Wellness News Today - February 2023

Discover the latest news in health and wellness in the me&my health up news wrap. Where the host Anthony Hartcher shares the latest wellness news that has come across his desk over the past month.

Articles mentioned in news:

The secret of staying young — 8 tips from scientists

What Happens in the Brain When We Fall in Love

Best Diets in 2023: Mediterranean Diet Wins Again

Emotional Eating Tied to Risk for Diastolic Dysfunction: Emotional Eating Tied to Risk for Diastolic Dysfunction (medscape.com)

About me&my Health Up & Host

me&my Health Up seeks to enhance and enlighten the wellbeing of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food is medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor's degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.

Podcast Disclaimer
Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more

Transcript

Anthony Hartcher: 0:08

Welcome back to another episode of me and my health up. I'm your host, Anthony Hartcher. I'm a clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist. The purpose of this podcast is to enhance and enlighten your well being. And today, I'm going to be doing that just for you. And this is going to be the second edition of the wellness news. It's the month of February Yes, so month of February, so Valentine's Day, and I'm going to be sharing some insight on love in this wellness news for the month. But I'm going to start with longevity. There was an article written by the times the Sunday Times, it was written by Peter be on the 16th of February. And it was an article that was titled The secret of staying young, eight tips from the scientists. So let's get into these eight tips from the scientists. The first one was to cut calories by up to 25%. So there was a study by Belsky and colleagues of 220 adults, and they looked at cutting the adults intake by up to 25%. And that's essentially 500 calories for a typical daily calorie consumption of 2000 calories. So essentially cutting out a meal per day if you if this person has three to four meals a day of around five to 700 calories per meal. So essentially, this study then looked at the other the control group, which didn't do the obviously the cutting of the calories or wasn't aware of the cutting of the calories. And essentially what they found was that the when they analyzed the DNA markers of aging, they found that the calorie cutters had a two to 3% slowing of the pace of aging. And that translates to a 10 to 15% reduction in early death. Okay, so what I really suggest you get out and try to do is start reducing your meal sizes and reduce them over the day, rather than probably cut out a whole meal because essentially, our body gets very accustomed to consistency and rhythmic intake of food. And essentially, you may get hungry if you cut out a meal. But if you just tweak and reduce each meal size, then essentially over time that will reduce the overall calories consumed. So give that a go for this month for the month of February. Then the other one was part two was the running. So running five days a week. So there was a study by Brigham Young University, and essentially it looked at a population of 5823 adults. So certainly a large study, and it was looked at women who ran for 30 minutes and man who ran for 40 minutes. So that that's how they split the study. And essentially, what they found is that by running for 30 to 40 minutes per day, five days a week, it essentially the improved the length of the telomeres, so that telomere so the telomere is like the end cap of the genomic sequence. And essentially it's like a a condom, it's a protective, that end cap is a protection to and essentially the if you protect that or reduce the rate at which that Telhami ages, it essentially slows down genetic mutation and the aging process. So that was the second tip was to run for 30. If you're 30 minutes, if you're a woman per day or 40 minutes for men, that was shown to be beneficial in terms of increasing the length of the toilet or the telomere length when compared was better for those that ran than those that didn't run in terms of point three, essentially fast walking as fast walking each day. So essentially, a study found that if you walk about 100 steps per minute, which is equivalent to around four kilometers per hour, so that's about 15 minutes per kilometer, that sort of pace, that was really beneficial in terms of slowing down the aging process and helping you live longer. So essentially, this was a much larger study of 400,000 people, middle aged people in the UK, and it wanted to look at the length of the telomeres for those that you know, were walking that period of time, or not that a period of time but that at that pace compared to those that weren't so certainly faster walking can slow down the rate of aging. And then consuming one and a half to two liters of fluid today is also beneficial for reducing aging. And this was, again a large study of 11,255 adults over three decades. So a long study over three decades when it found that women who consumed between 1.5 to 2.2 liters a day and for men it was between two and three liters a day really helped essentially help their body slow down the aging. So obviously, with drinking fluids, we help our body flush out the toxins and to essentially run better be running on much cleaner fuel as opposed to allowing toxins to recirculate in the body. So yeah, consume your water, increase your water intake, the point five was take up cycling, so never too late to take up cycling. So again, it looked at a population between the ages of 55 and 79, that did cycling. So essentially, and this was done over a fairly long period of time to that since the age of 20. So these people have been cycling, obviously, for around 30 to 40 years. And, you know, doing again, it's that consistency around the exercise is really important, but certainly that was supportive of longevity, cycling, okay, so get into a cycling, if you like it again, it's just fine. Whatever works for you, it could be walking, it could be just fast walking or seven hours sleep a night really helps with middle aged people like myself. So getting that seven hours sleep a night. And again, it's its quality, its quality is really important here. So really looking after your sleep hygiene. And again, this is generally speaking, so some people can get away with a little bit less and still feel really energetic during the day, you know, for me, it's probably six to seven hours, some people need, you know, seven to eight, or even eight to nine. Again, it's finding out what works for you, when is your energy optimal. So just tweak your sleep, improve your sleep hygiene, and yes, you'll improve your ability to live longer. Yoga has improved, as has been proven to help people live longer. So yoga, or breathing exercises or some form of meditation for 90 minutes on five days a week. So essentially, yeah, just spreading out 90 minutes over five days not that difficult, was really helps reduce that cellular aging in people. Again, this was a real small study of 96 people. But we certainly know through the ages, those that have held a consistent yoga practice or consistent mindfulness routine have really increased their prospects of longevity. And point number eight is no surprise, it's essentially eat less Ultra processed foods, they eat more whole foods, and that will significantly help you live longer. So let's switch gears. Okay, we're going to switch gears now into what I mentioned was what happens when the brain falls in love. Or when we fall in love What happens to the brain probably that's the better one, this article comes from Medscape. And again, I'm going to include the links to these articles in the show notes. So you can go directly and read the articles in the show notes. So this one was looking at the brain chemistry and what happens when we start to fall in love. And essentially, it results in a dopamine spike, yes, we get a dopamine surge, it's that reward that pleasure seeking neurotransmitter in our brain. So essentially, that gets elevated, we get infatuated over this person. And we want to get more into this person, we want to know more about them. And essentially, as we get closer to them, essentially through hugging and whatnot, essentially, oxytocin then starts increasing. Oxytocin is the bonding, it's the bonding neurotransmitter. And so and then during that rush of, you know, falling in love and getting closer to this person, then noradrenaline kicks in which is your adrenals. So it's essentially just wanting desiring that person even more. And so with all these neurotransmitters, there's also an element of serotonin they're kicking in. So it's essentially what helps us procreate essentially, is this process. So that's what happens when we fall in love in terms of the brain neuro chemistry. Now, let's switch to another article from Medscape. And this was the best diets in 2023. What was the best diet as voted by these nutritionists and experts in the field of nutrition? The best diet was the it's the Mediterranean diet. So the Mediterranean diet came in trumped again. And it's again, it's it's one consecutive years. It is the most researched diet, the Mediterranean diet. There's more published papers on the Mediterranean diet than any other diet. Again, it's increasing more plant based foods, eating more fish, eating less processed foods, reduced sold reduced sugar and more whole foods. So yeah, yep, legumes, your grains again, a whole grains. It's then increasing the amount of fish consumed olive oil is very much lots of fruit and vegetables loaded with lots of colors, fruit and vegetables is pretty much what makes up The Mediterranean diet, the second place came in the DASH diet. So the dash stands for dietary approach Approaches to Stop hypertension. Okay, so it's very much that that diet is orientated towards those with high blood pressure. Again, the Mediterranean diet will do this as well. And again, this DASH diet emphasizes fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and low fat dairy, so very similar to the Mediterranean diet. And then also tying with the DASH diet was a flexitarian diet. Okay, so the flexitarian diet, again, focuses on fruit, vegetables and healthy foods and has the occasional meat flexitarian means that you're not a vegetarian, vegan, or you're not really labeled any of these you have, you still have meat, but the meat you have is high quality. So it's essentially you're a bit more flexible, you're going to have bits and pieces. So you're going to explore and not restrict yourself from any particular macro, whether it be carbohydrates, proteins, or fats, you're not going to or you're not going to over consume any of the macros, you're essentially going to eat a well balanced diet with large variety. Now in terms of the best weight loss diets, okay, so what were the best weight loss diets in 2023 that were voted was the DASH diet got second place and the TLC Diet? Have you heard of the TLC Diet? So the TLC Diet is stands for Therapeutic Lifestyle changes, okay, so, so it incorporates vegetables, fruit, lean protein, and reducing cholesterol levels, but it also obviously, the TLC, tender loving care, Therapeutic Lifestyle changes also incorporates the way in which we eat our foods. So incorporating our eating habits, that the bigger picture, the lifestyle associated around food. So you I still haven't told you what was the number one in terms of weight loss diet, it is the WW diet. Now, what's the WW diet? You're probably thinking, well, the WW diet is the Weight Watchers diet. What is the white larches diet? You're probably thinking now, it's essentially it again, it runs his point system scheme based on calories. And yeah, so it constructs his points, you're allowed to have so many points per day, and it's essentially associated with calories, calorific value. So it's very much focused around that reducing the overall calorific intake, increasing energy expenditure will result in weight loss. So it follows follows that traditional approach to weight loss, what I recommend is certainly more associated with the Mediterranean diet and the flexitarian. So integrating those two, and you will link live a long happy life around good food and happy moods, or certainly more balanced moods. So I also wanted to bring to your attention. Another article by Medscape is, this is the title of the article on the 19th of January. So it's a little bit old, but it's still current, it's emotional eating is tied to the risk of diastolic dysfunction. So diastolic is associated with our blood pressure, it is the denominator of the blood pressure. So it's essentially that this study looked at the data from again, it's quite a large study, just 1100 individuals, and looked at how emotional eating affects cardiovascular damage. So I was looking at the markers of what causes cardiovascular damage, and essentially, what causes cardiovascular damage is elevated blood pressure. And it's also this cardio vascular disease is also associated or, you know, part of the cardio metabolic disease that we talk about. So it's essentially this metabolic syndrome where we're not eating well, we've got a non supportive lifestyle, which is not good for our health. So again, we need to look at both diet and lifestyle in order to improve our cardiovascular health. However, this study is looking at emotional eating. And when it looks in digs into the research, what it finds is the primary cause of emotional eating is a dissatisfied brain. So it's when the the brain is feeling unfulfilled, and I've had so many episodes on how to obtain fulfillment and fulfillment comes from within it's by living by our highest values or our priority in our life. What is the priority for you, it's living each day by that priority, and not comparing yourself to others on your journey by living your highest priority. It's comparing yourself as to how you're progressing against your goals that are aligned to your highest priority, that is the key. So that is pretty much the wrap for the month and stay tuned for next month.