Cholesterol is so important for brain health that the brain has its own synthetic machinery for making it.

The brain is only 2% of body weight yet contains as much as 25% of the body's cholesterol. Blood levels of total and LDL cholesterol are lower in Parkinson's disease patients.

Ferritin (iron) levels are higher.

[PMID: 21282940]

Big difference between:

1) Recognizing that most poor food choices contain carbs.

And

2) Claiming that all carbs are “bad”.

I’ve never had a client with a “carb problem” whose carb sources were potatoes, rice or fruit.

The real problem, as I see it, is processed food.

There’s a great lack of nuance on social media.

I am a big proponent of eating animal protein.

And I do think some people thrive on a carnivore or keto diet.

But the idea that everyone should stop eating all carbs forever is deeply flawed...

Undesirable and impractical for most people.

The point is to land on an approach that works for YOU.

The well-known negative correlation between water hardness and atherosclerotic heart disease can be explained almost entirely by lithium levels. The inverse association of water hardness and cardiovascular disease has been found in many countries.

How do you know if you're healthy?

Here's my metabolic health scorecard:

1. High blood pressure (without meds)
2. A1C over 5.6% without meds
3. HOMA-IR above 1.4
4. Triglycerides / HDL over 2
5. Overweight or obese BMI
6. High body fat %
7. Waistline > 50% of height High blood pressure without meds:

While there is a genetic component, the root cause of high blood pressure is related to your weight and especially body fat %.

Why I never workout for more than 75 minutes per week…

And why you should (probably) train even less than I do.

Here's why: What do I mean by working out?

Let's quickly define exercise:

Exercise is planned, structured, repetitive, and intentional movement.

Its role is to improve or maintain physical fitness.

Walking, tennis, swimming or biking leisurely are "activity", not exercise.

Here's how I never workout for more than 75 minutes per week…

And why 99% of people should train even less than I do: First things first, why should you listen to me on this topic?

I'm a 68 year old former microbiologist turned health coach who served 1000+ men and women.

Busy people come to me to get lean, fit & 2X energy in 50 mins/week without going keto, counting calories, or doing cardio.

How does the brain deteriorate in aging, such as in Alzheimer's and in vascular dementia?

Ferroptosis may be a major mechanism of brain white matter injury. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/an… Ferroptosis is a type of programmed cell death which, as its name suggests, is powered (in part) by iron.

The other part of the equation is lipids that contain omega-6 PUFA, namely linoleic acid.

Linoleic acid is the main component of seed (vegetable) oils.

If you wonder why plant polyphenols, such as the compounds in tea, coffee, chocolate, and red wine, are associated with better health, this is why.

They are designed to chelate and block iron. Iron is an underrated factor in aging

Why I never workout for more than 75 minutes per week…

And why you should (probably) train even less than I do.

Here's why: Let's quickly define exercise:

Exercise is planned, structured, repetitive, and intentional movement intended to improve or maintain physical fitness.

Things like walking, swimming or cycling leisurely are "activity", not exercise. Same idea for playing golf or tennis.

Americans taking psychiatric drugs.

Notable: women, people over age 65, and whites. Must be a staggering number of older white women taking one of these drugs.

All of this can't possibly be necessary. jamanetwork.com/journals/jamai…

One session per week of high intensity exercise reduced risk of heart disease death by 40 to 50%.

There was no additional benefit from increasing frequency or duration of exercise. A single bout of exercise creates clinically relevant protection against cardiovascular events.

Exercise kills cancer.

When blood serum from men who performed a bout of high-intensity exercise was added to cancer cell culture, the cells died. No effect on normal cells.

Every time you exercise with intensity, you're inhibiting cancer. For everyone who asked for a link to the paper, here it is.

Usually if I link to a paper, hardly anyone cares, and when I don't link, all of a sudden lots of people do.

Furthermore, you get dinged on Twitter for outside URLs. They don't want people leaving this platform.

Taurine is an amino acid that has many benefits, including possibly extending lifespan and healthspan in humans.

The main dietary sources of taurine are meat, fish, eggs, and dairy.

What are the benefits?

Let's take a look 👇 A recent bombshell scientific report found that

1. taurine levels decline with age in humans, monkeys, and mice

2. to determine whether taurine was causal in aging, researchers fed mice and monkeys taurine

3. mice lived longer, and health of monkeys improved

Reversal of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease.

A program involving changes in diet, exercise, supplementation, and sleep optimization massively outperformed Big Pharma's drugs. Diet eliminated processed foods and refined carbohydrates.

Exercise included both aerobic and strength training.

Supplements included vitamin D.

Full description of the protocol here: content.iospress.com/articles/journ…

Intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP) targets the gut barrier to prevent aging

Mice supplemented with IAP lived about 30% longer

IAP knockout mice died sooner IAP is an enzyme secreted by intestinal epithelial cells which protects the gut lining and detoxifies bacterial endotoxin.

In humans, IAP declines with age

https://t.co/V4UmjL5HZWncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Not everyone who is lean is metabolically healthy.

But it’s even more obvious that few people who are not lean are metabolically healthy on all fronts. So aim to be lean AND metabolically healthy.

With lean defined as having good body comparison: relatively low body fat percentage, and some muscle.

Reality check #1:

There’s no such thing as maintenance when it comes to muscle and body composition.

Unless your incredibly detail-oriented, and live and train like a pro athlete or bodybuilder…

The reality is that you’re either net gaining or net losing muscle. This is true for both men and women from age about age 30 onwards.

The sooner you accept this, the sooner you can thrive.

Resistance training is for everyone, and there is no substitute.

Not walking, running, swimming, playing sports or working a physical job.

If metabolic health is mental health, it stands to reason that dialed in nutrition and some physical activity should be the first line of defense against most cases of stress, anxiety, and perhaps, many depression cases. Mental wellness and physiological effects can usually be felt quickly.

This includes energy levels, mental clarity, and reduction in emotional variability.

This is not medical advice, of course, but there is no downside to eating real food, not being sedentary…

New: Taurine, a non-essential amino acid, increases lifespan and healthspan in mice and improves health in non-human primates.

Better bone density, exercise capacity, mitochondrial function. Human equivalent dose might be ~5 g/d.

h/t @mike_lustgarten
science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

It’s a big mistake to allow your children’s current favorite foods as a reason to delay losing excess fat, and reclaiming your health.

Children are sponges, and are looking to you as a leader.

They deserve you at your best, so do them a favor and take the lead. We can all agree that too much screen time is a bad idea.

And I hope to help parents see that ultra-processed food is much worse.

There is no good, agreed-upon definition of what it means to be heathy.

In my view it’s simply:
• Good body composition
• Normal or optimal range in your routine blood work, without medication
• Mood and emotional stability outside of extreme events
• High enough energy… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Let’s deconstruct these:

Good body composition means more than the number in the scale.

It’s the degree to which you are lean and muscular.