Grip strength is not usually part of the conversation when it comes to cardiovascular health or mortality for that matter. We only notice it when we encounter someone with a very firm handshake, or when we have a stubborn jar to open. It turns out, grip strength is a fantastic predictor of both mortality and cardiovascular disease. The following research summaries show us why.
Study #1
The results, published in the Lancet, show that grip strength is an even stronger predictor of death than systolic blood pressure. After adjustment for other factors, every 5-kg decrease in grip strength was linked to a 16% increase in death overall, a 17% increase in both cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular mortality, a 7% increase in the risk of myocardial infarction, and a 9% increase in the risk of stroke. The findings were broadly consistent across different countries and economic levels.
An unexpected finding was that grip strength was a more powerful predictor of cardiovascular mortality than cardiovascular disease. This, the authors write, “suggests that low grip strength is associated with increased susceptibility to cardiovascular death in people who do develop cardiovascular disease.”
In line with previous studies, weaker grip strength was associated with increased rates of all-cause mortality and mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and respiratory diseases.
One study has reported weaker grip strength in adolescence to be associated with increased rates of death from suicide among men, but this study is the first to report an association of grip strength with mortality due to a broader range of external causes in both sexes across different age groups.
A much weaker association was observed for cancer-related deaths than for all-cause and CVD mortality.
These associations were similar in both genders and across age groups, which supports the hypothesis that grip strength might be a biomarker of ageing over the lifespan.
That is some compelling proof. Why would this be the case? Movement! Think about a farmer. They are moving, lifting, twisting, multiple times daily. This movement is a huge benefit to their overall health. The office worker has a computer at their fingertips, but they don’t do much for grip strength. However, if that office worker enjoys gardening, woodworking, or working out with heavier weights, they will also have better health overall, including higher grip strength.
The message is clear. Developing grip strength improves your overall health and will prolong life.
The growing awareness of plant-based meals coupled with our long history of enthusiasm for protein is coming to an apparent clash and leaving us wondering how are we supposed to get enough quality protein on just plants!
Before we get into that, let’s get some context regarding how much protein we should have for optimal health.
In 1890, the USDA recommended 110 g of protein per day for working men. The drive for protein peaked in the 1950’s when the United Nations declared that “deficiency of protein in the diet is the most serious and widespread problem in the world.” because of a prevailing condition called Kwashiorkor disease.
However, there’s no real evidence of prolific dietary protein deficiency in Westernized countries. Our most pressing health problems, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, pain, migraines, are not a result of protein deficiency, yet we continue to fixate on this single nutrient.
So a revision of protein guidelines was reduced from 110 grams to an average of 42 grams per day, or to be more accurate, 0.8-0.9 grams /kg ( 0.36 g per lb). This is according to the current recommended daily intake guidelines to avoid sickness and deficiency.
Females by Age Group
Total Grams of Protein Per Day
9-13 years
34
14-18 years
46
19+ years
46
Males by Age Group
Total Grams of Protein Per Day
9-13 years
34
14-18 years
52
19+ years
56
But we want to do better than just avoiding sickness. We want to thrive and make sure we are achieving levels that optimize our health, fitness, and well-being.
Many of us are in fact consuming more than what we need to just survive as found by one of the largest studies on nutrient amounts in varying diets. Observing over 70,000 individuals, researchers gathered the data to see how much of each nutrient omnivores were getting compared to their spectrum of vegetarian counterparts.
Regarding protein intake, they found that omnivores get way more than the recommended 42g, almost doubling that… and so does everyone else.
Vegetarians and vegans were also found to get 70% more total protein than recommended.
We can see omnivores and their vegetarian and vegan counterparts are achieving more than the minimum daily intake. In fact, just less than three percent of adults don’t meet protein requirements, and these are typically severely ill and malnourished individuals. A whopping 97% of adults easily meet their total protein needs so to worry about not getting enough may not be as pressing of a problem as we originally thought.
Side note: What 97% of adults are deficient in is fiber, consuming less than the recommended 30 grams per day. A focus on increasing fiber intake can move the needle in terms of improving longevity and increasing the number of healthy years lived. Plant rich diets contain significantly less fat, cholesterol, fewer microbial and parasitic infections than omnivorous diets, while at the same time providing more fiber, folate, vitamin C, and antioxidants in addition to protein. All of which are essential for preventing disease and supporting optimal health and longevity
It should be noted that there is no upper limit set for our macronutrient guides because we are lacking the data here. But omission of upper limits doesn’t mean it’s safe to have overly high amounts for extended periods of time. We can only absorb 25-40 g of protein per meal, so overdoing it can also lead to unused protein.
A study conducted by Harvard followed 130,000 people over 32 years and found that the amount of protein didn’t translate to health, rather it’s the quality.
Complete vs. Incomplete proteins
So what are quality proteins? Animal protein has been touted as a complete source of all nine essential amino acids (protein’s building blocks), and therefore historically ranked superior to plant sources.
Complete proteins contain all nine essential amino acids and include:
Fish
Poultry
Eggs
Pork
Beef
Dairy
Whole sources of soy (edamame, tofu, tempeh, miso)
Quinoa
Chia seeds
Incomplete proteins contain some but not all amino acids:
We can see from this chart below that essential amino acids can be found in a variety of plant foods as well.
If you’re eating a variety of protein foods, chances are, you don’t need to give this a second thought. Enjoying a rotating repertoire of vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds will cover your needs.
Plus, our cells are continuously breaking old parts down and recycling usable components – like amino acids, and combining them with the nutrients we take in. This means we don’t need to eat complete proteins with each meal, rather a variety on a consistent basis will do us just fine.
The science is showing that it’s the source, rather than the amount of protein that makes a difference in our health. This is referred to as the protein package because food comes not in isolate. What’s included in the package are carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals, and antioxidants.
Red meat is packaged with saturated fat, sodium, and zero fiber, minimal antioxidants and is linked with increased risk for heart disease and stroke. While swapping out for plant proteins such as soybeans, lentils, legumes, nuts, fish or poultry reduce these risks. Similar studies show this is also true for diabetes, cancer, weight gain, bone health, and premature death.
This is because of the protein package idea. Plant proteins are packaged with unsaturated fat which lowers LDL cholesterol, has no cholesterol, plenty of fiber, and plenty of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. All great health protectors!
The takeaway here is straight forward. There is little danger of a protein deficiency on a plant-based diet, as long as you enjoy a variety and have a rotating repertoire of different lentils, beans, with your stews or curries, or whole grains with your meals, seeds and nuts with your salads, you’re covered!
If you are planning on eating less meat and more veggies and are not certain of how to make sure you are getting the protein quality, talk with a nutrition professional to make sure. Your body, performance and health will thank you.
Reference:
Nutrition Today – The Family of dietary fibers: dietary variety for maximum benefit
Comparison of nutritional quality of vegan, vegetarian, semi-vegetarian, Nutrients, 2014
Nutrient profiles of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dietary patterns Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics 2013
Srikanthan P, Karlamangla AS. Muscle mass index as a predictor of longevity in older adults. Am J Med. 2014;127(6):547-553. doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2014.02.007
We all need to keep ourselves clean, but in our cozy, comfy world is too much cleaning negatively affecting our health? Sandy Skotnicki Grant is a renowned dermatologist and her book, Beyond Soap, upends many of our common thoughts on skincare and presents a really current, science-based approach to how we should be caring for our biggest organ. For example:
In the late 1800’s, a weekly bath was the gold standard in personal hygiene. Think about where we are now
Skin sensitivities may be a result of ‘overcleaning’. Those natural oils we wash away have a beneficial purpose
Soap ingredients like parabens may not be the biggest culprit to skin sensitivities. Natural botanicals create some of the harshest reactions
To get a better idea of the concepts in the book, take five minutes and browse through her website, or, if you have a Globe and Mail subscription, have a read of this article. Below is an excerpt from the article that encapsulates the problem in a compelling way.
“To understand how water and soap can harm your skin, you need to understand the basics of the body’s largest organ. Our outermost skin functions like a brick wall. Daily rinsing with hot water and soap can strip away lipids (the mortar holding the brick wall together), and, over time, can weaken the skin’s ability to function as a barrier. The damage leads to dry skin, which increases exposure to chemicals, pollutants and germs, and heightens the potential for reactions to irritants and allergens. Many of these potential irritants and allergens reside in “natural” or “organic” skin-care products. Listen: The terms “natural” and “organic” mean very little when it comes to beauty products. So-called natural ingredients can be every bit as reactive as synthetic chemicals. Plenty of harmful things are natural. Poison ivy, arsenic, even anthrax – all-natural. The concept of natural or organic has nothing to do with whether it’s likely to cause a skin reaction. As one dermatologist quipped, “Eat organic – don’t necessarily put it on your skin. What’s beginning to be understood by the scientific community is that the frequent application of numerous different beauty and skin-care products, so unprecedented in evolutionary history, is profoundly changing the skin’s chemical makeup. An American team out of the University of California, San Diego, led by microbiologist Pieter Dorrestein, scanned the surface of the skin to learn about the skin microbiome – and found, to their surprise, that the single largest source of the molecules found on the skin surface was residue from beauty and cleaning products. That’s troubling because the skin is supposed to be teeming with microscopic bacteria, a part of the body’s microbiome, which plays an important role in the immune system’s continuing fight against the disease. High-pH traditional soaps and antibacterial cleansers may alter the mix of bacteria on the skin, removing the good bacteria and allowing bad bacteria to colonize in its place. Over frequent washing, in particular, can harm the skin of babies and children, possibly setting up infants who have a genetic predisposition toward eczema to develop the condition. Furthermore, damage to the skin’s barrier function has been associated with the development of food hypersensitivities, including peanut allergies.“The bottom line is, in our efforts to keep ourselves clean, we are overdoing it. The simple actions are, to use these products less frequently, and when we do, use ones with limited ingredients. For example, wash your hair two or three times weekly instead of every day. If you love your daily shower, keep it up, but stay away from soaps each time you have one. Hopefully, you will find some nuggets of knowledge in this.
Humans try all kinds of rational to shortchange sleep. Deep societal and cultural shifts have brought in an era where sleep is seen as second rate, an afterthought, a passive thing we do when there’s nothing else to do. We think sleeping means laziness and we’ve been actively fighting against it, with the false notion that we can be more productive and have something to show for our efforts. But what does sleeplessness really do?
As a result, two-thirds of adults around the world aren’t hitting the recommended 8 hours of sleep specified by the WHO and National Sleep Foundation. Countries where sleep time has declined the most, the US, UK, Japan, and South Korea, are seeing noticeable increases in physical disease and psychological disorders.
If that’s not enough, new research and scientific literature provide clear evidence that indicates the shorter your sleep, the shorter your lifespan.
Humans are the only species on Earth who deliberately deprive themselves of sleep. Sleep deprivation can be so devastating to our health that the WHO has classified shift work (jobs that are known to mess up our sleep), a probable carcinogen (being linked with prostate, breast, and colon cancer). The reality is, we are all Shift workers, which is defined as someone who stays awake for more than 3 hours between 10 pm-5 am more than once a week (official European definition).
Believe it or not, most of us fall under this definition because of how we live our lives. Do any of the following situations apply to you?
Traditional: Emergency responder, health care worker, flight attendants, pilots, ground transportation, food services, custodial staff, call centers, construction, manufacturing
Lifestyle: high school, college students, musicians, performing artists, new parents, in home caregivers, spouses of shift workers
Jet Lag: traveling between across 2+ time zones in a day
Social Jet Lag: Sleeps and wakes 2+ hours later on weekends (more than 50% of population)
Digital Jet Lag: chatting with friends / colleagues, family several time zones away, over social media
Those that get paid massive sums for their physical jobs, professional athletes, have taken notice. The impact of sleep deprivation, or an erratic sleep schedule, has become a major priority for pros and elite athletes everywhere. World sports organizations like the International Olympic Committee have established guidelines for better quantity and quality sleep.
Why for athletes?
Because data shows that motor skills, reaction time, endurance levels all get boosted with 8 hours of quality sleep. Take NBA player, Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors. Here are his stats on when he got 8 hours or more of sleep on a consistent basis compared to less than 8 hours.
12% increase in minutes played
29% increase in points/ minute
2% increase in 3-point percentage
9% increase in free-throw percentage
37% reduction in turnovers
45% reduction in fouls committed
This isn’t just for athletes though. We mere mortals also benefit as we try to gain more strength and endurance. When we’re sleep-deprived, we’re often burning more lean muscle mass and less fat which makes it really tough to build muscle.
Getting enough sleep also drastically reduces the risk of injury. There’s nothing worse than being motivated to finally get active and then get injured and forced out against our best intentions! To put this into perspective, a study assessing sleep and injury risk in young athletes found the following:
9 hours 15% chance of injury
8 hours 34% chance of injury
7 hours 62% chance of injury
6 hours 74% chance of injury
Did you notice that the risk is not a linear one, it’s exponential with each hour of sleep loss!
What does sleep deprivation do for our brains? These are some of the major areas on how sleep affects our mental function and health.
Impairs our ability to think on our feet
Ability to take on new information becomes severely impaired
Reactions are blunted (less witty comebacks, or articulate responses)
Increased chance we do something we’ll regret
Going for the junk food/ chips vs. healthier fruits/ veggie snacks
Long & short-term memory gets dulled – learning new skills, language, topic, becomes overwhelmingly more difficult vs. those who get sufficient sleep are more likely to master skills
Increases susceptibility to more extreme mood swings, and on top of that, it’s biased towards a more negative state (anger, anxiety, irritability)
Significantly raises your risk for Alzheimer’s
How does sleep impact so many cognitive processes?
When you’re asleep, a big neurological bath washes over your brain, clearing it of waste products (garbage) and toxins (tau proteins associated with Alzheimer’s) accumulated throughout the day. Additionally:
Sleep enriches our ability to learn, organize memories for storage and easy retrieval, make logical choices.
Recalibrates our emotional brain circuits to navigate day to day challenges with a cool-headed composure.
A good night’s sleep promotes those “aha!” moments, where you figure out a novel solution to a problem you were previously stuck on. The saying “Sleep on it.” has its merits, as being uncovered through studies of sleep and dreaming.
Tips for Unlocking Your Sleep Super Power
Just like everything else we value, sleep comes with our actions and the work we put into it. That being said, working on your sleep doesn’t have to be a drag. It should be something that feels good, is calming, relaxing, and something you look forward to enjoying.
Tip 1: A good night’s sleep comes begins with your daylight exposure. Aim for 30 minutes of outdoor daylight (overcast counts!) without sunglasses. This helps set your circadian rhythm up so that it guides you to sleepiness at the end of the day. Most effective for those who have trouble falling asleep before midnight.
Tip 2: Smaller dinners and finishing your meals before 7 pm is ideal. Late-night snacking tricks your body back into daytime mode and becomes stimulating. These mismatched signals of the environment and what we’re trying to achieve at night leave us tossing and turning. Instead of snacking, make a cozy tea and or go for a walk, stretch or a good read.
Tip 3: Put on blue light blocking glasses after dinner and leave them on until you turn the last light off (never during the daylight hours because blue light is helpful in the daytime). Clear lenses block 15-30%, while orange lenses block 98%. opt for orange if you can. Here is a link for some sleek Bono glasses.
Tip 4: Create a sleep sanctuary. Imagine the sensation you have walking into your favourite yoga session. The room is inviting, cozy and if someone brought in their phone, you’d zero in on them and internally yell “get that outta here!”. That’s how your bedroom should feel. Bring in plants, cozy pillows, dim the lighting and leave your devices (phone, computers, tablets) outside.
Building a new routine takes practice, but each time you practice, you are voting for the path you want to live in.
I’ll leave you with this:
“Just in, scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that makes you live longer. It also enhances your memory and makes you more creative. It makes you look more attractive, keeps you slim, and lowers food cravings. It protects you from cancer and dementia, and wards off colds and flu. It lowers your risk for heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes. You’ll feel happier, less depressed, less anxious. You’ll also be a much better athlete. Interested?”
If this were a drug, it’d be unbelievable! Many of us would pay big money for just a small dose of this!
This ad describes not a tincture, a new superfood, or drug, but the proven benefits of a full night’s sleep. Yours to pick up on repeat prescriptions every day!
The rise in the popularity of mindfulness has been a big help to people everywhere. With awareness of mental health issues being much greater in general, mindfulness is a tool that can help our brains manage better. At least that’s what people tell us. What does science say? In short, it’s the real deal!
At this time, there is still a lack of volume of good, credible research to concretely back up all of the benefits that are claimed. The good news is, there is solid research proving some of the claims, and there is more of this good work coming.
The most conclusive benefits have been identified across several studies. Most of those studies focus on meditation as the trait being examined. It is also the most prominent component of mindfulness practice, even though there are various styles. These styles need their own individual examination to tease out the differences between them, but in general, meditation has been shown to clearly benefit in several ways.
Improvements In Attention
If you think about our typical daily environments, they are full of literal and figurative noise. This noise is fatiguing and when coupled with the incredibly fast-paced lives we now live, our attention spans suffer. Mindfulness has been shown to sharpen our attention and focus at the moment, but also over the long term.
Increased Grey matter
This one is a physical change, but it shows itself behaviorally because the prefrontal cortex is positively affected. This part of the brain governs the emotional regulation of external stimuli, our reactions to those stimuli, as well other higher-level functions. Training our brains with mindfulness meditation increases the size of this area and others, and this allows us to manage better emotionally.
Stress Resilience
Mindfulness practices appear to decrease the activity in the amygdala. When this part of the brain is stimulated, it is done so by fearful or very stressful situations. That’s why a mindfulness practice helps reduce our responses to stress and fear. When done so over a longer period, our capacity to be resilient in stressful situations improves as well.
Reduced Anxiety
Just 8 weeks of brief, daily meditation can lower anxiety. This was found in a study that used the Trier Social Stress Test, which is an anxiety measurement tool. The really great thing in their findings was that this applied to those individuals that did not have previous experience meditating. This means that you don’t have to be a meditation guru to benefit in this way, you just need to commit for eight weeks or more.
One other consideration in this conversation is how we’ve come to this point in the first place. From an evolutionary standpoint, we would have had many situations where we were by ourselves in nature, content and performing tasks we enjoyed. This would have provided a great deal of mindful time for our brains. That’s not to say there wasn’t stress, but we certainly were not bombarded with ‘noise’, information, and people like we have in our modern society. So take this as a hint to get outside in nature and do some things you love. Meditating in nature may even compound the benefits. You will reap similar rewards to the mindfulness practice you perform in your home.
Last weekend I spent three spectacular days hiking on the Bruce Trail here in southern Ontario. It reminded me about how important getting into nature is for our physical and mental health. It also reminded me that I had to let more people know about the practice of forest bathing. No, I didn’t take my clothes off and roll around in the leaves, I just had to be in the forest for a good chunk of time.
Forest Bathing is an Asian concept that has been around since the early 1980s. It was officially named in Japan as Shinrin-Yoku but quickly gained momentum in China as well. You can imagine that living in some of the most densely populated cities in the world created a need to get back to nature in some meaningful way. Our modern, fast-paced, and stressful lifestyles create the tension we are not always aware of but is consistently there. One of the ways to effectively deal with this tension is to get out in nature.
This concept isn’t new, but the conscious practice of it is. I would argue that getting into nature in any way possible is helpful, but Forest Bathing suggests that being stationary, or moving very slowly, in nature is the most effective way to get the benefits. That could be swinging in a hammock, sitting on a stump, hanging out by a stream, or any other way to be still and at one with your natural surroundings. The length of time can vary from 30 minutes to hours. It’s really your choice.
Research on this subject is fairly sparse overall, but what has been done has shown a direct relationship with time spent in forests with a reduction in physical and psychological symptoms of stress. While time spent in any type of forest is valuable, it appears that evergreens, such as fir, pine, cedar and spruce, provide the greatest benefits. This is due to their production of phytoncides which help to protect them against rot and mildew.
To put a bit more of an objective spin on this, adding some metrics can be helpful. It can be as simple as measuring your heart rate before and after you ‘bathe’, or something more involved if you have the type of wearable technology that can provide blood pressure or brain activity. You can also subjectively score your level of anxiety before and after to provide a reference of how this works.
Even with a lack of substantial research, people are using forests as part of the treatment of many mental health-related issues. While the empirical evidence is not there to support it yet, it seems logical based on the simple fact that we take a break from the stressful environments of city life. This would explain why the rooms with a view in hotels are the ones most sought after. Our instinct is to be in those types of environments but often ignore them. That’s the problem with city life, we train ourselves to ignore what we intuitively know we should have. For more on this subject, you can check out a great read entitled Your Better Instincts by Dr. Stacy Irvine.
The key is to make sure you can get yourself into a forest or natural environment as often as possible. We know enough to know it works, so it’s something we all need to incorporate into our daily or weekly routines. Happy bathing!
Sugar is bad, so artificial sweeteners without all the extra calories must be good, right??
Let’s look at the facts to improve our understanding of this critical area of nutrition. It’s important to first understand how insulin works and how added sweeteners affect it.
Insulin is your growth and storage hormone (“Hormone of Abundance”) and it allows your body to either use sugar (glucose) for energy, or to store it (fat) for when our intake of energy is low. Our body isn’t good at multitasking, so when it’s storing, it’s NOT burning. This is imbalance number one and why weight gain happens when we have too much fuel of certain types.
Insulin is triggered most by processed foods because they contain added sugars, artificial sweeteners, and simple carbohydrates like white flour. A diet rich in processed foods can lead to Insulin resistance which occurs when our cells no longer respond to overly repetitive signalling of insulin. This means cells won’t open their doors to let blood sugar (energy) in, thereby keeping our blood sugars elevated.
Picture This:
Imagine insulin to be the kids who ring your doorbell to trick or treat. If that doorbell keeps ringing after Halloween, that will get annoying, and you will eventually stop opening the door.
Your cells do the same. If insulin is always around, ringing your cell’s door (ie. eating sugar/artificially sweetened foods or drinks regularly), your cells will ignore it and become insulin resistant.
In response, your body will increase the amount of insulin (more doorbell rings), and increased insulin drives the development of diabetes, and other diseases related to weight gain.
When people are in this state, the first step is to take a break from insulin-triggering foods and curb the cravings so our cells can become more sensitive to insulin. Less insulin means less time storing fat and promoting energy production and growth. Less insulin means more time burning fat.
Now that you have the basics of insulin, let’s look at artificial sweeteners specifically.
When we consume artificial sweeteners, insulin still goes up despite not having any actual sugar calories coming in. This is because our bodies are smart, and our taste buds sense sweetness which signals our gut to prepare for sugar. The insulin spike from artificial sweeteners causes our body to store blood sugar in our cells, and this can lead to low blood sugar. Low blood sugar can, in turn, make us feel weak, hungry, or even hangry. That’s why people who consume diet sweeteners can eat more, and feel less satiated and thus, overconsume.
The studies on artificial sweeteners are starting to come in due to the increased use and interest in their long-term effects. Here are two incredible examples.
One study divided volunteers into four groups who had the same diet for over six months, except for the following differences:
Group 1 = A litre of sugared soda a day
Group 2 = A litre of diet soda per day
Group 3 = A litre of milk per day
Group 4 = A litre of water per day
The soda group gained 22 lbs, the diet soda group gained 3.5 lbs, the milk group stayed the same, the water group lost 4.5 lbs.
A gain of 3.5lbs is better than 22lbs, but why did they still gain weight without the extra calories? And why did the milk group not gain any weight despite having the same number of calories as sugary soda? It has to do with insulin, meaning diet sweeteners still cause an insulin release, while the lactose and fat in milk, didn’t. In a follow-up study, they took diet soda drinkers and switched them to only water, and they lost another 6 lbs. Both diet soda and water contain no sugar, so why did their weight change? You guessed it, insulin! The sweet taste alone can stimulate appetite and insulin release which drives fat storage.
The second study was long-term and followed 918 women for 7 years to better understand the regular consumption of artificially sweetened beverages (ASB). The study found that artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy can affect the birth size and increase the risk that a child will be overweight/ obese by seven years of age.
Specifically, there was almost a two-fold increase of overweight/obese children seven years later in the mothers who drank ASB daily while pregnant (compared to mothers who never did).
The study also looked at the difference when mothers substituted their regular sodas for diet sodas (with the hope of making a healthier choice), but the results didn’t show any significant reduction in risk in childhood overweight/ obesity.
There was a reduced risk in mothers who substituted sugar sweetened beverages for water!
Diet sweeteners also change the composition of the microbiome in your gut, shifting the balance from good to bad bacteria. Studies have shown that this leads to glucose intolerance and may contribute to leaky gut, inflammation, and increased deposition of visceral fat, driving metabolic syndrome. The research is starting to come out, but many studies still need to be done on this topic so stay tuned!
The bottom line is, the impact of hyper-sweet, sugary or artificially sweetened food is negative for our health. This is especially true for our children because their taste buds become groomed to crave intensely sweet foods. No longer will a juicy peach, or flavourful strawberries satisfy them as their taste buds will be too ‘numb’ if exposed to hyper-sweet tastes too often. For adults, it’s not too late! Our taste buds can change completely in as little as 10 days if we let them. Water is your ultimate beverage, and fruit, nature’s candy, has your back since they are packed with a bounty of antioxidants and fibre to nourish and give you health in return for a sweet treat.
More research is needed, but the early message is clear. Trust real food and you will avoid these insulin high jacking sweetener issues.
Purdue University. The study of soft drinks including diet sodas contributes to increased sugar intake and calorie consumption in children. Retrieved from:
Ruiz-Ojeda FJ, Plaza-Díaz J, Sáez-Lara MJ, Gil A. Effects of Sweeteners on the Gut Microbiota: A Review of Experimental Studies and Clinical Trials [published correction appears in Adv Nutr. 2020 Mar 1;11(2):468]. Adv Nutr. 2019;10(suppl_1):S31-S48. doi:10.1093/advances/nmy037. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6363527/
Tandel KR. Sugar substitutes: Health controversy over perceived benefits. J Pharmacol Pharmacother. 2011;2(4):236-243. doi:10.4103/0976-500X.85936. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198517/
Zhu Y, Olsen SF, Mendola P, et al. Maternal consumption of artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy, and offspring growth through 7 years of age: a prospective cohort study. Int J Epidemiol. 2017;46(5):1499-1508. doi:10.1093/ije/dyx095. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5837735/
The title of this is an obvious fact. I’m sure that 100% of adults are aware of this. So why do we have such a hard time getting more fruits and vegetables into our diet?
There are two main reasons. Convenience and taste.
The first is just a function of our modern lives, filled with busyness that didn’t exist 50 years ago. We want or need, to save time anyway we can, and sometimes that means sacrificing nutrition for convenience.
Taste is the second reason. For most people, if they are hungry and there is a bowl of raw carrots beside a bowl of chips, most would choose the chips because our taste buds have been trained to crave those foods. You’ve been tricked over the years by very crafty manufacturers and now our taste buds are just looking for the ‘overdrive’ option and have a very difficult time ‘tasting’ natural foods.
This is the ‘why’ behind our lack of fruits and veggies. I’m sure you are not surprised.
Recent research underscores the importance of why more fruit and vegetables, and less processed foods and meats, can lead to better health outcomes. An August 2021 paper in the Journal of the American Heart Association identifies a diet rich in plants and with fewer animal products, showing a 52% lower rate of developing cardiovascular diseases. This was a thirty-year study with almost 5000 participants so the data is really good.
Knowing that your tastebuds have been hijacked by manufacturers using salt, sugar and fat, and that time is limited so we search for convenience, we can start to make some small changes…just for a start. Add on the hard facts that Plants = Health, literally, and we have a great foundation to make some change.
This is the action part. If you made it this far in this article, you know what you need to do. Now is the time to take one action (or more) to make a change.
My advice is to make it ridiculously simple. If you typically buy lunch, instead of a sandwich, go for a wrap with lots of veggies in it. Or go for a very tasty and substantial salad. This is a really easy way to introduce way more veggies into your diet.
This is one example of many, but the key is, make it really easy for yourself and over time, you will start to take back control of your tastebuds, and you’ll make more time for eating better. These positive habits build on one another.
The Time to Figure Out Your New Hybrid Lifestyle is Now…..
Written by: Dr. Stacy Irvine Bsc. Kin, M.Sc., D.C., C.S.C.S Co-Owner Totum Life Science
As things begin to slowly open and our lives return to the more interactive ways of the past, you could be wondering……” How can I best take advantage of some of the new technologies that have helped me from a work and lifestyle perspective over these past twenty months?”
The time to start organizing your new, and hopefully improved, work-life balance is now. It seems that a vast number of work opportunities in the future will use a combination of scheduling. Some workdays will be “in-person” and some workdays will be virtual. We should take some time to think about what this “Hybrid” life will look like and then figure out ways to make it work best for our performance, our health and ultimately our happiness.
There are a few questions to ask yourself as you address this process:
What things in your life do you enjoy doing virtually and what do you enjoy doing in person?
What things are not an option for virtual and how much time do you need each week to make sure you can accomplish these things in the best way possible.
How will these scheduling choices impact your health and where can you carve out time for activities and social life.
Like your work environment, you will now also be able to participate in many aspects of your health care virtually, along with many aspects of your regular fitness routines. It is important to develop an efficient strategy to make this new hybrid system work well for you from a health perspective. The most important part of this is understanding what you are comfortable with. Do you enjoy meeting with screens, or is it very stressful? Do your healthcare providers even give you this option now that things are opening up a bit more? What times of the day will work best for you to schedule health-related appointments? Maybe it is easier to schedule personal appointments that are closer to your home because you might have more flexibility on the days you work from home.
Like your work environment, there are parts of health care and fitness that do not work well virtually. For example, you may not benefit as much from a virtual massage, but seeing your doctor for a virtual appointment to renew a prescription could be very efficient and helpful. However, if you take the time to book a virtual appointment, and then find out you need to be seen in person, it can feel like you wasted your time with the initial appointment.
As a healthcare provider, if I was booking an initial assessment with a new patient I would always want to see them in person first. I need to be able to watch closely how they move, what their posture is like, and I also want to be able to assess their overall health unrelated to their injury. However, if someone I have been working with in-person wants to do a quick exercise review, this is a perfect type of appointment to do virtually. I can easily watch them do their exercises and make any corrections needed during a virtual appointment. Also, if you are travelling and you have an incident that causes an acute injury this could be a good time to book a virtual appointment with a trusted provider as opposed to trying to find someone in a location you are unfamiliar with. The initial management of an acute injury can be very influential on the long-term outcome, and I often find that people want to do the wrong thing because they are in pain and are looking for fast relief. If you can jump on a virtual call, you can often find some peace of mind along with a good plan to move forward safely.
I believe that fitness and many types of training can work well in a similar way. If you are starting a new class, with a new instructor I would suggest you begin in person. This way the instructor will get to know you and what your specific needs are. It gives you an opportunity to connect and understand what the goals of the class are and the types of things you will be working on. Once you have a good idea of these things and you feel comfortable performing the movements required on your own, it is a great time to try the option of taking the class virtually. Personal training is no different. Seeing someone in person is more effective, however, virtual is great for “homework” between in-person sessions.
Finally, we all need to understand, that from a health perspective, connecting with people in person has many additional and important benefits. Interacting with people enhances our hormones, our motivation, and our mental wellbeing in very positive ways. If you add to this the fact that, working from home drastically decreases our overall movement for the day, we need to make sure our plan takes these important concepts into account. To maintain, or possibly even improve your health and fitness you will need a good strategy. It could be as simple as meeting a friend for a walk and coffee on the days that you work from home. The planning is up to you, but the important thing is to have a plan that allows you to benefit from our new way of working and living.
Our immune system is composed of a robust front-line defence team. Our white blood cells and proteins called antibodies, all form an alliance to protect our body from foreign invaders. The immune system, after our nervous system, is the most complex organ system in the human body! So it’s important to understand what it takes to keep our immune system supercharged, so you can implement these tips on a routine basis.
