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May 6

5 Easy Office Exercises to Undo the Harm of Sitting All Day

You might want to stand up for this one.

Seriously.

If you sit for more than 6 hours a day, scientists say you could be silently shaving years off your life.

These 5 simple movements boost circulation, relieve pain, and could help reverse the hidden damage of sitting too long.

One of them takes less than 30 seconds.

🧵 THREAD

Sitting for extended periods can not only cause poor blood circulation in the lower limbs but may also cause pain further up in the shoulders, upper back, and neck.

This article introduces five exercises that could relieve the harm of sitting for a long time, and they can be executed even in a small office space.

A review of several studies has shown that long-term sitting significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and Type 2 diabetes, as well as all-cause mortality.

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May 5

Study Exposes Hidden Risks of Chewing Gum

What you chew to freshen your breath is leaking plastic into your saliva—and possibly your bloodstream.

Scientists ran a real-world test. What they found was unsettling.

Let’s just say: it’ll leave a bad taste in your mouth.

🧵THREAD

Chewing a single piece of gum releases hundreds or thousands of microplastics into the saliva, with the average gum-chewer at risk of ingesting 30,000 microplastics in a year, according to a new pilot study.

Researchers of the study “wanted to identify how many microplastics a person could potentially ingest from chewing natural and synthetic gums,” the American Chemical Society said in a March 25 statement.

While natural products use plant-based polymers to achieve a chewy texture, other gums “use synthetic rubber bases from petroleum-based polymers.”

“Our goal is not to alarm anybody,” Sanjay Mohanty, the project’s principal investigator and an engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said.

“Scientists don’t know if microplastics are unsafe to us or not. There are no human trials. But we know we are exposed to plastics in everyday life, and that’s what we wanted to examine here.”

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May 2

How to Remove Fluoride From Your Water at Home

You’ve done the research. You’ve seen the studies. You know something’s not right.

But awareness isn’t enough—here’s how to get fluoride out of your water for good.

🧵 THREAD

Since 1945, fluoride has been added to public drinking water supplies, but research has shown it may pose risks to our health.

When Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first city to add fluoride to its water supply in 1945, the decision was hailed as a major public health innovation aimed at preventing cavities.

Many other cities quickly followed suit, and water fluoridation became a widespread practice nationwide.

Today, with fluoride easily accessible in toothpaste and mouthwash, its added value in drinking water has been called into question.

A review from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found that fluoridated water reduces tooth decay by only a tiny amount—about a quarter of a tooth surface—raising doubts about its effectiveness.

For decades, fluoride has quietly flowed through our taps, touted as a safeguard for dental health. But what if this commonly accepted chemical—long promoted for its benefits to teeth—is something you’d prefer to avoid?

Growing evidence suggests fluoride may pose risks beyond our teeth, affecting thyroid health, cognitive development, and more. This concern has led many to seek ways to eliminate fluoride from their lives. Whether you’re wary of long-term exposure or simply want cleaner water for your family, there are solutions.

From advanced filtration systems to simple DIY methods, keep scrolling to learn how to remove fluoride from your water—and your life.

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May 1

The Surprising Anti-Inflammatory Power of One Cultural Diet You’re Probably Not Eating

We all know food impacts our health.

But a new study just uncovered something that stunned researchers:

You can begin reversing inflammation-related diseases in as little as 14 days—using food alone.

The key involves a powerful dietary shift most people have never considered.

🧵 THREAD

It’s common knowledge that the Western diet is linked to inflammation associated with chronic disease. What is less clear is how long it takes to see positive effects when switching from an inflammatory diet to a healthy one.

According to a new clinical trial published in Nature Medicine, significant anti-inflammatory benefits can appear quickly after switching from a Western to an African diet.

With implications for chronic disease, a healthy diet can act like medicine. But changing from a Western diet can seem daunting. Nutritionists offer tips on how to make and sustain the change.

Results of 2-Week Dietary Switch

In Africa, traditional diets are increasingly being replaced by Western diets because of various factors, such as urbanization and higher access to processed foods. There has also been a surge in noninfectious diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, and chronic inflammatory conditions. Could there be a connection between the two trends? The clinical trial sought to determine the effects of dietary change on health.

Researchers divided 77 healthy men from Tanzania into four groups. Some participants who usually ate a traditional African diet switched to the Western diet for two weeks, while others who usually followed a Western diet switched to the African diet. A third group drank a fermented beverage daily for one week that contained bananas and millet and a control group continued with its usual eating plans.

