Microbiome and longevity

https://medium.com/a-microbiome-scientist-at-large/gut-microbiome-may-be-a-secret-to-reversing-aging-5550f7a0833e This is an interesting article about a study where new microbiomes were transplanted into mice. The results offer a promising angle on the future of longevity research.   Humans have been playing around with fecal transplants for some time now; for a while, people thought it might help people with autism (it still might), and others felt it could be the answer for things like Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Crohn's disease. This study took a different angle and looked at whether or not a change in the microbiome could make an older mouse appear more youthful. Turn out it could! The older mice that received a transplant of a “youthful” microbiome had significant improvements in muscle strength and skin quality. Grip strength increased in these mice by approximately 30–50%, and their muscle fibers grew significantly thicker. Their skin also grew thicker, retained more moisture, and had significant brain growth!  Researchers found that the microbiome seems to be able to alter the expression of genes in the host, so the bacteria in the gut can influence how much our own cells are making of certain proteins. While much more research is needed in humans, it’s worth considering your microbiome when you think about health. In fact, teams in Europe gather people’s stool samples to keep them ‘on ice’ because it appears that the more homogeneous our diet becomes, the more homogeneous our microbiomes become. I forget the project's name, but the scientist likens it to collecting seeds or endangered plants….one day, we might need them. What can you do to improve your microbiome?

1. Eat a diverse array of plants.  The more colors, the better.  Bonus points for organic.
2. Eat fermented foods.
3. Avoid things that damage the microbiome, like antibiotics and alcohol.

Dr. Terry Wahls once challenged me to try and eat 200 different things in a year (tea and spices count), as the average American usually only eats about 15 different types of food a year.  Think coffee, wheat, pork, and potatoes, and you have pretty much most of them! I think I managed about 150…

Mental Health and Diet

In her new book “Unprocessed,” Kimberley Wilson, a clinical psychologist with a degree in nutrition, argues that your diet can play a huge role in your mental health. Whenever I ask a client on anti-anxiety medication if their doctor has addressed their diet, the answer is always no. By now, we know the answer to this… there is no monetary gain in asking people to stop eating processed food when there are huge profits to make in having a patient develop a lifelong dependency on a synthetic chemical. For those of you who are paying attention, medicine is fragmenting into different camps.  We have:

1. Nanotechnology hopes to fix all the damage we do to ourselves on a microscopic level.
2. Pharmaceutical-led interventions have co-opted most mainstream media to tell us that our problems are genetic and we can do nothing about them.

 For example, I recently read that obesity is considered a genetic disease just as the new obesity drug #Wegovy is approved by the FDA - no coincidence!

3. Lifestyle medicine, where doctors and patients are empowered to take action over their everyday activities to live healthfully.

Everybody would agree that a healthy lifestyle is the best form of medicine. Still, I can now see that when our evolutionary traits of expending the least amount of energy possible while seeking out high-calorie, high-salt foods. Combining all of this with a bit of marketing spin, most people will opt to sit on the couch, eat processed food and take a shot or a pill to prevent mental health problems or obesity. There are great leaps forward coming down the medical pipeline. I’m very optimistic about the future, but drugs that allow us not to exercise and eat crap are not part of the healthcare future I want to be part of.  #stayclean, think for yourself, and try to choose your health over convenience daily. Over time these daily healthy decisions will pay off.

Will You Be Ready For The Next One?

  Back at the beginning of the pandemic, our little Central American country felt like it was overrun with people from all over the world trying to find a safe place to see out the lockdowns. Each nationality brought with them their own stories about corruption, cover-ups and conspiracy theories. I listened with an open mind to all of them, the 5G linked to the nanobots in the nasal swabs was a personal favorite of mine, but some of them are panning out to be more fact than fiction.  There have been a series of articles in the UK paper “The Telegraph’ that shows how the Wuhan Virus leak was the most likely cause. The leaking of the “lockdown files” shows how the decision to mask children was mainly political. That the excess deaths that came from the lockdowns are way higher than expected and we now have more clarity on just how harmful it was to shut down schools and lock down countries.  Also, we are clearer on the virus, as Esther Mcvey articulates  “Moreover, we must not forget that the severity of the disease ended up being much lower than our politicians had made out. While Michael Gove told us in March 2020 that “we are all at risk”, Prof Mark Woolhouse, an infectious disease expert, points out we knew that the virus was “highly discriminatory” as early as February 2020, with age and comorbidities being the crucial factors.” Of course, it’s easy to point fingers in retrospect but as the UK gears up for a Covid inquiry it looks like they will be focusing on the small details like whether or not lock down should have happened a week earlier rather than whether or not it should have happened at all. What can we learn from this?  Comorbidities were and are the biggest risk factors when it comes to succumbing to illness, whether it be COVID or as we are being prepped for..."the next one". What I learnt was that in most countries our access to healthcare is not guaranteed.  Our access to the outdoors, fresh air, and high-quality food isn’t guaranteed...Oh don't forget toilet roll -I remember you horders...I noted your names in my little black book.... But as the phrase goes, we should be ‘making hay while the sun shines’.

•  If you are overweight or obese now is the time to address it.
•  If you have high blood pressure now is the time to figure it out.
•  If you are underweight or have digestional issues, now is the time to address it.
•  If you are lacking strength and muscle mass (probably one of the biggest predictors of all-cause mortality...aka dying) now is the time to get strong. 
• If your blood work isn’t optimal (assuming you actually know) now is the time to make the lifestyle changes to correct it. 

I believe that “your lifestyle is your medicine”, and what you do today will set you up for success in the future. The hard work you put in now might just be the difference between you needing hospital care (when it’s not available) or thriving.         

Eating earlier for health

Have you ever wondered if you should eat so early or even so late? You may have heard other people swear by an ‘intermittent fasting’ lifestyle, but you might not know exactly what that means. In this short article, I will unpack a little of that and look at what some research suggests about when we should eat.  Some people swear that skipping breakfast is the elixir of youth. Others might tell you that an early supper is the way forward. But a new study in the journal of Cell Metabolism, eating earlier is linked with health benefits; by contrast, eating later is linked with poor health.  In this study, researchers divided 16 individuals into two groups. They both ate the same food, but one group ate late, and the other ate early. They found that eating later in the day made people hungrier during a 24-hour period, slowed their metabolism, and lowered their body temperature. Hence, they used fewer calories which led to increased fat tissue deposits. The authors concluded that these changes might increase the risk of obesity in certain individuals. Sure, the study was small, but we must remember the insidious effects of hunger; the study suggested that the hungrier people got, the more their cravings for calorie-dense, salty foods increased. Also, as most of us can attest to, our willpower to resist such temptation decreases the later in the day it is.  So what about this ‘window of eating’ you may have heard about? In another study on 137 firefighters in San Diego, CA, researchers compared two groups that ate the same Mediterranean-type diet. One group ate their meals in a 10-hour window, the other ate theirs in a 13-hour window. They found that eating meals within a 10-hour window decreased the size of bad cholesterol particles, which could reduce risk factors for heart disease. They also found that a 10-hour eating window improved blood pressure and blood sugar levels among those with health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. By contrast, a smaller eating window might not be that beneficial. One of the study authors, Satchidananda Panda, Ph.D., told NBC News. "When we think about 6 or 8 hours, you might see a benefit, but people might not stick to it for a long time,". One possible mechanism for the increased health benefits of a shorter eating window might be the increased rest time of our internal organs, allowing them to shift focus from dealing with incoming food to elimination. This elimination of toxins and waste products is key to good health.  What works for you, shorter or longer eating windows? Earlier or later?  Sources:

1. https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(22)00397-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1550413122003977%3Fshowall%3Dtrue#%20
2. https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(22)00361-8
3. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/123702-overview