies were not well measured 40 or 50 years ago.
We don’t know exactly why food allergies are so common in Australia, or why we’re seeing a rise around the world, despite extensive research.
But possible reasons for rising allergies around the world include changes in the diets of mothers and infants and increasing sanitisation, leading to fewer infections as well as less exposure to “good” bacteria. In Australia, factors such as increasing vitamin D deficiency among infants and high levels of migration to the country could play a role.
In several Australian studies, children born in Australia to parents who were born in Asia have higher rates of food allergies compared to non-Asian children. On the other hand, children who were born in Asia and later migrated to Australia appear to have a lower risk of nut allergies.
Meanwhile, studies have shown that having pet dogs and siblings as a young child may reduce the risk of food allergies. This might be because having pet dogs and siblings increases contact with a range of bacteria and other organisms.
This evidence suggests that both genetics and environment play a role in the development of food allergies.
We also know that infants with eczema are more likely to develop a food allergy, and trials are underway to see whether this link can be broken.
Can I do anything to prevent food allergies in my kids?
One of the questions we are asked most often by parents is “can we do anything to prevent food allergies?”.
We now know introducing peanuts and eggs from around six months of age makes it less likely that an infant will develop an allergy to these foods. The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy introduced guidelines recommending giving common allergy-causing foods including peanut and egg in the first year of life in 2016.
Our research has shown this advice had excellent uptake and may have slowed the rise in food allergies in Australia. There was no increase in peanut allergies between 2007–11 to 2018–19.
Introducing other common allergy-causing foods in the first year of life may also be helpful, although the evidence for this is not as strong compared with peanuts and eggs.
What next?
Unfortunately, some infants will develop food allergies even when the relevant foods are introduced in the first year of life. Managing food allergies can be a significant burden for children and families.
Several Australian trials are currently underway testing new strategies to prevent food allergies. A large trial, soon to be completed, is testing whether vitamin D supplements in infants reduce the risk of food allergies.
Another trial is testing whether the amount of eggs and peanuts a mother eats during pregnancy and breastfeeding has an influence on whether or not her baby will develop food allergies.
For most people with food allergies, avoidance of their known allergens remains the standard of care. Oral immunotherapy, which involves gradually increasing amounts of food allergen given under medical supervision, is beginning to be offered in some facilities around Australia. However, current oral immunotherapy methods have potential side effects (including allergic reactions), can involve high time commitment and cost, and don’t cure food allergies.
There is hope on the horizon for new food allergy treatments. Multiple clinical trials are underway around Australia aiming to develop safer and more effective treatments for people with food allergies.
Jennifer Koplin, Group Leader, Childhood Allergy & Epidemiology, The University of Queensland and Desalegn Markos Shifti, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Child Health Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
The Princess of Wales wants to stay cancer-free. What does this mean?
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.
Catherine, Princess of Wales, has announced she has now completed a course of preventive chemotherapy.
The news comes nine months after the princess first revealed she was being treated for an unspecified form of cancer.
In the new video message released by Kensington Palace, Princess Catherine says she’s focused on doing what she can to stay “cancer-free”. She acknowledges her cancer journey is not over and the “path to recovery and healing is long”.
While we don’t know the details of the princess’s cancer or treatment, it raises some questions about how we declare someone fully clear of the disease. So what does being – and staying – “cancer-free” mean?
Pete Hancock/Shutterstock What’s the difference between being cancer-free and in remission?
Medically, “cancer-free” means two things. First, it means no cancer cells are able to be detected in a patient’s body using the available testing methods. Second, there is no cancer left in the patient.
These might sound basically the same. But this second aspect of “cancer-free” can be complicated, as it’s essentially impossible to be sure no cancer cells have survived a treatment.
Testing can’t completely rule out the chance some cancer cells have survived treatment. Andrewshots/Shutterstock It only takes a few surviving cells for the cancer to grow back. But these cells may not be detectable via testing, and can lie dormant for some time. The possibility of some cells still surviving means it is more accurate to say a patient is “in remission”, rather than “cancer-free”.
Remission means there is no detectable cancer left. Once a patient has been in remission for a certain period of time, they are often considered to be fully “cancer-free”.
Princess Catherine was not necessarily speaking in the strict medical sense. Nonetheless, she is clearly signalling a promising step in her recovery.
What happens during remission?
During remission, patients will usually undergo surveillance testing to make sure their cancer hasn’t returned. Detection tests can vary greatly depending on both the patient and their cancer type.
Many tests involve simply looking at different organs to see if there are cancer cells present, but at varying levels of complexity.
Some cancers can be detected with the naked eye, such as skin cancers. In other cases, technology is needed: colonoscopies for colorectal cancers, X-ray mammograms for breast cancers, or CT scans for lung cancers. There are also molecular tests, which test for the presence of cancer cells using protein or DNA from blood or tissue samples.
For most patients, testing will continue for years at regular intervals. Surveillance testing ensures any returning cancer is caught early, giving patients the best chance of successful treatment.
Remaining in remission for five years can be a huge milestone in a patient’s cancer journey. For most types of cancer, the chances of cancer returning drop significantly after five years of remission. After this point, surveillance testing may be performed less frequently, as the patients might be deemed to be at a lower risk of their cancer returning.
Skin cancer may be detected by the naked eye, but many other cancers require technology for detection and monitoring. wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock Measuring survival rates
Because it is very difficult to tell when a cancer is “cured”, clinicians may instead refer to a “five-year survival rate”. This measures how likely a cancer patient is to be alive five years after their diagnosis.
For example, data shows the five-year survival rate for bowel cancer among Australian women (of all ages) is around 70%. That means if you had 100 patients with bowel cancer, after five years you would expect 70 to still be alive and 30 to have succumbed to the disease.
These statistics can’t tell us much about individual cases. But comparing five-year survival rates between large groups of patients after different cancer treatments can help clinicians make the often complex decisions about how best to treat their patients.
The likelihood of cancer coming back, or recurring, is influenced by many factors which can vary over time. For instance, approximately 30% of people with lung cancer develop a recurrent disease, even after treatment. On the other hand, breast cancer recurrence within two years of the initial diagnosis is approximately 15%. Within five years it drops to 10%. After ten, it falls below 2%.
These are generalisations though – recurrence rates can vary greatly depending on things such as what kind of cancer the patient has, how advanced it is, and whether it has spread.
Staying cancer-free
Princess Catherine says her focus now is to “stay cancer-free”. What might this involve?
How a cancer develops and whether it recurs can be influenced by things we can’t control, such as age, ethnicity, gender, genetics and hormones.
However, there are sometimes environmental factors we can control. That includes things like exposure to UV radiation from the sun, or inhaling carcinogens like tobacco.
Lifestyle factors also play a role. Poor diet and nutrition, a lack of exercise and excessive alcohol consumption can all contribute to cancer development.
Research estimates more than half of all cancers could potentially be prevented through regular screening and maintaining a healthy lifestyle (not to mention preventing other chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes).
Recommendations to reduce cancer risk are the same for everyone, not just those who’ve had treatment like Princess Catherine. They include not smoking, eating a nutritious and balanced diet, exercising regularly, cutting down on alcohol and staying sun smart.
Amali Cooray, PhD Candidate in Genetic Engineering and Cancer, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) ; John (Eddie) La Marca, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) , and Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Share This Post
-
The China Study – by Dr. T Colin Campbell and Dr. Thomas M. Campbell
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.
This is not the newest book we’ve reviewed (originally published 2005; this revised and expanded edition 2016), but it is a seminal one.
You’ve probably heard it referenced, and maybe you’ve wondered what the fuss is about. Now you can know!
The titular study itself was huge. We tend to think “oh there was one study” and look to discount it, but it literally looked at the population of China. That’s a large study.
And because China is relatively ethnically homogenous, especially per region, it was easier to isolate what dietary factors made what differences to health. Of course, that did also create a limitation: follow-up studies would be needed to see if the results were the same for non-Chinese people. But even for the rest of us (this reviewer is not Chinese), it already pointed science in the right direction. And sure enough, smaller follow-up studies elsewhere found the same.
