Hey, remember way back a week or so ago when I posted about how some study came out saying that when we don’t engage in at least 10 hours a week of moderate-to-vigorous activity, THIS IS NOT ENOUGH?!
All the things they said, including: THIS IS NOT ENOUGH.
But guess what? There are new studies out saying, well, different things, which makes them not like the other studies I reported on.
One of these things is not like the others…
Turns out (according to this week’s science), any amount and kind of movement is good for just about whatever ails ya.
Yeah, I know. You knew this already. But still, it’s good that more science says so.
Yes, you likely know this, but it helps to have data on your side. Here’s a blurb from this Outside magazine article about a recent study on longevity and physical activity:
The study zeroed in on 3,600 subjects between the ages of 50 and 80, and tracked them to see who died in the years following their baseline measurements. In addition to physical activity, the subjects were assessed for 14 of the best-known traditional risk factors for mortality: basic demographic information (age, gender, body mass index, race or ethnicity, educational level), lifestyle habits (alcohol consumption, smoking), preexisting medical conditions (diabetes, heart disease, congestive heart failure, stroke, cancer, mobility problems), and self-reported overall health.
The best predictors for how to live longer? Physical activity, followed by age, mobility problems, self-assessed health, diabetes, and smoking. Take a moment to let that sink in: how much and how vigorously you move are more important than how old you are as a predictor of the years you’ve got left.
Note that body weight/BMI are not on the list of good predictors of longevity. Again, maybe you already knew this, but it bears repeating.
In more new and unsurprising but happy science, a big cross-cultural study offers evidence that even light and momentary physical activity can help us feel lighter in mood and also more energetic. Here’s what they said:
Investigators discovered that even light, non-structured physical movements, such as household chores, climbing stairs, or short walks, trigger immediate elevations in happiness and energy. Strikingly, the data unmasked a continuous virtuous cycle: individuals experience a sharp mood boost shortly after increasing their physical movement, and conversely, experiencing an elevated mood naturally primes individuals to become physically active shortly thereafter.
The idea here is super-cool: physical activity and improved mood/increased energy create a virtuous cycle. Each reinforces the other. See the technical graph below that I MADE ALL BY MYSELF, WITH NO GEN AI to explain.
A virtuous cycle in much physical activity reinforces mood and energy, which reinforce patterns of physical activity, and so on and so forth. You’re welcome.
The study gathered data from 8000 international participants, and has cross-cultural applicability. You can find more detail and an interview with one of the main researchers here. I love this main takeaway from researcher Yue Liao:
You don’t need a gym session to feel better. An increase above your own usual activity level will bring mood-enhancing benefits, especially by helping you feel more energetic.
These are the days when I’m glad to know some really good epidemiologists. The planet is warming, global travel is surging, and bad buggies are on the move. No, not these kinds of buggies:
Dune, beach and horse and buggy. None of them infectious, as far as I know.
Nope. I’m taking about these buggies:
Lyme bacteria, the current Ebola virus, and the Andes hanta virus– colorful but dangerous.
I thought I might post some updates from the aforementioned really-good-epi folks, as it’s sometimes overwhelming to try to keep up with global health news and hard to know which sources to trust. I’m not a doctor (not the medical kind, anyway), but my posted updates are from sources *I* trust– international news outlets, the WHO (World Health Organization), and YLE (Your Local Epidemiologist) substack (which pulls its info from the most reliable technical sources).
According to the European CDC, as of 26 May there are a total of 13 cases (11 confirmed) of hantavirus. One new case has been confirmed since the last update. There are no new deaths. All quarantined persons in North America are still negative. There’s a long (45 day) incubation period, but we’re at the median period now. This means if you weren’t on that ship, you are almost certainly in the clear. Color me not worried.
My apologies if I’ve used the pineapple with sun glasses and party hat recently, but it personifies non-worry to me right now.
Second: There’s an Ebola outbreak in The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda. According to YLE, there are more than 1000 cases so far in DRC, which experts believe is an undercount. Why? For wonky epidemiological reasons:
positive test rate is 50%
At most 20% of contacts are being traced right now
They’ve only been really testing for a week, and it’s a lot-a-lot of cases for one week
Cases are spread out over 16 different health zones, so containment is harder
You might be wondering, what are the Centers for Disease Control and the US government doing to help contain this outbreak and support and treat those who are affected by Ebola (which has an average case fatality rate of 50%)?
During the 2013–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the US and Canadian governments played major roles in sending public health teams, supplies, health workers, setting up treatment centers, and providing support, along with the WHO and dozens of other countries. More than 11,000 people died of Ebola, with another 17,000 surviving it.
In 2026, the situation is quite different. Canada is providing more than $8M in international assistance funding though a bunch of governmental and non-governmental organizations. This is in addition to its annual $150–200M in foreign aid. See here for latest details.
The US government, after cutting foreign aid to the DRC by 75% (affecting its public health and other necessary infrastructures), is releasing $80M to various organizations overseen by the UN and various NGOs (non-governmental organizations).
However, the big emphasis by the Trump administration is that no American contracting Ebola (including those health workers its sending to Africa) will be returned to the US for treatment (in one of the several world-class health centers with top-level bio-containment.) Instead, according to the New York Times,
The Trump administration plans to send to Kenya U.S. citizens exposed to the Ebola virus rather than bring them home for observation and treatment, according to three people with knowledge of the plans.
The approach is a stark contrast to the way previous administrations responded to outbreaks, during which health care workers and other U.S. citizens exposed to the virus were brought home to be treated at specialized medical units. The administration this month flew an American doctor who developed symptoms to a hospital in Germany, and transported six other Americans for monitoring in Germany and the Czech Republic.
According to the substack by Dr. Craig Spencer (the physician who got Ebola in 2014 while working for MSF/Medicins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders and WAS transported to the US for treatment, and recovered):
The government is training a few dozen Public Health Service officers — uniformed members of the U.S. commissioned corps — to deploy to Kenya to staff it. These are people we send under orders, often to crises, disasters, and outbreaks. And under this plan, if one of them is exposed, or falls ill, the government apparently does not intend to bring them home either.
So, to sum up: for this Ebola outbreak, the risk to the North American public is very very low. But, the risk to global health overall is substantial. Also, the risk to American and other health workers, deployed military doing humanitarian work, and UN personnel os higher than it needs to be because the US is refusing to take care of them in our own world-class medical facilities.
So, am I worried about me or others in North American getting Ebola? No. Am I worried about the damage my country’s leaders are doing to global healthcare capacity, the mission of international health workers, and citizens of all countries affected by this outbreak? YES. You bet I am.
Third and finally, there are the ticks. It turns out that tick numbers are declining in the Northeast and Midwest at this point in 2026. YLE annoted this very nice CDC graph to show where we are:
The blue-green line is tick-related ED visits this year, and we are about at peak for the year, and it’s lower this year. I mean, that’s something.
However, tick-borne diseases are in general on the upswing, so we all need to be careful. Here are more YLE tips:
Keepenjoying the outdoors! But if you’re in a tick-prone area, take that extra minute to do a tick check. The most important thing is removing the tick properly (use fine-tipped tweezers, grab close to the skin, pull upward, no twisting, no Vaseline, no matches). Then watch for symptoms: fever, rash, fatigue, joint aches. If you find an attached tick and are in a high-risk area for Lyme disease, it’s worth calling your doctor if it was attached for more than 36 hours.
So, am I worried about ticks? Always. I live in tick heaven here in New England. But this means I am careful to wear proper repellents (DEET for skin and Permethrin for clothing for me; you do you here), and I also check carefully after being outside. Will this keep me from going outside? Certainly not. And I hope it won’t slow down your outdoorsy summer, either.
Conventional advice from convention health sources says that at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise per week is important to maintain health. The CDC (the good-old-fashioned one, based on real health studies) says so here.
And it turns out almost half of adults in the US get that amount. Which is better than previous studies showed.
But wait– there’s new research out there telling us in no uncertain terms that we were wrong.
Yeah, stick figure and I are equally flummoxed by this news.
I know. I mean, we’ve written so many blog posts about how small intervals of physical activity, whether in short bursts or in longer increments, are a huge boost to health and well-being.
But all those things I said, all the things we said… this is not enough.
The researchers analyzed data from 17,088 participants in the UK Biobank, a large biomedical dataset and research resource, between 2013 and 2015. Study participants, with an average age of 57, wore an activity tracker on their wrist for seven consecutive days to record their normal activity levels.
During a follow-up of the participants after nearly eight years, 1,233 cardiovascular events (heart attack and stroke) were recorded. People, regardless of fitness level, who got 150 minutes of exercise each week had a nine percent reduction in cardiovascular event risk.
But to achieve substantial protection from cardiovascular events—defined as more than a 30 percent reduction in risk—the participants needed to log between 560 and 610 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise a week. This works out to about nine to ten hours of weekly exercise. Just 12 percent of people in the study hit those numbers.
Right. So, if we don’t measure up, are we just doomed? One of the researchers hastily responds no, every type and amount of movement counts.
[Senior researcher on the study] Ziheng Ning also says it’s important to avoid looking at exercise as a pass/fail threshold. “Instead, think of it as a continuum: more movement generally produces greater protection, and fitness level matters,” he says.
What are we to make of this? There have already been a bunch of criticisms and responses to the published study. Among the objections are these:
the study collected data for only one week for participants, potentially not accounting for variation in exercise patterns
the participant group was largely white and able-bodied, so not applicable to the general population
this was an observational study, so no causation could be concluded
But the bigger objections were from health and fitness professionals who argued that the notion of “optimun” is relative to a baseline, and these vary for a lot of reasons and at different times in one’s life. Also, other studies show modest but significant health benefits for all sorts of physical activities, in all sorts of amounts and durations.
For my money, I don’t think activity or fitness is a continuum, where we slide forwards and backwards. Instead, I think we dip in and out, try on something for size, take a new sport out for a spin, chill out, loll about, dance around, and feel the occasional spring in our step. It’s about finding a cadence that works with the playlist our lives are running at the moment.
What’s your cadence this week/this month/this year/this decade/this life? I’d love to hear what you’re up to.
I’ve been following the hantavirus outbreak with great interest and a little trepidation. Great interest because my day job– public health ethicist– means I want to see how this is being handled to think, write and teach about it; a little trepidation because, well, it’s an an outbreak of a scary virus on a large moving vessel (the MV Honius) driving around the ocean with 175 people aboard. Yeah.
There is overall good news coming out of reliable sources (e.g. the World Health Organization websites, public health substacks like Your Local Epidemiologist, which I read and trust). That news is that the case count as of May 13 was 11 cases and 3 deaths. The passengers have all disembarked, and their countries have made arrangements for their sequestration and/or surveillance during the roughly 6-week incubation period.
But I think we need to know what’s working well and what’s not in public health these days. After COVID, we learned a lot. But some lessons we still keep having to go back to, again and again.
Bad news/good news one: The bad news is that a hantavirus outbreak on a ship was not on anyone’s radar. Yale epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina said on this podcast on her substack that this scenario was not on her top-100 list of Bad Things to Happen on a Cruise Ship.
The good news is that as soon as hantavirus was confirmed in one of the sick passengers, the WHO swung into action, coordinating reporting to health authorities, sharing knowledge, helping arrange safe dockage for the ship, and contact tracing for the 34 passengers who had disembarked after the virus came aboard.
Bad news/good news two: Where was the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) in all this? Well, pretty much in the dark because
Trump fired or forced out many/most of the senior scientists who have leadership experience in infectious disease;
Trump pulled out of the WHO, so the CDC isn’t officially in the loop on their activities (the Your Local Epidemiologist folks said that US public health people were getting info from WHO friends as a favor to them);
current leadership of the CDC isn’t even requiring the American passengers from the cruise ship to quarantine at home during the 42-day incubation period. According to this article, “the CDC is currently taking a “conservative approach” that involves “encouraging” people to stay home during the monitoring period.”
But but… what about the good news? Here it is: state and local public health authorities are on the scene, and they are monitoring the passengers, communicating regularly with the communities where the affected passengers are staying, and being completely transparent about the processes they are using the manage the crisis. This happens every day, all day, for all manner of infectious diseases, including flu, pertussis, measles hepatitis, all over the world. Local public health folks deserve a yearly parade. And yes, my sister of one of those folks– she’s a public health epidemiology nurse, working hard in an understaffed agency (also thanks to Trump and RFK). If it weren’t a major privacy violation, I’d ask you all to send her a thank-you card…
Bad news/good news three: Cruise ships and viruses– man, this just keeps happening! Yes, it’s true that cruise ships seem to be floating petri dishes for nasty bugs like norovirus. E coli outbreaks happen, too. But, in this case, the MV Honius folks did everything they could to minimize health and environmental impact of their travel (other than being an energy-intensive mode of transportation): they had sanitation protocols designed to keep contaminating biomatter from leaving or entering the ship, especially as their destinations are often fragile ecosystems. It was just a very unfortunate happenstance that the only form of hantavirus with human-to-human contact showed up from two passengers who likely contracted it in Argentina. The ship authorities responded promptly and fully, cooperating with the WHO and affected countries.
Bad news/good news four: there is no treatment for hantavirus (other than supportive care), and it has a case fatality rate of 25–40%. Oh, and this variant– the Andes version– is the only known one with human-to-human contact. Okay, let’s make sure to breathe here. The good news is Andes virus outbreaks have happened before and been stopped through old-fashioned public health means of isolation and contact tracing. Also, this virus isn’t highly contagious– it’s much less contagious than COVID.
Bad news/good news five: with the CDC in a leadership and knowledge vacuum and political leadship refusing to back up or fund public health infrastructure, it’s harder than ever to get accurate and relevant and trustworthy information. Yes, that’s true. But the good news is that there are both official sites (like the WHO, international news outlets) and substacks are out there and on the job (like Your Local Epidemiologist and dozens of others by conscientious experts who care about the public’s physical health and emotional well-being when crises happen). I posted this clear and reassuring flow chart on FB that the YLE folks made. It reassured me, and I hope it will reassure you.
Flow chart assessing anyone’s risk from the hantavirus. Upshot: if you weren’t on the boat or spending a lot of time with someone who was, you’re likely totally fine.
As always, your trusty FIFI bloggers will keep you apprised of whatever comes our way. Now, go out and enjoy the lovely May day…
A 2025 study on fat oxidation rates and exercise timing is getting more press on social media this week. Because why not… 🙂 Here’s the deal:
In a study of (yes, you guessed it) male college students, researchers found that 60 minutes of morning exercise before breakfast, after fasting all night, resulted in 20% higher fat oxidation rates than an hour of the same exercise after eating dinner.
Uh, yay?
Actually, I think the more appropriate reaction here is: meh.
It bears repeating: meh.
Why am I not excited about this? I mean, it’s SCIENCE.
Yes, that’s so. It’s real science done by real scientists, on real experimental young male subjects. And, this is a real result. But, it doesn’t mean that we should all switch to exercising before breakfast. Why not? Here are some concerns of mine, plus some by the commenters:
The purpose of exercise is not necessarily to lose fat– we exercise for a host of reasons, and possible fat reduction is only one of them.
Fat oxidation does equal fat loss. In order to lose fat, there has to be a calorie deficit in addition to fat oxidation.
Some commenters argued that the results are largely due to the fact that the subjects had fasted before exercise; there’s no indication in the study that the time of day mattered (other than it’s easier to fast while sleeping– I don’t actually need a scientific study to assert this with confidence).
The metabolic effects on a busload of twenty-something males are not necessarily applicable to the larger population. And in particular, we know that metabolic effects of exercise vary by gender, so this result may not apply in the same way to everyone.
However, my main point is: newsy stories about studies that suggest “you oughta exercise like THIS rather than like THAT” ignore the value of just getting out there– to your neighborhood, living room, gym, yoga studio, pond, wherever you like to be while moving. Feel free to move wherever and whenever suits you.
And while we’re at it, moving before breakfast is something I plan on doing only if a bear is chasing me. Or if one of my friends (Samantha and Janet, I’m looking at y’all) manages to talk me into a very early-morning adventure. But even then, I’ll need snacks.
Hi readers– starting this month, I’ll be posting a research roundup– a selection of information about new studies out that may be of interest to us (or not), of relevance to us (or not), and whether we should pay attention to them (or not).
Usually I’ll be posting on the third Wednesday of the month, but this is a special Friday edition. Woo-hoo! So here goes…
We get this message from time to time, but luckily for us (well, me, at least), science is still saying that:
Messaging saying “thick thighs actually do save lives”. Yay!
Large population studies have consistently found that lower-body strength is one of the strongest predictors of mortality ever identified in human health research.
And the relationship holds even when researchers control for: • age • body weight • cardiovascular fitness • physical activity
In other words: strength itself matters
We know that there are lots of simpler tests and functions that can serve as proxies for more complicated physiological tests and body functions; lower-body strength seems to be one of those.
We hear debates about intensity vs volume in exercise, and some recent reseearch suggests that intensity has more impact than volume. This 2026 article says so, in fact.
But, consistency matters, too. At least in resistance training, says this guy (who seems really happy, maybe because he got on the news?)
“The best resistance training program is the one you’ll actually stick with,” says Stuart Phillips, distinguished professor in the Department of Kinesiology and an author on the Position Stand. “Training all major muscle groups at least twice a week matters far more than chasing the idea of a ‘perfect’ or complex training plan. Whether it’s barbells, bands, or bodyweight, consistency and effort drive results.”
We already sort-of-knew that science believes that exercise helps our brains in a bunch of ways– maybe it helps stave off cognitive decline, boost memory and reasoning, and loads of other things. You can read a CDC overview about brain benefits of exercise if you want a deeper dive.
But what about the other way around?
Which way does the causal arrow go? Maybe both ways! Thanks Ian Taylor of Unsplash for the pic.
In a recently published study, researchers found a connection between a group of neurons in the hypothalamus and capacity for boosting physical endurance in workouts over time.
IN MICE.
What? Well, here are some of the details:
[Researchers] worked with mice that underwent a rigorous exercise training program. They ran five days a week on a [teeny] tiny treadmill, with a single weekly long run that increased in speed. This training significantly raised their endurance, which peaked about three weeks into the program.
The researchers found that some SF1-producing neurons had an uptick in activity. As the training program continued, these neurons became increasingly active, seemingly forming a kind of “memory” of past exercise.
When these neurons were blocked from firing in mice after their exercise programs, their endurance capacity did not rise. Taking the opposite tack, artificially increasing the firing of SF1-producing neurons after their exercise programs led to continued endurance improvement even at the three-week mark, when it typically plateaued in mice with normal SF1-neuron firing rates.
Apparently the brain does something. And the brain stuff happens as the mouse is on the teeny-tiny treadmill. That’s all I got.
All this is very well and good, BUT: is anyone actually lacing up the sneaks and getting out there? Turns out, yes.
A CDC report released April 7 finds that nearly half of all US adults get the recommended level of physical activity. Here are some details:
In 2024, 47.2% of adults age 18 and older met the federal guidelines for aerobic physical activity, with men being more likely to meet the guidelines (52.3%) than women (42.4%).
The prevalence of meeting the federal guidelines for aerobic physical activity increased with increasing education level.
Adults living in the West were more likely to meet the federal guidelines for aerobic physical activity compared with those in other regions.
Aerobic physical activity was higher among adults without disabilities (49.8%), those with healthy weight (54.8%), and those with excellent or very good health (57.8%).
This is good news, as it shows an uptick in levels of physical activity, which (as we know) is good for a lot of things. Now, the fact that prevalence was lower among higher-weight folks and adults with disabilities shows (in my view) that we need more programs and more access and fewer structural barriers to physical activity for all of us. Don’t you agree?
A bunch of people playing with hula hoops, doing gymmastics in a gym. Looks like fun.
That’s it on the blurbs for now. See you all next month. If you have a request for comments or blurbs on any new research you come across, post it on our social media pages or add a comment down below.
Cognitive surrender is an essential new term that’s arisen to describe the abdication of our own reasoning to a machine that sounds fluent, confident, and authoritative. Studies are showing that when people interact with AI tools, they accept flawed reasoning at a startling level (almost 75% of the time). Not because they don’t have the capacity to reason better themselves. But because it is easier not to question. As a writer, it will likely come as no surprise that I’m leery of outsourcing. I worry about dulling not just my cognitive capacity, even more so my creativity.
And, yes, I have started working with AI tools, because I also think it’s important to understand what these machines are all about and how I might use them in an un-surrendered manner. I almost used the word collaborate in that last sentence, instead of use. I chose not to, because I’m not yet ready to acknowledge these machines as entities. That feels like surrender. This from someone who is more than willing to see trees as sentient beings well before reading Michael Pollan’s new book, A World Appears.
I am exploring the border between surrender and leveraging these cognitive machines to free my time for deeper engagement with the world. More akin to my vacuum cleaner than a friend.
I have been thinking a lot about surrender in my body, too. Every time I read an article about aging and activity, which tells me that I should move more gently, now that I’m on the verge of a new decade, a part of me growls protectively. Not yet.
This physical version of surrender can be seductive. Messaging that encourages the little voices that say: I’m older now. Intensity is harder. Recovery is harder. Maybe I should just… let these things be harder. Be gentle with myself. Slow down. Stop. Lie down. The End. Okay—those last four are the hyperbole kicking in.The reasoning (without exaggeration) arrives fluently, confidently, with authority. And, as with AI reasoning, if I’m not careful, I might accept these blandishments about aging without interrogating the particularities of my own case.
I see the parallel this way: an authoritative-seeming signal in the form of an AI answer or an aging body; the availability of a path of least resistance; the ways that acceptance is not neutral, reshaping what we expect of ourselves and ultimately what we are actually capable of.
What the cognitive surrender research captures is that the problem isn’t using external tools. We humans have been off-loading cognitive tasks for a while now. Thank you, calculators. The red flag is what happens when we stop verifying. When silken reasoning substitutes for truth. When we accept not because we’ve evaluated, but because it’s so frictionless (and pleasant) to not expend the effort.
In the physical realm, adjusting our expectations as we age is not always surrender. Of course not. Surrender is unexamined acceptance. Letting the message of limitation go unchallenged. Sliding past the effort of finding out just what we are still capable of.
I turn 60 this year. I’d like to say I feel easy, breezy about that. I don’t. I’m in search of the right balance of grace and grit. I have set myself the goal of running a half marathon (21 kilometers or 13.1 miles) every month. Twelve months, twelve runs (among all the other runs I will do). When I was younger, that distance was a regular sized effort. Last year, I did not run that distance even once. And my year culminated in foot surgery in late November (which I wrote about here).
The decision has an element of stubbornness, to be sure. I am a Taurus, after all. On New Year’s Day, I started the year running 21k with my brother on mountain trails. I had a genuine concern that I would not run the whole distance. It took a while. I got it done. I was inspired. And so, this challenge. As I write this, four 21k are done. Eight to go.
I hear the voices that tell me: You’re not built for this anymore. I’m checking their veracity. They might be right. I might not be up for the challenge. I want to be gentle with myself, if I’m not. This is not about punishment. It’s about exaltation. The joy of discovering, each month, that I still have the capacity.
When I was a child, my mother always made us take the stairs. I remember glancing longingly at elevators as we passed them by. Now I live on the eighth floor, and I take the stairs almost every time I leave or come home. Not always. I’m realistic, not rigid. Not because I’m proving something. Because the habit of not surrendering has become its own kind of instinct. My mother was training something in me: the reflex to push gently against the available convenience, to stay curious about what I might actually be capable of.
The AI researchers found that people with higher fluid IQ scores were more likely to maintain their own judgment under pressure. I do not claim any extra intelligence. I think gentle resistance is more about habit. The habit of fact checking.
This is what I want to hold onto as I run my way through this year, one half marathon at a time. Not the delusion that there no limits that come with age. I have plenty. Instead, I want to cultivate the discipline of inquiry, to distinguish real limits from the limits that are presented with confidence, waiting for me to accept them without scrutiny.
My body, like a large language model, will tell me what it thinks I want to hear in smooth and reasonable tones. Rest. Take the elevator. Watch Netflix.
Sometimes my body is right. And I will be dancing with surrender and resistance, until I find the choreography that leads to graceful, gritty acceptance.
One never knows what one’s media feed will present to one on any given day.
Last Monday morning, the following ad appeared:
Ad for Fatty 15 (TM), a bottle of pills claiming to improve your health in myriad and miraculous ways.
My first thoughts were:
Fatty15?
FATTY15?
Really?!
THAT’S the name the marketing team came up with in order to SELL this to me?
I am so very confused. Thanks Uday Mittai from Unsplash, for the perfect rendition of it.
Okay, what in the wild and unregulated supplement world is this FATTY15 thing? Here’s the TLDR version.
There are a lot of fatty acids.
They are found in lots of foods we eat.
Omega-3 fatty acids are a good fatty acid. They’re found in e.g. salmon, walnuts and edamame.
Trans-fats are a bad fatty acid. They’re found in e.g. many ultra-processed and fried foods, and many baked goods.
C15:0 is a recently found fatty acid. We don’t know much about it.
A new company called FATTY15 (again, wtaf) wants to sell it to you, promising you whole health in a bottle.
BUT BUT… HOW DID THE DOLPHINS GET INVOLVED?
Patience– I’m getting to this now.
It turns out that some dolphins work for the US Navy. They detect underwater mines and enemy swimmers (don’t ask me how). Part of their employee health plan includes research on and treatment of diseases related to dolphin-aging (they get some of the same diseases we do).
This person below– Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson, the translational medicine and research program director for the Navy’s National Marine Mammal Foundation– led a crack team of dolphin health experts to manage their care.
Honestly, if my job were to make sure that dolphins lived their best lives ever while in the employ of the United States government, I’d look that happy, too.
The team analyzed the dolphins’ blood samples taken throughout their lives to identify molecules present in the healthiest dolphins. One of the top nutrients was the molecule C15:0, a saturated fatty acid (pentadecanoic acid). In the human diet, C15:0 is present in dairy fat—whole milk, butter, and cheeses.
Obviously, dolphins don’t have that option after infancy, unlike humans. But don’t worry– your research dollars found a solution:
…when they fed [older] dolphins with chronic diseases diets higher in C15:0 (fatty fish), they became healthier. Further research supported their findings that C15:0 lowers risk and can actually reverse many chronic diseases [in older dolphins, maybe], making it an essential fatty acid, a nutrient that the body does not produce but is essential to health.
Venn-Watson co-wrote this paper to argue for proof of concept for C15:0, but with no human studies. Then she started a company to try to sell C15:0 to humans, since dolphins a) don’t carry credit cards; and b) C15:0 supplements are covered by their navy employee health plan. She also wrote a book to help shill this stuff. And gave a TEDx talk to shill some more. But we have any actual evidence that it works?
Healthier skin/hair? NO Balanced metabolism? Uh-uh. Deeper Sleep? No chance. 3X more cellular benefits than omega-3? What does this even mean?
And is it FDA-approved? Hell to the no. Just like all those other untested supplements. Please, oh, please just save your money.
BUT BUT THE FATTY15 WEBSITE!
It says all kinds of things that maybe are true. What about their claims?
To sum up:
The dolphins are going to be okay.
We are going to be okay.
Eating food and moving our bodies are good things to do, be we human or dolphin.
The one supplement that I personally can recommend is to supplement your viewing by adding Heated Rivalry to your watchlist. You’ll be glad you did.
Yes, yet another study has come out linking some food/beverage product to increased/decreased risk of something-or-other. In this case, however, it’s about how coffee (and also tea) lower dementia risk and modestly better cognitive function.
I’ll drink to that.
Many shades of coffee.Thanks Nathan D from Unsplash for the photo.
These results were drawn from very large cohorts of healthcare professionals in the UK that have tracked behaviors and conditions over 40+ years. So this is not a randomized controlled trial. Still, this is how researchers find connections between habits like drinking coffee and health outcomes. So, what did they find this time?
There was a statistically significantly reduced dementia risk, with lowered risks for higher caffeine intake (up to 4 cups a day of coffee, 2–3 of tea; no improvements reported for higher daily intake).
There were very modest reductions in subjective cognitive decline (self-reported by participants) and objective cognitive decline (performance on cognitive tests) in the caffeine consumers. Again, the reductions increased along with caffeine intake, but hit saturation at 4 cups of coffee a day.
A notable fact about this study is that they were able to distinguish the effects of caffeinated coffee and tea (vs. decaf beverages). Caffeine is reported to be neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory (I could insert fancy text from the study, but trust me, it’s very science-y).
But, we also know that caffeine is NOT good for everything that ails us. It can affect sleep quality and cause all sorts of bad upper GI symptoms. But not everything that’s good in one way is good in all ways. That’s simply not coffee’s fault.
So, all’s I’m saying is, Coffee doesn’t drink coffee; people drink coffee…
Keep naked babies away from the coffee grinder.I drink coffee for your protection.
Oh, and one more thing: I love this ditty– Java Jive– performed here by the Manhattan Transfer. Enjoy with a steaming mug.
Amidst all the chaos and destruction in the world, science is still happening (although the funding situation is also chaotic and destructive, but never mind that for the moment). Interesting questions are being asked, tested, and interesting answers are being given. Here are some of them (mostly courtesy of Sam, who sends these to me– thanks, Sam!)
Question: Does exercise result in a net calorie reduction, or does the body compensate to balance things out?
Answer: we don’t know yet. But, a bunch of scientists are hard at work testing different active subpopulations (from Tanzanian Hadza hunter-gatherers to American collegiate cross country runners) to look for ways that human metabolism responds to energy output. This article from Outside magazine gives a detailed and accessible overview of recent research on the topic.
Good news: even if exercise doesn’t result in a ton of extra calories burned (if that’s your goal), it still results in other good things, like increased longevity, better sleep and overall well-being.
Walking with kids is fun. By Krzysztof Kowalik for Unsplash.
A study published in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research found that people scored significantly higher on memory, reasoning, and planning tests after just 30 minutes of spinning on a stationary bike.
This effect is primarily linked to the production of a protein called BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor). BDNF acts like a fertilizer for your brain, helping to grow new cells and protecting existing ones from decay.
Essentially, every mile you ride is an investment in your brain’s structural integrity and future processing speed.
Yay! Does cycling do anything else good to your brain? The article also cites research results suggesting that cycling promotes lower dementia risk, increased neurogenesis (creation of neurons in the hippocampus) and psychological resilience (this last one is less surprising if you’ve tackled big hills at very low speed, as I have).
Riding bikes with kids is fun, too. By Mukkpetebike for Unsplash.
Question: Can exercise help reduce my cancer risk?
Answer: yes, a bit. But the research study supporting this is small and very preliminary. Here’s the deal, from an article in Men’s Health magazine:
The researchers looked at 30 men and women between the ages of 50 and 78. All met the criteria for having extra weight or obesity. Each person underwent a short but intense cycling test that lasted about 10 minutes.
Afterward, the researchers collected blood samples from everyone and analyzed them for 249 proteins. Thirteen of the 249 proteins increased after exercise. This included interleukin-6, which helps to repair damaged DNA. Exercise raised the levels of other molecules in the blood that work to reduce inflammation, support blood vessel health, and improve metabolism.
According to the researchers, the evidence showed that 10 minutes of exercise was enough to support DNA repair to lower colon cancer risk. Though keep in mind, these were short but intense bursts of exercise. A slow, leisurely stroll wouldn’t qualify.
There are a bunch of things we don’t know, like what is the amount of reduced risk, and what is the variation in different subpopulations. Plus a bunch of other relevant factors that may influence the effects. Still, it’s good news.
Vigorous exercise is fun as well. By Kaspars Eglitis for Unslpash.
