What we are reading - Health and Fitness

Rainmatter Health
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Thank you. Upon a great push, he has changed his daily habits, got addicted to daily walks, leaves his phone at home, and goes for an hour-and-a-half-long walk at the park. Gets enough rest and also started consuming eggs and chicken or fish, all of which he used to hate, to put in some protein in the body. He’s now more mindful about the quantity of food and also cut on sweets to a great extent. I’m extremely happy to see this changeover and his consistency for the past year and a half.

It’s still in the child’s A stage, the lifestyle change has slowed down the degeneration. Although there are other health complications, I would love to read/discuss and know about this in detail. :slight_smile:

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This article from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) discusses how psychedelic drugs have the potential to help with depression. Certain types of psychedelics, such as psilocybin (found in “magic mushrooms”) and MDMA, have shown promise in clinical trials for their ability to promote positive mood and alleviate symptoms of depression. These drugs appear to work by affecting neural connections and communication in the brain. While more research is needed, these findings suggest that psychedelic drugs may offer new avenues for the treatment of depression.

How psychedelic drugs may help with depression | National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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That’s great. The true power of small conscious lifestyle changes reaping huge benefits over time.

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Absolutely, would like to share as much possible to help everyone in their own journey.

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The complete guideline document is in the link below.

My two cents: I don’t think artificial sweeteners are harmful by themselves, in fact, most of the foods aren’t. Rather than promoting or villainizing any food, the constituents and the functions should be detailed and more emphasis should be given to the overall food consumed in a day and lifestyle.

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I was reading about peanut butter and came across this; Aflatoxins are toxic substances produced by certain molds that can contaminate peanuts during growth, harvest, and storage. They are considered highly carcinogenic, and this article emphasises the potential health risks associated with high aflatoxin exposure.

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A recent study from the University of California, Davis, suggests that lab-grown meat may have a worse carbon footprint than beef, contradicting previous claims that it is a more sustainable alternative. It’s an energy-intensive process to produce lab-grown meat, as it relies on the use of artificial light, heating, and cooling systems to create a suitable environment for cell growth. Additionally, the study notes that the use of fossil-fuel-derived energy sources in the production process may contribute to increased greenhouse gas emissions, further exacerbating the environmental impact of lab-grown meat. This finding challenges the notion that lab-grown meat is a more environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional animal agriculture, raising concerns about the potential unintended consequences of this emerging industry.

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Shared by @NithinKamath

Article adds aspects of diet-related diseases by pizza, bread, and breakfast cereals wrapped in plastic and additives.

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Ultra-processed foods is one of the major ills of today’s diseases and majority of health issues and concerns.

A small note by one of our clinician’s on the same.

In the process of ultra-processing, food loses its essential nutrients and fibers. Such food usually contains a high level of sugar, fat and salt compared to unprocessed or minimally processed foods.

It is usually hyper palatable and consuming it gives us a high dopamine rush, making it addictive in the long-run. It is therefore vital in our day and age, to know the art of eating right. Because that is the only way to prevent, treat or reverse chronic diseases, as most of them are rooted in insulin resistance, among other factors.

If the carb content is the same in an ultra-processed and a minimally processed food, ultra processed food will cause insulin secretion of 150 units per day as opposed to the normal insulin secretion of 40 units.

The below blog (leave aside the lose weight bit), explains a bit more about food and ultra-processed food, fad diets, etc. and what really matters for health.

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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03143-x?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket_hits&utm_campaign=POCKET_HITS-EN-DAILY-RECS-2023_10_12&sponsored=0&position=4&category=fascinating_stories&scheduled_corpus_item_id=da6b3657-f4ab-4a3c-a38d-cf2b66b1bb8c&url=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03143-x

While BMI has been widely used as a measure of obesity, it is an imperfect metric that does not account for factors like age, sex, and race. BMI was originally developed in the 1800s, not for health reasons. There is a growing movement to use additional measures besides BMI to diagnose and treat obesity. Experts are concerned that the increased use of new weight loss drugs will exacerbate reliance on BMI alone. Efforts are underway to develop diagnostic criteria that examine how weight affects multiple organ systems, rather than just height and weight.

One such is the Edmonton Obesity Staging System which incorporates physical, mental, and functional health to provide a more comprehensive assessment than BMI.

Overall, BMI should not be used as a sole diagnostic tool for obesity. Here’s why

  • BMI (body mass index) is a flawed measure for determining health risks and diagnosing obesity as it does not measure body fat or account for other factors like age, sex and race.

  • BMI was created 200 years ago by Adolphe Quetelet as a statistical measure to characterize the “average man” rather than for health purposes.

  • While BMI correlates with mortality risk at a population level, the cut-offs between healthy and unhealthy categories are arbitrary, and BMI is an imperfect measure for individuals.

  • Factors like body fat percentage and distribution vary between sexes, ages and races but BMI does not account for these differences.

  • Excess deep visceral fat poses health risks even for individuals with a healthy BMI.

  • Over-reliance on BMI alone can miss cases of “normal-weight obesity” and cardiometabolic issues.

  • Alternatives like waist circumference, body composition tests, or the Edmonton Obesity Staging System provide more health insights than BMI alone.

  • Pressures of time in medical practice and the easy availability of new obesity drugs risk further entrenching BMI as the sole diagnostic criterion.

  • Moving beyond sole reliance on BMI requires combining it with other health metrics and assessments in clinical guidelines and practice.

  • Defining and diagnosing obesity is an ongoing process, with several expert groups working to establish more comprehensive criteria.

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An interesting fact around BMI is that it became a mainstream index (according to Jacques Peretti’s ‘Done)’ thanks to the Insurance Industry (led by MetLife in particular) pushing that 19th century metric to prove that more people were obese and needed to take up life insurance.

Classic case of a misaligned incentive that a lot of health and fitness apps use even today for their own ends.

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The hot topic these days is the Nicotine content in vegetables.

Although, eggplant takes more limelight here, there are more nightshade plants like potatoes and tomatoes that contain more nicotine.
The nicotine contents of vegetables.

Tobacco is the absolute villain for carrying highest amounts of varied toxins apart from Nicotine. So, there has been health advisory (Although no bans whatsoever) and then the industry started to surrogate with Nicotine patches. How effective?

Nicotine is your manipulator friend. Helps you relax, enhances your attention and memory and it all gets reversed when you stay away from Nicotine. So you keep going back to it and there you meet a new milestone. Addiction!

Looking back at this data, I’m suspecting if nicotine has a role to play in french fries addiction…

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There’s more that’s making rounds on social media about how Nicotine has helped treating Myocarditis, a condition that happened to exist in more individuals especially post covid.

Myocarditis is a condition where the middle layer of the heart muscle gets inflamed because of a viral infection. Inflammation in the heart muscle means threat to the flow of blood in the heart. So, severe chest pain, lightheadedness, fatigue are some of the symptoms. Also, patients are recommended to avoid exercise. So, how does Nicotine help?

Nicotine helps reduce the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the body. Cytokines are chemical messengers and are part of the healthy immune system and broadly categorised into Pro-inflammatory, Growth and Anti-inflammatory. Whenever the body senses an infection, pro-inflammatory cytokines signal immune response to fight it, and hence causes inflammation. And as the healing progresses, anti-inflammatory cytokines work on reducing the inflammation. But in Myocarditis, pro-inflammatory cytokines are rapidly released and based on the kind of infection, it can also become an auto-immune function causing further damage.

Nicotine displayed the anti-inflammatory traits when treated on mice and this suggests that it’s medical use (not smoking :face_with_thermometer:) is progressive but if the context is not clarified, social media messaging does more damage than good.

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One of the things that fascinated me when I started learning fitness and nutrition science is how everything inside the body melts down to chemicals.

The whole of human body is a system of chemistry. Right from the bones to the skin and the hair and nails. And all of the external substances supplied to it perform a chemical reaction. If it is a compound that supplements the existing system, the body works optimal and if it is a compound that’s unwanted for the system, it impairs it’s function until it’s flushed out.

So, if something sold in the market is claimed to be a “natural and chemical alternative”, I would think twice before falling for the “nature fallacy”.

Check this one by Dr. Andrea Love

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Our team has put out this detailed blog on World’s understanding and the scope of GLP based drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro in the market, in Layman’s terms.

Since we dig a bit deeper on science on this forum, I would like to share some learnings.

How do GLP-1 Receptors Agonists work?

GLP refers to Glucagon like Peptide - 1. It is a hormone naturally produced inside the body by the Intestine and the Brain. When we consume food, Glucagon stimulates conversion of Glycogen stored in Liver into Glucose, which spike the blood sugar level and in-turn the Pancreas releases Insulin to control or reduce the blood sugar.

And these GLP-1 Receptor Agonists, the medicines act by stimulating the Pancreas to release insulin without actual conversion of Glycogen happening and then can help Diabetic patients.

However, these medicines are designed to mimic the naturally produced GLP-1, they also have two other functions. Reducing the appetite and slowing down the Gastric Emptying, which also helps in reduced food consumption and hence the Weight Loss.

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What are the Side Effects?

  • Gastric Emptying is how bowel movements happen in the body. If the rate of Gastric emptying is slowed down artificially, and you consume food in regular quantities, this causes nausea and vomiting.

  • Another risk with slowing down Gastric emptying is related to the gallbladder. The gallbladder stores Bile that’s produced by Liver, which is crucial for digestion of fats and excreting waste. When the Bile is not timely used, excess Bile can start forming stones and that’s painful. Usually, once begun, gallbladder becomes susceptible to forming stones more often, unlike Kidneys. And the solution doctors suggests get is to remove the gallbladder.

  • I spoke to a few fitness trainers whose clients happened to consume the Ozempic without the trainer’s knowledge but later had to admit about it as they happen to realise the side effects like headaches, severe nausea, mood swings caused by hormonal imbalance.

Conclusion

While the positive effects seem to diminish the damage happened to the body because of lifestyle issues, the negative consequences of its dependance show that these drugs are better used as a short-term intervention while helping the patients fix their lifestyle alongside. Definitely not a drug to be dependant on.

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A new Obesity definition adds body fat distribution measures (like waist circumference) to BMI.

Under the traditional BMI-only definition (BMI ≥30), about 43% of US adults were classified as obese. However, under the new hybrid definition that incorporates body fat distribution measures, obesity prevalence jumped dramatically to 68.6% - nearly 70% of US adults

That’s an increase of approx 25.6% - meaning millions more Americans would be classified as having obesity under the new criteria.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2840138#google_vignette

Indian Context and Ground-reality:

NFHS-5 (2019-21) measured abdominal obesity using waist circumference for the first time, covering 636,699 households with 724,115 women and 101,839 men Obesity Management in Adults: A Review - PubMed.

NFHS-6 was conducted in 2023-24. so the fieldwork is complete. Typically, NFHS takes 1-2 years to process and publish results after fieldwork completion. While NFHS-5 (2019-21) collected waist measurements for the first time, the government decided to drop these measurements from NFHS-6

Budget Challenge:

Public health researchers have already raised concerns about inflated costs of NFHS, pointing out that higher budgets have not translated to better quality data. There are also serious issues with field researchers being poorly trained, underpaid and exploited, with violations of labor laws regarding payments, accommodation, and insurance

They’ve only measured

  • Height and weight (for BMI)
  • Blood glucose and hypertension
  • Hepatitis B, C, and HIV (in subsample)

But Lancet Compliance would also need

  • Direct body fat percentage (via BIA or DEXA)
  • Waist-to-height ratio (though this can be calculated from existing data)

This is a major step backward in obesity surveillance in India, right when global standards are moving toward comprehensive body composition assessment. But this is also an opportunity for private players to build scalable solutions.