But enough about the research; what about the book? This is a book review, not a research review, after all.
The book itself is easy for a lay reader to understand. It explains how the study was conducted (no small feat), and how the data was examined. It also discusses the results, and the conclusions drawn from those results.
In light of all this, it also offers simple actionable advices, on how to eat to avoid disease in general, and cancer in particular. In especially that latter case, one take-home conclusion was: get more of your protein from plants for a big reduction in cancer risk, for example.
Bottom line: this book is an incredible blend of “comprehensive” and “readable” that we don’t often find in the same book! It contains not just a lot of science, but also an insight into how the science works, on a research level. And, of course, its results and conclusions have strong implications for all our lives.
Click here to check out The China Study, to know more about it!
Share This Post
-
The Diet Compass – by Bas Kast
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.
Facts about nutrition and health can be hard to memorize. There’s just so much! And often there are so many studies, and while the science is not usually contradictory, pop-science headlines sure can be. What to believe?
Bas Kast brings us a very comprehensive and easily digestible solution.
A science journalist himself, he has gone through the studies so that you don’t have to, and—citing them along the way—draws out the salient points and conclusions.
But, he’s not just handing out directions (though he does that too); he’s arranged and formatted the information in a very readable and logical fashion. Chapter by chapter, we learn the foundations of important principles for “this is better than that” choices in diet.
Most importantly, he lays out for us his “12 simple rules for healthy eating“, and they are indeed as simple as they are well-grounded in good science.
Bottom line: if you want “one easy-reading book” to just tell you how to make decisions about your diet, simply follow those rules and enjoy the benefits… Then this book is exactly that.
Click here to check out The Diet Compass and get your diet on the right track!
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
Uric Acid’s Extensive Health Impact (And How To Lower It)
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.
Uric Acid’s Extensive Health Impact (And How To Lower It)
This is Dr. David Perlmutter. He’s a medical doctor, and a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition. He’s a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, and has been widely published in many other peer-reviewed journals.
What does he want us to know?
He wants us to know about the health risks of uric acid (not something popularly talked about so much!), and how to reduce it.
First: what is it? Uric acid is a substance we make in our own body. However, unlike most substances we make in our body, we have negligible use for it—it’s largely a waste product, usually excreted in urine.
However, if we get too much, it can build up (and crystallize), becoming such things as kidney stones, or causing painful inflammation if it shows up in the joints, as in gout.
More seriously (unpleasant as kidney stones and gout may be), this inflammation can have a knock-on effect triggering (or worsening) other inflammatory conditions, ranging from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, to arthritis, to dementia, and even heart problems. See for example:
- David Perlmutter | Uric Acid and Cognitive Decline
- American Heart Association | Uric acid linked to later risk for irregular heart rhythm
- World Journal of Gastroenterology | The role of uric acid in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis development
How can we reduce our uric acid levels?
Uric acid is produced when we metabolize purine nucleotides, which are found in many kinds of food. We can therefore reduce our uric acid levels by reducing our purine intake, as well as things that mess up our liver’s ability to detoxify things. Offsetting the values for confounding variables (such as fiber content, or phytochemicals that mitigate the harm), the worst offenders include…
Liver-debilitating things:
- Alcohol (especially beer)
- High-fructose corn syrup (and other fructose-containing things that aren’t actual fruit)
- Other refined sugars
- Wheat / white flour products (this is why beer is worse than wine, for example; it’s a double-vector hit)
Purine-rich things:
- Red meats and game
- Organ meats
- Oily fish, and seafood (great for some things; not great for this)
Some beans and legumes are also high in purines, but much like real fruit has a neutral or positive effect on blood sugar health despite its fructose content, the beans and legumes that are high in purines, also contain phytochemicals that help lower uric acid levels, so have a beneficial effect.
Eggs (consumed in moderation) and tart cherries have a uric-acid lowering effect.
