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Today’s Health Upgrade
How to out-train sleep deprivation
Toxic mold…or toxic myth?
On our radar
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Longevity
How To Out-Train Sleep Deprivation
You might not be able to out-exercise a bad diet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t out-train a few bad nights of sleep.
Research suggests that exercise can help you offset the mortality risks associated with sleep deprivation.
Before anyone gets any bad ideas, we still think sleep is one of the most important aspects of your health. However, if sleep falters (such as it tends to happen when you have a newborn or are dealing with stressful times), exercise can help protect your overall health.
The study looked at more than 90,000 sleep-deprived adults who were sleeping less than 6 hours per night. Those who didn’t exercise had a 69 percent elevated risk of cardiovascular death.
But those who exercised saw their cardiovascular risk completely disappear, despite not getting enough rest.
If you want to keep your body healthy research suggests that moderate-to-high intensity exercise is the most protective, with maximum health benefits occuring around 150 minutes per week. But if that feels like too much, just start somewhere, even if it’s going for a walk or throwing on a rucksack for added intensity. Even as little as 10 to 15 minutes per day can help kepe your heart healthy.
Health
Toxic Mold…Or Toxic Myth?
If you’ve been suffering from brain fog, anxiety, GI issues, blurred vision, headaches, or joint pain, you might be suffering from toxic mold.
Or that’s what you’re being told.
Research paints a very different story. While mold is very real and quite common, it rarely causes severe health issues.
As Dr. Andrea Love, a microbiologist and immunologist, points out, molds are everywhere, and the majority don’t pose any risk. In fact, many molds can even be beneficial.
If you have visible mold in your house, you want to remove it because it can cause respiratory issues, especially if you suffer from allergies or asthma (plus molds eat wood/housing materials, so it can become a structural issue. However, the notion that molds (including invisible ones) are a major cause of the generic symptoms attributed to toxic mold syndrome is unfounded, says Love.
Mycotoxins in contaminated food can be a real issue, but the FDA highly regulates our foods to ensure you don’t consume them. So, if you’re feeling bad and have a legitimate reason to worry it’s a mold issue, don’t leave it up to at-home tests (which are mostly inaccurate or misleading) or self-diagnosis. Instead, go to your physician to get checked out and make sure you’re okay.
On Our Radar
The Sweet Science of Reinventing Sugar
A little bit of sugar is not a problem (no matter what those influencers will say on social media). A lot of sugar can be problematic. But what about sugar that transforms from something sweet into something healthy?
It might sound like science fiction, but a new enzyme is being developed that takes the sugar you put in your mouth and changes it into a fiber when it hits your gut.
The new technology uses nanoparticles to embed an enzyme into sugar that doesn’t start working its magic until it hits your stomach acids, which then begins to transfer sugar molecules into something completely different for digestion.
And considering that only 5 percent of Americans get enough daily fiber, this could be a way to kill two birds with one stone: help people who struggle with sugar and improve overall fiber intake.
You can’t go hunting for it just yet. The product is an estimated two years away, as more testing is needed, the designer needs to get USDA approval (food products require more extensive research than supplements), and there’s a price issue. The magical enzyme is approximately 100 times more expensive than sugar. But it’s something we will keep an eye on.
In the meantime, it’s just one more reason to try to add more fiber to your diet, even if you struggle to kick your sugar habit. Great options—that have a touch of sweetness—include raspberries, pears, bananas, apples, sweet potatoes, guava, strawberries, pomegranate, blackberries, and prunes.
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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell
