Our ancestors required an acute sense of self-preservation matched with a keen sense of observation. Always scanning, smelling, listening to the surroundings, on the watch for danger, aware of what immediate action needed to be taken, whether it was running from a saber-tooth tiger, dodging a falling rock, eluding a poisonous snake, or just avoiding a careless footfall. Remember that a twisted knee or a broken ankle could spell death to anyone who couldn’t run away from danger. In fact, it was probably trauma (or a brief careless lapse in judgment) that was most responsible for the low average life expectancy of our ancestors, despite their otherwise robust good health. Avoid trauma and there was a very good chance you could live to be 60 or 70 – and be extremely healthy and fit. Modern day hunter gatherers maintain strength and health often well into their 80s.
Eliminate self-destructive behaviors. These concepts are self evident to most people (wear seat belts, don’t smoke or do drugs, don’t dive into shallow water), but so many of us live our lives oblivious to impending danger. Develop a keen sense of awareness of your surroundings and heed the logic of potential consequences.
Further Reading:
The Definitive Guide to Stress, Cortisol and the Adrenals
Bodyweight Exercises and Injury Prevention
Exercising Through Injury
Read MoreAs the number of people living with cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cancer, and other health scourges continues to skyrocket, so too does the demand for safe, effective treatments. People don’t just want to pop pills that mask symptoms and make it possible to “live with” a disease. And as much as we know that diet and lifestyle changes—being less sedentary, sleeping more, reducing stress—are needed to make real, sweeping public health impacts, implementation is a huge challenge. In the meantime, people need remedies that get to the root causes of their chronic health woes—ideally without a laundry list of possible side effects. Enter berberine, an alkaloid compound found in various plants. This is a textbook example of modern science confirming ancient wisdom. Chinese and ayurvedic medicine have valued berberine-containing plants like barberry, goldenseal, and tree turmeric for hundreds of years, using them to treat everything from gout to indigestion to hemorrhoids to skin infections to cancer. Now, research is uncovering exactly how berberine works—and it turns out to be quite a remarkable little substance. To date, there is pretty good evidence that berberine is useful for two applications in particular, and there are hints that it might serve other purposes as well. Let’s dive in. Likely Benefits of Berberine For Managing Blood Sugar, Insulin, and Type 2 Diabetes In type 2 diabetics, berberine seems to lower fasting blood sugar and fasting insulin, decrease HbA1c (a three-month blood glucose average), and improve insulin sensitivity. Some studies even suggest that berberine can be as effective as the drugs that are currently considered standard of care, notably metformin. There is also an additive benefit: administering metformin with berberine seems to be more effective than metformin alone. However, as the authors of one review pointed out, studies comparing the two tend to be of less-than-ideal quality. Shockingly, drug companies aren’t exactly falling all over themselves to fund research to see if an herb can replace one of their lucrative products. Nevertheless, this is a big deal. Insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, and the resulting inflammation are the common threads connecting numerous chronic diseases. It’s possible, even likely, that berberine could be used as a primary or adjunct therapy for many diseases that run rampant today. Take PCOS as an example. Insulin resistance is a hallmark of PCOS, and metformin is often prescribed to manage symptoms and encourage ovulation. In one study, 150 women received berberine, metformin, or a placebo before undergoing IVF. Women in both treatment groups showed similar improvements in metabolic health (lower BMI, less insulin resistance, lower fasting glucose and insulin), but 18 of those who took berberine had a successful pregnancy, compared to 14 in the metformin group and 7 in the placebo group. For Blood Lipids Studies in rodents and humans with high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes pretty consistently find that berberine lowers LDL-C and triglycerides, usually while boosting HDL. It may also lower ApoB. ApoB is a lipoprotein that many cardiovascular disease experts now recognize is a more accurate … Continue reading “What is Berberine and Should You Take It?”
Read MoreBiological systems are self-maintaining. They have to be. Your cells are little factories, performing tasks crucial to maintaining this thing we call life. And just like in factories, machinery (organelles) break down. Waste (metabolic byproducts) must be managed. Security teams need to be in place to keep intruders (bacteria and viruses) from disrupting operations.
For life to sustain itself, cells must perform this crucial work themselves. It’s not like we can send in microscopic maintenance workers, mechanics, and security details to handle the dirty work from the outside. Not really, not yet anyway. One of the most important types of biological maintenance is a process called autophagy.
Read MoreIn today’s world, we are constantly being exposed to electromagnetic fields, which tends to make people nervous. Who hasn’t heard concerns about EMFs and their potential health harms? We’re supposed to keep our cell phones away from our heads, turn the wifi off at night, avoid living under big power lines.
So it would make sense if you were wary of PEMF therapy. In both cases, the “EMF” stands for electromagnetic field (the P standing for pulsed). But while just-EMF is supposed to be harmful (although the degree to which we need to worry is still up for debate), the pulsed kind is supposed to offer wide-ranging benefits. What gives?
Read MoreI’ve been around for long enough to see health trends come and go, but cold therapy is one that has staying power. Humans have probably been using cold water to treat injury and illness, wake up their senses, and challenge their physical fortitude for all of human history. The modern obsession with cold plunges, cryotherapy chambers, and sitting underclothed in the snow doing controlled hyperventilation (a la “The Iceman” Wim Hof and his eponymous method of breathwork paired with extreme cold endurance feats) is just the newest iteration. There is something fundamental about the relationship between humans and the cold.
Of course, Grok and kin weren’t taking cold showers to stimulate the immune system or revive senses dulled by hours and years of participating in corporate drudgery. They were washing in cold rivers and wading into the ocean to trap sea creatures out of necessity. But the effect was the same as when we modern humans do a polar bear plunge—a stronger, more robust body.
Read MoreEverything in the world is conspiring to make you fall over. The ground is slippery, slick, and studded with protrusions. The earth moves under your feet. Discarded banana peels are an ever-present threat. Gravity itself exerts a constant downward pull.
You probably only think about balance when you decide to test it—or when you lose it. But you’re relying on it every second that you’re not lying prone. Whenever you work at your standing desk, step out of the shower, hustle across a busy intersection, or ride your kids to school on your bikes, you can thank your balance for allowing you to successfully move through your day without injury.
Stop for a second and think about how much goes into maintaining balance:
Musculoskeletal strength and coordination: Balance requires not just adequately strong bones, muscles, and joints but also proper alignment. Muscles that are too tight or too weak can cause imbalances.
Vision: Visual input provides an overview of the physical surroundings, and external focus (looking at a point in the environment) helps keep us from losing our balance as easily.
Vestibular system: The fluid in our inner ears acts as a kind of level, telling us where our bodies are in space.
Somatosensory system: The nerves in our muscles and connective tissues relay information about our position in the surroundings.
Cognition: The brain has to integrate all the information coming in from the body and make adjustments on the fly to fight gravity.
That we (usually) manage to stay upright at all is impressive!
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