Water is important for all aspects of health, and doubly important for this.
Hydrate well!
Lifestyle matters beyond diet
The main key here is metabolic health, so Dr. Perlmutter advises the uncontroversial lifestyle choices of moderate exercise and good sleep, as well as (more critically) intermittent fasting. We wrote previously on other things that can benefit liver health:
…in this case, that means the liver gets a break to recuperate (something it’s very good at, but does need to get a chance to do), which means that while you’re not giving it something new to do, it can quickly catch up on any backlog, and then tackle any new things fresh, next time you start eating.
Want to know more about this from Dr. Perlmutter?
You might like his article:
An Integrated Plan for Lowering Uric Acid ← more than we had room for here; he also talks about extra things to include in your diet/supplementation regime for beneficial effects!
And/or his book:
…on which much of today’s main feature was based.
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Horse Sedative Use Among Humans Spreads in Deadly Mixture of ‘Tranq’ and Fentanyl
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.
TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. — Andrew McClave Jr. loved to lift weights. The 6-foot-4-inch bartender resembled a bodybuilder and once posed for a photo flexing his muscles with former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan.
“He was extremely dedicated to it,” said his father, Andrew McClave Sr., “to the point where it was almost like he missed his medication if he didn’t go.”
But the hobby took its toll. According to a police report, a friend told the Treasure Island Police Department that McClave, 36, suffered from back problems and took unprescribed pills to reduce the pain.
In late 2022, the friend discovered McClave in bed. He had no pulse. A medical examiner determined he had a fatal amount of fentanyl, cocaine, and xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer used to sedate horses, in his system, an autopsy report said. Heart disease was listed as a contributing factor.
McClave is among more than 260 people across Florida who died in one year from accidental overdoses involving xylazine, according to a Tampa Bay Times analysis of medical examiner data from 2022, the first year state officials began tracking the substance. Numbers for 2023 haven’t been published.
The death toll reflects xylazine’s spread into the nation’s illicit drug supply. Federal regulators approved the tranquilizer for animals in the early 1970s and it’s used to sedate horses for procedures like oral exams and colic treatment, said Todd Holbrook, an equine medicine specialist at the University of Florida. Reports of people using xylazine emerged in Philadelphia, then the drug spread south and west.
What’s not clear is exactly what role the sedative plays in overdose deaths, because the Florida data shows no one fatally overdosed on xylazine alone. The painkiller fentanyl was partly to blame in all but two cases in which the veterinary drug was included as a cause of death, according to the Times analysis. Cocaine or alcohol played roles in the cases in which fentanyl was not involved.
Fentanyl is generally the “800-pound gorilla,” according to Lewis Nelson, chair of the emergency medicine department at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, and xylazine may increase the risk of overdose, though not substantially.
But xylazine appears to complicate the response to opioid overdoses when they do happen and makes it harder to save people. Xylazine can slow breathing to dangerous levels, according to federal health officials, and it doesn’t respond to the overdose reversal drug naloxone, often known by the brand name Narcan. Part of the problem is that many people may not know they are taking the horse tranquilizer when they use other drugs, so they aren’t aware of the additional risks.
Lawmakers in Tallahassee made xylazine a Schedule 1 drug like heroin or ecstasy in 2016, and several other states including Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia have taken action to classify it as a scheduled substance, too. But it’s not prohibited at the federal level. Legislation pending in Congress would criminalize illicit xylazine use nationwide.
The White House in April designated the combination of fentanyl and xylazine, often called “tranq dope,” as an emerging drug threat. A study of 20 states and Washington, D.C., found that overdose deaths attributed to both illicit fentanyl and xylazine exploded from January 2019 to June 2022, jumping from 12 a month to 188.
“We really need to continue to be proactive,” said Amanda Bonham-Lovett, program director of a syringe exchange in St. Petersburg, “and not wait until this is a bigger issue.”
‘A Good Business Model’
There are few definitive answers about why xylazine use has spread — and its impact on people who consume it.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in September said the tranquilizer is entering the country in several ways, including from China and in fentanyl brought across the southwestern border. The Florida attorney general’s office is prosecuting an Orange County drug trafficking case that involves xylazine from a New Jersey supplier.
Bonham-Lovett, who runs IDEA Exchange Pinellas, the county’s anonymous needle exchange, said some local residents who use drugs are not seeking out xylazine — and don’t know they’re consuming it.
One theory is that dealers are mixing xylazine into fentanyl because it’s cheap and also affects the brain, Nelson said.
“It’s conceivable that if you add a psychoactive agent to the fentanyl, you can put less fentanyl in and still get the same kick,” he said. “It’s a good business model.”
In Florida, men accounted for three-quarters of fatal overdoses involving xylazine, according to the Times analysis. Almost 80% of those who died were white. The median age was 42.
Counties on Florida’s eastern coast saw the highest death tolls. Duval County topped the list with 46 overdoses. Tampa Bay recorded 19 fatalities.
Cocaine was also a cause in more than 80 cases, including McClave’s, the Times found. The DEA in 2018 warned of cocaine laced with fentanyl in Florida.
In McClave’s case, Treasure Island police found what appeared to be marijuana and a small plastic bag with white residue in his room, according to a police report. His family still questions how he took the powerful drugs and is grappling with his death.
He was an avid fisherman, catching snook and grouper in the Gulf of Mexico, said his sister, Ashley McClave. He dreamed of being a charter boat captain.
“I feel like I’ve lost everything,” his sister said. “My son won’t be able to learn how to fish from his uncle.”
Mysterious Wounds
Another vexing challenge for health officials is the link between chronic xylazine use and open wounds.
The wounds are showing up across Tampa Bay, needle exchange leaders said. The telltale sign is blackened, crusty tissue, Bonham-Lovett said. Though the injuries may start small — the size of a dime — they can grow and “take over someone’s whole limb,” she said.
Even those who snort fentanyl, instead of injecting it, can develop them. The phenomenon is unexplained, Nelson said, and is not seen in animals.
IDEA Exchange Pinellas has recorded at least 10 cases since opening last February, Bonham-Lovett said, and has a successful treatment plan. Staffers wash the wounds with soap and water, then dress them.
One person required hospitalization partly due to xylazine’s effects, Bonham-Lovett said. A 31-year-old St. Petersburg woman, who asked not to be named due to concerns over her safety and the stigma of drug use, said she was admitted to St. Anthony’s Hospital in 2023. The woman, who said she uses fentanyl daily, had a years-long staph infection resistant to some antibiotics, and a wound recently spread across half her thigh.
The woman hadn’t heard of xylazine until IDEA Exchange Pinellas told her about the drug. She’s thankful she found out in time to get care.
“I probably would have lost my leg,” she said.
This article was produced in partnership with the Tampa Bay Times.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Can You Gain Muscle & Lose Fat At The Same Time?
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.
It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small 😎
❝Is it possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, or do we need to focus on one and then the other, and if so, which order is best?❞
Contrary to popular belief, you can do both simultaneously! However, it’s not as easy as doing just one or the other, which is why most bodybuilders, for example, have a “building phase” and a “cutting phase”.
The reason it’s difficult is because of the diet. Growing muscle doesn’t just take protein and micronutrients; it takes energy as well, which must come from carbohydrates and/or fats. Therefore, it is tricky to eat enough to build muscle and to fuel the workouts that are required to build the muscle (you can’t hit the gym in a state of rabbit starvation* and expect to perform well at your workout), while at the same time not eating enough carbs/fats to have any excess to store as fat.
*So-called because rabbit-meat is very lean, such that when during times of famine, European peasants tried to subsist off mostly rabbits, their health quickly plummeted for lack of energy. It’s also been called “salmon starvation”, apparently, for the same reason:
In French it’s called “Mal de caribou” (caribou sickness), by the way. But you get the idea: eat too much lean protein without enough carbs/fats, and woe shall befall.
So, if you want to do both at once, you need to be incredibly on top of your macros, and the bad news is, only you (or a coach working directly with you) can work out what precise macros requirements your body has, because it depends on your body and your activities.
The easier “half-way house”
We will get to the “building phase” and “cutting phase” of bodybuilders, but first, here’s an option that’s very worthy of consideration, and it is: forget about your weight and just focus on health while incidentally doing regular resistance exercises and HIIT.
What will happen if you do this (assuming a healthy balanced diet, nothing special and without counting anything, but we’re talking at least mostly whole-foods, and at least mostly plants; the Mediterranean diet is great for this, as it is for most things) is:
- The dietary approach described will gradually improve your metabolic health if it wasn’t already good. If it was already good, it’ll likely just maintain it, rather than improve it.
- The resistance exercises will, if engaged with seriously (it has to be difficult to do, or your muscles won’t have any reason to grow), gradually build muscle. This will be very gradual, because you’re not eating for bodybuilding, nor optimizing your general lifestyle for same. Historically many women have feared lifting weights because they don’t want to “look like a weightlifter”, but the kinds of bodies that word brings to mind are not the kind that happen by accident (especially for women, with our different hormones guiding our bodies to a different composition); it takes a lot of single-minded dedication to specifically optimize size gains, for a long time.
- The high-intensity interval training (HIIT) will more rapidly improve your metabolic health, and unlike most forms of exercise, it will actually result in a gradual reduction of fat, if you have superfluous fat to lose. This is because whereas most forms of cardio exercise increase the heartrate for a while but then have a corresponding metabolic slump afterwards to make up for it, HIIT confuses the heart (in a good way) which results in it having to grow stronger, and not doing any compensatory metabolic slump:
How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body) ← as well as the “how to”, this also gives some of the science behind it, too
This will, thus, result in gradual gain of muscle and loss of fat—or if you take it easier with the exercise, then you can easily settle into just maintaining your body composition as it is, but that wasn’t the question today.
So, there you have it, that’s how to do both at once! Now, if you want more dramatic results, then more dramatic methods are called for:
What bodybuilders (mostly) do
Matters of genetic predisposition and commonplace use of steroids aside, here’s how bodybuilders get that “lots of muscle, no fat” figure:
- First, get into “moderate” shape if not already there.
- Bulk up: eat amounts of food that will seem unreasonable to a non-bodybuilder; eating 2x or even 3x the “recommended” daily calorie amount is common; focus is typically on getting adequate (for bodybuilding purposes) protein while also carb-loading for workouts and getting at least enough fats for fat-soluble vitamins to work. In the gym, focus on doing sets of very few reps with the heaviest weights one can safely lift, while doing minimal cardio, and also sleeping a lot (9–12hrs per day), which is essential because this is putting a huge strain on the body and it needs a chance to recover and rebuild.
- Cut down: maintain protein intake (to at least mostly maintain muscles) while keeping carbs and fats low, doing cardio work (HIIT is still ideal) and running a calorie deficit for a short while (there is no use in trying to maintain a long-term calorie deficit; your body will try to save you from starvation by storing any fat it can and slowing your metabolism).
Phases 2 and 3 are then cycled, alternating every month, or every 6 weeks, or every 2 months or so, depending on personal preferences and scheduling considerations (bodybuilders will often have competitions they are working towards, so they need to time things to be at the end of a cutting phase to look their “best” by bodybuilder standards).
Disclaimer: bodybuilding is complex, and can be ruinous to the health if practised inexpertly, because of its extreme nature. We don’t recommend serious bodybuilding per se in general, but if you are going to do it, please consult with a professional bodybuilding coach, and do not rely on a few paragraphs from us that are intended only to give the most basic overview of how bodybuilders can approach the “gain muscle, lose fat” problem.
Want to know more?
We’ve written on some related topics previously; here’s a three-part series:
- How To Lose Weight (Healthily!)
- How To Build Muscle (Healthily!)
- How To Gain Weight (Healthily!) ← this one’s specifically about gaining healthy levels of fat, for any who want/need that
And also:
Can We Do Fat Redistribution? ← yes we can, but there are caveats
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: