Welcome to the positive corner of the internet. We’re here to make your life healthier, happier, and less stressful. At the bottom of each email, we explain our editorial process, stance on AI, and partnership standards.

If you were forwarded this message, you can get the free daily email here.

Today’s Health Upgrade

• A step closer to defeating high blood pressure

• Do you make this common calorie error?

• When you cut carbs, this is what happens to your workouts

• Don’t be the 95%

• Let’s talk about “cortisol face”

In The News 
A New Blood Pressure Drug Made Headlines. Here's How to Read the Fine Print

If you or someone you love takes medication for high blood pressure and the numbers still won't come down, researchers think they've found one reason why.

An investigational drug called baxdrostat lowered hard-to-treat blood pressure by nearly 10 points more than placebo, and it could be a breakthrough that helps fight against heart disease in the future.

The drug targets aldosterone, a hormone that acts like a thermostat for salt: it tells your body to hold on to sodium and water, which raises blood pressure. In tough cases, that thermostat gets stuck on high. Baxdrostat turns it down.

In a phase 3 trial of adults already on standard medication, the drug lowered systolic pressure by roughly 9 to 10 mm Hg beyond placebo, and the effect persisted for about 32 weeks. For those who are curious, the trial was funded by AstraZeneca, which makes the drug. But that doesn’t invalidate the impressiveness of the results, especially for people who make lifestyle changes and still struggle with high blood pressure.

While the research is exciting, it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Every number in that study measures blood pressure, not heart attacks, strokes, or lives saved.

Lower pressure is one of the most reliable predictors we have of lower cardiovascular risk, but predicting and proving aren't the same thing. 

A separate, longer trial is now testing whether baxdrostat actually reduces hard outcomes like cardiovascular death and kidney decline. Those answers still need to be answered, and that will take some time. 

So this stays “on our radar,” not your medicine cabinet. 

What you can do today is, first — if you have high blood pressure — please work with your doctor. And then, focus on behaviors you can control, such as leaning toward potassium-rich whole foods, watching your sodium if your blood pressure is in a dangerous range, managing your weight, and prioritizing exercise and movement every week. The drug pushes that lever from one side. You push it from the other.

Together With Our Place
The 120-Calorie Mistake Most People Make Multiple Times Every Day

Seed oils are a popular target for those who suggest they're the foundation of our health issues. But research on popular seed oils, such as canola oil, tells a different story.

A review of 42 studies found that canola oil can improve several markers of heart health. 

The scientists discovered that canola oil significantly reduced total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and apolipoprotein B (Apo-B) compared with other fats, including olive and sunflower oils, as well as saturated fats such as butter. The benefit was largest when canola replaced those other fats, up to about 15 percent of daily calories. In other words, swapping canola in for less heart-friendly fats appears to be a genuinely heart-smart move.

But that doesn't mean oil is a free pass. The catch isn't the canola; it's the calories. As the old saying goes, the poison is in the dose. 

How much oil you use, and how you cook and prepare your food, can matter just as much as which bottle you reach for.

That's because all oils are energy-dense (high in calories), easy to overeat, and common in ultra-processed foods that don't offer much else. So if your diet is swimming in oil, you can expect that to work against you. Not because the oil is poison, but because the calories add up fast.

And they add up more than most people realize. 

When researchers compare what people say they eat to what they actually burn, self-reported calories come up short — by roughly 20 to 40 percent, and even more in some people. 

Fat is a big part of the blind spot: those who under-report their intake tend to specifically under-count the fat in their diet.

Cooking oils are a perfect example. People routinely underestimate how much oil they use (or forget to count it at all), even though olive and canola oil run about 120 calories per tablespoon (butter trails just behind, around 100).

Because oil blends into food so seamlessly, it's easy to forget how much it adds to the total. For many people, this "caloric amnesia" comes from not realizing that something that feels healthy — like a generous drizzle of olive oil over roasted vegetables — can significantly inflate the calories in a meal.

If you want to cut down on oil, the best approach might be to use better cookware.

That's not a knock on oil. It's just that the easiest way to use less of it is to stop needing it in the first place, and that comes down to the surface you're cooking on.

Most nonstick pans buy you that slick, oil-free release with a coating. The problem is coatings wear down, and many of them are made with the "forever chemicals" people are trying to avoid in the first place. So you're often trading one concern for another.

That's why we kept coming back to Our Place's Titanium Pro: the first nonstick cookware with zero coating. 

Instead of a layer that degrades over time, the release comes from the pan itself: a pure titanium interior over fully-clad, tri-ply stainless steel. Nothing to scratch off, nothing to break down, no forever chemicals to begin with.

In practice, that's what makes the oil optional. Eggs slide right out. A seared piece of fish lifts clean. You can skip the extra glug you'd normally add as insurance against sticking, which is exactly where those uncounted calories tend to hide. And because it handles up to 1,000°F and is safe with metal utensils and the dishwasher, it holds up to the kind of high-heat, everyday cooking that usually wrecks a nonstick pan within a year.

We've put it through everything — searing, roasting, weeknight cleanup at the end of a long day — and it hasn't flinched. It's also backed by a limited-lifetime warranty, which tells you Our Place expects it to outlast the rest of your kitchen.

If you'd rather start simpler, the original ceramic Always Pan is a 10-in-1 that replaces a cabinet's worth of cookware, ideal for smaller kitchens and the pan a lot of us reach for by default.

As a Pump Club reader, you get 10% off any Our Place purchase when you use the code APC at checkout.

Less oil, fewer hidden calories, none of the mess. The bottle matters less than most people think, and the pan matters more.

Nutrition
Does Keto Wreck Your Workouts? It Depends On The Type Of Exercise You Prefer

If you've considered cutting carbs and wondered if you're sabotaging your training, you've got plenty of company. The internet will tell you keto either supercharges your engine or destroys it. The honest answer is more useful than either, and it hinges on one distinction most of those takes skip.

Cutting carbs doesn't drag down your performance across the board. But it can create real limitations when you’re pushing your body to its limits. 

A new meta-analysis compiled 13 studies on carb restriction and short, intense efforts in competitive athletes aged 18 to 45.

Single max efforts (one jump, one heavy lift, one short sprint) held steady without much of a change. Repeated hard efforts appeared shakier, with declines in performance in some studies. 

The most consistent finding was more clarity about what’s happening inside your body when you cut carbs and exercise. Lactate dropped reliably on a low-carb diet, and understanding this change can help you determine whether low-carb is the right move for your fitness goals. 

Picture your muscles as a series of engines. The instant engine powers all-out efforts up to about 10 seconds. It appears it’s less dependent on carbs, which is why single max efforts survived carb restriction. 

The fast engine handles hard bouts of roughly 10 to 60 seconds, especially repeated ones, and it runs on carbs stored in your muscle. Starve it, and it can't keep firing, so repeated sprints are the soft spot. Or higher rep workouts. Lactate is the exhaust from that fast engine. Burn fewer carbs, make less of it.

For years, that lower lactate has been sold as proof of a "cleaner" metabolism. 

The plainer reading is the right one: your carb-burning engine is running less, not running better. And here's the wrinkle that should keep you skeptical of tidy stories in either direction: power often held up even as lactate fell, so a low number isn't proof your engine can't make force.

So what do you do with this? If you like how you feel on low-carb, you don’t have to let a study change what’s working for you. 

But the research suggests carbs are performance fuel. 

If your training is mostly steady-state, the vulnerable zone isn't yours, and there's no reason to fear or chase low-carb. 

If you do intervals, HIIT, or stop-and-go sports like basketball or soccer, chronic carb restriction may dull your ability to repeat hard efforts: fine on the first round, flat by the fifth. 

Lift heavy for low reps? Single max strength looked well preserved. A hard hour workout with higher reps, focused on building muscle? You might be holding back growth. 

If you want to limit carbs — and the research does not suggest you need to (carbs do not make you fat, excess fat does) — the strategy the scientists suggest is matching carbs to the day, more around your hard sessions and fewer on easy ones. Fuel the work, don’t fear the carbs.

Health
Don’t Be The 95% (And Eat The Right Carbs)

Decades of carb fear caused a domino effect. The more people cut carbs, the more they removed fiber.

The result: research suggests that 95% of people don’t eat enough fiber.

And yet, you probably have no idea how little you’re really eating because studies show the average person believes they are getting 50% more fiber than they actually consume. 

More importantly, increasing dietary fiber provides wide-ranging health benefits, including better heart health, lower cholesterol, stabilizing blood sugar, promoting healthy digestion, and supporting weight loss and weight management

If you want to know exactly how much fiber you’re getting — and how you can fill your fiber gap — take this science-based quiz we developed. It’s free, and will outline the types of fiber missing from your diet, and which foods can help you get more of what your body needs.  

Health
Use It Or Lose It: The "Cortisol Face" Fix

The claim: Stress spikes cortisol enough to bloat your face, and supplements, adaptogens, or "lowering cortisol" can shrink it back.

It's all over TikTok: before-and-afters crediting a sharper jawline to "lowering cortisol," with fixes ranging from apple cider vinegar to switching from the gym to walks. The pitch is that everyday stress puffs up your face, and that you can deflate it by managing one hormone.

There is a real condition where chronically and pathologically high cortisol redistributes facial fat into a round "moon face." It's called Cushing's syndrome, and it's caused by a tumor or long-term steroid medication, not a stressful week.

It's also genuinely rare: roughly 2 to 4 cases per million people a year. 

Dermatologists and endocrinologists are clear that "cortisol face" isn't a diagnosis, and that ordinary stress is unlikely to visibly bloat your face.

So what's actually behind the puffiness people are seeing? Mostly the unglamorous stuff. Short sleep leaves you with swollen eyes and under-eye bags, partly because fluid pools in the thin skin around your eyes while you lie flat overnight. 

A salty takeout night triggers temporary water retention that shows up as a puffier face and then resolves within a day or two. 

Alcohol, allergies, and crying do the same. None of it requires a cortisol theory.

If facial swelling is persistent, sudden, severe, or only on one side, that's worth a doctor's visit, not a supplement or a DIY recommendation from an influencer.

Fix the sleep and ease off the salt, and "cortisol face" usually fades, not because cortisol was the problem, but because it was never the lever you could pull. 

Stress absolutely affects your body. Your face just isn't a cortisol meter.

The Verdict: Lose It. The puffiness might be real. The cause being sold to you isn't. Sleep more, salt less, move more, return to basic healthy habits. That's the actual fix.

The Positive Corner of The Internet
About Arnold’s Pump Club Editorial Standards

We do things a bit differently here, starting with transparency.

1. The Content: All APC emails are researched, written, and fact-checked by the APC editors (see bottom of the email), with written contributions from Arnold (noted with “Arnold’s Corner”). Links take you to original studies (not second-hand sources).

2. Does AI play a role? Not for the primary content, but it is used in two ways. The main items are original content written by the APC team. The summaries at the end are AI-generated based on the human-written content above. We also use an AI tool to review our interpretations of the research and ensure scientific accuracy. We don’t assume AI is right, but we use technology to hold ourselves accountable.

3. Yes, we have partners (all clearly noted by “Together With”). Why? Because it allows us to keep the APC emails free. We first test products, and then reach out to potential partners who offer ways to help you improve every day. The bar is set high, and to date, we have turned down millions in ad deals. (Example: we will not partner with any non-certified supplements or those without evidence in human trials). If we won’t buy the product, we won’t recommend it to you. And if there’s no evidence it works, then there’s no place for it here.

—

Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger​

Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell