Posted in Wellbeing

Just like you can’t drive a car without fuel, your body needs fuel to function. Instead of petrol, however, what gives us energy is certain nutrients from the diet. Nutrients can give us energy either as a substrate converted to ATP in our cells or by otherwise contributing to ATP production. Just like gasoline, the quality of the food you eat will have an effect on the performance of your “vehicle”.  If you’d like to know what to eat for energy, and which foods...

A healthy diet, physical activity, and cognitive training help extend life expectancy — and those extra years are more likely to be dementia-free — new research suggests. An analysis of nearly 2500 participants in the Chicago Health and Ageing Project (CHAP) showed those who had a healthy diet, got plenty of physical activity, and took part in cognitive exercises lived longer than those following a less healthy lifestyle. In addition, the number of years living with dementi...

The human microbiome has become the centre of many discussions related to health issues. This makes sense, considering that we are made up of more non-human microorganisms than human cells. And if we broaden our view of what the human body is, we quickly understand that we cannot exclude the trillions of microorganisms living in and on our bodies, including the ones that live in our mouths. Just like other microbiomes in the body, our oral microbiome comprises many types of bacteria. Fo...

Some myths never die. The idea of taking 10,000 steps a day is one of them. What started as a catchy marketing slogan has become a mantra for anyone promoting physical activity. But the 10,000-step target is arbitrary and ignores a fundamental truth of lifestyle medicine: When it comes to physical activity, anything is better than nothing. It all began in 1965 when the Japanese company Yamasa Tokei began selling a new step-counter which they called manpo-kei (ten-thousand steps meter). They ...

When compared with insoluble fibre, soluble fibre was particularly more effective at staving off dementia. “The inverse association was more evident for soluble fibre intake and was confined to dementia without a history of stroke. As for fibre-containing foods, potatoes, but no vegetables or fruits, showed a similar association,” say study authors. In Japanese culture, potatoes are not considered a vegetable the way they are in the U.S. For this reason, the researchers opted to d...

The immune system has cells stationed all over the body, and they're actually doing their business even if you're fit as a fiddle. This is shown in a new study published in the scientific journal Cell Metabolism. Until recently, they believed that the immune system was mostly dormant unless the body was under attack in connection with infections. However, it now turns out that the immune system most likely also plays an important role for perfectly healthy people and can affect ...