What I've learned about health in 2023

Foreword: This article is a draft. I try to reference accredited scientific authors where possible but I am also not a hyper-neoliberal that has no time for anything without a million peer reviews. So do take this with a pinch of salt.

Now, the learnings here mostly come from two audio books I have enjoyed this year. The first is "The Future of Nutrition" by Dr T. Colin Campbell and the second is "Lifespan" by Dr David Sinclair. Essentially, the take away from both of these books is that moderate stress in the form of hunger, exercise or a cold shower is good for your body whereas animal protein and processed foods are bad for your body. Have we learned anything there? Probably not but let's see what interesting lessons lie under the surface of these simple points.

A while ago I also read "The Clever Guts Diet" and in this book Dr Michael Mosley mentions that fasting gives space for healthy bacteria that feed on gut mucus to thrive. In exchange for your lovely gut mucus this bacteria releases anti-inflamataries into your blood stream - symbiosis! In "Lifespan" Dr Sinclair boils down aging to a series of illnesses across the body, one of which is the build up of inflamation. Dr Sinclair also mentions that stress on the body triggers activation of certain genes that repair DNA and cells. Fasting creates stress in the body by lowering blood-sugar levels. So, according to some pretty well-respected science, there are at least two reasons that fasting is good for you. Bactierial symbiosis leading to the production of anti-inflamatories and the activation of cellular repair genes due to stress. Fasting is therefore a clear winner for long-term health.

On this note of healthy stress triggers, what else do we find? As previously mentioned, cold showers and exercise can induce stress to the skin and musclular-skeletal system. This also triggers repair proteins to get to work inside of us but as well as natural stresses, there are a number of medications on the market that can activate repair proteins without you needing to create stress on your body, this is ethically debatable but cool nonetheless. An example medication is Metformin.

On separate note, we can look at nutrition. We know that inflamation is bad, are there foods that cause inflamation? Good question and the answer is yes. Meat. Meat contributes to inflamation but what's also interesting is that animal protein as a whole seems to do the opposite to what healthy stress does to the body, it actually inhibits proteins that repair DNA and cells, contributing to faster aging and the accumulation of various illnesses.

Other than meat, oily and heavily-processed foods also cause inflamation. So taking a step back and looking at the widescreen view of food and health we can see that eating less-often, less-processed and less-animal-based is the generally going to provie a big boost to your health.

There's also another interesting point on food which is that eating less is good for you. Shock, I know but wait. Apparently, reducing your calorie intake to 75% of recommended adult amounts can boost your lifespan and reduce the incidence of cancer, heart disease, altzheimers and more. What's more is that in "The Future of Nutrition" we hear that a whole-food plant-based diet (WFPB) gives the body the same nutritional value as a processed, animal-protein diet with less calories consumed. Another big win for plant-based eating. Apparently the reason for this is that the combination of nutrients in WFPB foods allows for better absorbtion in the body.

Finally a really cool point on nutrition, there are proteins created inside plant cells when under stress that increase cellular repair in the plant like our own animal proteins can. When we eat these proteins in plants we can actually trigger cellular repair from them! It's as if our body evolved in harmony with plants... duh!

A final point to wrap up with is that many diseases we associate with "old age" are distinct problems in themselves but interestingly, completely eliminating cancer only increases average life expectancy by ~2 years. This is because as we age we become vulnerbale to more and more illnesses as a result of the information in our cells being lost due epigenetic changes. Basically, the noise of the world stirs up our body and we eventually have cells all over the place that don't quite know what they're supposed to be doing. This increases the risk of MANY diseases at once. So if something slows aging, it helps everything. This is a new perspective on health for me that I think unlocks a lot of motivation for preventative action.

So, to summarise this spew of healthy goggledeegook, prevent disease and maintain good health by: - Fasting - Exercising - Eating WFPB - Having cold showers

Thanks for listening. Live healthy and stay golden.