“Evolution has arranged that we take pleasure in understanding – those who understand are more likely to survive.” – Carl Sagan
Our body’s defence against infection is composed of two components.
Your First Layer of Defence – Innate Immunity
Skin acts is a defense barrier
Mucus traps invaders
Stomach acid destroys invaders
Enzymes in sweat have antibacterial compounds
First and foremost, we need to stay hydrated. If we can keep our skin healthy, strong and intact, we’ve got a huge advantage in blocking anything from entering our body. Dried-up skin lacking in hydration cracks, and those cracks are direct openings into our body, giving outside bugs a free pass to slip on through.
Hydration is also important in producing mucus, especially in our nose, mouth, and gut. If the mucus is dried up, or too thick, it doesn’t coat our mouth and nose effectively, and bugs have another easy way in. Especially since the skin in our nose and mouth are very thin.
Stomach acid and enzymes also help in the defence system, and remaining hydrated helps both of those mechanisms.
Eight glasses of water are what is typically recommended, but to get more specific, read our article here on how to calculate your water intake. Remember, 20% of our daily water intake comes from our food, so enjoy your favourite fruits and veggies on a daily basis!
Second Line of Defence – Acquired Immunity
White blood cells like neutrophils engulf pathogens (think pacman).
Natural killer cells (another type of white blood cell) help put our cells out of misery if they become cancerous or infected with a virus.
Specialized white blood cells called B cells make proteins called antibodies.
Antibodies bind to invaders and can deactivate them, tag them for our natural killers to easily recognize and destroy, or coat them in a gooey coating, preventing them from invading our cells.
Our mucus membranes line our mouth, entire digestive tract, lungs, reproductive and urinary systems, inside breast glands, and even on our eyeballs. That’s a lot of surface area! In fact, our gut alone covers the size of half a badminton court (40 square meters, vs. skin at 2 square meters). So we’ve got a lot of surface area for infection exposure, and our mucosal layer is only one cell layer thick. Meaning we need to have a very effective defence team.
Luckily, we have our A-Team. Our mucosal membranes contain the antibodies Immunoglobulin A (or IgA). In a study, researchers found that those who ate cooked white button mushrooms every day for one week boosted their IgA production by 53% compared to those who did not have any mushrooms. In week two, this group stopped eating mushrooms yet sustained the benefit, and their IgA production measured at 56% higher than the control group, meaning the benefits were maintained for one week (but by week 3, the mushroom group fell back to baseline).
Boosting your A-Team’s numbers by incorporating mushrooms into your routine diet seems like an effective way to prevent foreign invaders from getting into our bodies. This study used regular button mushrooms, but there are others out there that can be even more helpful. Shiitake, oyster, maitake, and lion’s mane can be found in grocery stores and make delicious meals. Medicinal mushrooms for immune support also include chaga and turkey tail.
Last but not least, know that a healthy mucosal layer rests on top of your gut. This is where keeping our guts healthy can be one of the biggest players in our immune health. A healthy gut is able to produce antibodies and also houses 20% of our immune system fighters.
This is where a warm hearty cup of bone broth comes in handy. Easy to enjoy as is, or incorporate into any soup, stew, or curry dish! Bone broth can help keep your gut lining intact, as it is packed with proteins and collagen which are building blocks for your gut. There are also vitamins and minerals in bones which can help give your body an extra boost, but I often recommend adding vegetables when making your broth. This is an even bigger source of viable vitamins and minerals. Vegetables like garlic and ginger have their own anti-microbial properties (as do many herbs and spices), so don’t be afraid to flavour it up!
A recipe for your own homemade bone broth can be found here. If accessible, try to get your bones from healthy animals (ie. grass-fed beef, antibiotic and hormone-free chicken). Talk with local butchers in your area to understand the quality of the food you are purchasing.
BONUS NOTE:
Lymph helps transport antibodies and our immune cells throughout our body. Our lymph system is like a mirror of our circulatory system, a network of vessels and nodes. Unlike our circulatory system, however, it doesn’t have the heart to move the fluid around. Instead, our lymphatic system lies just under our skin’s surface and next to our muscles. This is one reason movement/muscle contraction can be so helpful in preventing us from getting sick. It helps us circulate our defence team. Another way we can help this process is by dry brushing, or for the brave – hot and cold showers!
Chronic inflammation resulting from sleep deprivation, regular intake of processed foods, fatty liver disease, or in our joints as (arthritis) can divert our immune system’s attention. This means we don’t have the full force to fight off infection and foreign invaders and this is why we can get sick more easily if we have underlying inflammation.
Check out our video on anti-inflammatory foods to find out how to reduce chronic inflammation so your protective force can focus its strength on keeping you from catching any infections!
Here’s to supercharging your immune system this fall!