The Western diet in the trial included large amounts of meat, as well as pizza, pasta, white rice, fries, pancakes, white bread, and eggs. It also contained low amounts of fruits and vegetables.

In contrast, the traditional African diet consisted of green vegetables, plantains, legumes such as beans and peas, whole grains such as millet and sorghum, and root and tuber vegetables such as taro and cassava. The menu in the clinical trial followed the traditional diet of the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania, featuring large amounts of fruits and vegetables along with brown rice, beans, fermented products, grains of millet and sorghum, and limited meat.

Researchers looked at blood inflammation markers, immune system function, and metabolic processes at baseline, after the two-week experiment, and again four weeks later.

Participants who switched to a Western diet showed higher levels of inflammatory proteins in their blood and increased activation of biological processes linked to noninfectious diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. Their immune cells also became less effective at responding to infection-causing microbes.

Conversely, participants who switched to the African diet or drank the fermented beverage largely experienced anti-inflammatory effects. Some of the benefits continued to manifest four weeks later, suggesting that short-term dietary changes can produce long-lasting results.

“Previous research has focused on other traditional diets, such as the Japanese or Mediterranean diet,” researcher Dr. Quirijn de Mast, an internal medicine physician from Radboud University Medical Center, said in a press statement.

“However, there is just as much to learn from traditional African diets, especially now, as lifestyles in many African regions are rapidly changing and lifestyle diseases are increasing. Africa’s rich diversity in traditional diets offers unique opportunities to gain valuable insights into how food influences health.”

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May 1

HHS to Require Placebo-Controlled Trials for New Vaccines

Most people think vaccines are tested against placebos.

They’re not.
And they never were.

Now RFK Jr. is rewriting the rules—doing what no U.S. health official ever dared to do.

What happens next could change everything.

🧵 THREAD

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is requiring all new vaccines to be tested against placebos before being licensed, officials said on April 30.

The requirement is “a radical departure from past practices,” a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Except for the COVID vaccine, none of the vaccines on the CDC’s childhood recommended schedule was tested against an inert placebo, meaning we know very little about the actual risk profiles of these products,” the HHS spokesperson said.

A placebo is a substance that “has no effect on living beings,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines it as an “inactive preparation.”

Neither agency responded to requests for comment.

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Apr 30

A Key Antioxidant for Longevity Is Fading From Our Food Supply

Most people have never heard of ergothioneine.

But this powerful compound may be essential to brain health and long-term vitality—and it’s quietly disappearing from our modern diet.

Here’s why that matters and what you can do about it.

🧵 THREAD

Ergothioneine (ERGO), a potent antioxidant made by fungi and soil microbes, is making waves in the world of nutrition. However, many may wonder what it actually is.

Research shows ERGO is important for brain health. When animals are deprived of ERGO, it harms both brain cell growth and cognitive function. People with dementia also tend to have lower levels of ERGO in their blood compared with healthy people of the same age.

Fungi that typically grow in the rich, healthy soil of forests are a vital source of ERGO.

However, as farming practices deplete the soil, we lose its vitality and the nutrients that nourish our food—leaving us reliant on forest-grown mushrooms and improved soil care to help restore healthy ERGO levels.

‘Longevity Vitamin’

ERGO is primarily produced by soil-borne microbes and fungi. Humans cannot produce it, so it must be obtained through diet. Researchers discovered that mammals have a specific transporter protein for ERGO, enabling its absorption from food into red blood cells.

These cells then distribute it to tissues throughout the body, where it has powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects—emphasizing its biological importance.

In 2018, Bruce Ames, a renowned biochemist, proposed that ERGO could be classified as a longevity vitamin. These vitamins are essential for the function of longevity proteins that support long-term health and aging. Ames suggested that a deficiency in ERGO could harm long-term health.

Robert Beelman, a professor of food science and director of the Center for Plant and Mushroom Foods for Health at Penn State University, has advanced the understanding of ERGO.

“ERGO is actually an amino acid, but not one that’s found in proteins,” Beelman told The Epoch Times. Unlike other amino acids that build proteins, ERGO acts as an antioxidant with special benefits for brain and organ health. This is one reason why ERGO is linked to aging and cognitive health, and why it stands apart from other amino acids.

“It appears to mitigate many of the chronic diseases associated with aging,” he said.

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