Newsletter #045: What is the effect of alcohol and common foods on the body? 🍷
Hello Friends!
Welcome to the latest edition of the humanOS newsletter! Here is where we share our work, and the various studies and media that captured our attention this week. 🤓This week, the team returned home from Natural Products Expo West (more about that chaotic fun in the blog). And in the meantime, our programming team has been working some magic behind the scenes to upgrade the humanOS fitness tracking service. To learn more about that, and what it might mean for you, check below. 👇
This Week’s Research Highlights
😪 Blue light exposure may help people overcome morning drowsiness and improve cognitive performance.
Fifteen university students completed two different light conditions. On one day, they underwent an hour of morning light exposure to blue-enriched (6500 K) white light, and in the other session they were exposed to warm (3500 K) white light, both at a standard level of illuminance for classrooms. After the exposure to the blue-enriched lights, the drop in melatonin levels was significantly greater, and the students showed significant improvements in mood and alertness.
🍔 Natural compounds in common foods may help fight Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers randomly assigned mice with Alzheimer’s-like symptoms to combinations of dietary compounds, then put them through a battery of neuropsychological tests. Rodents that were given a combination of epigallocatechin-3-gallate (aka EGCG, a catechin found in green tea) and ferulic acid (a polyphenol found in grains, carrots, and other veggies) for three months experienced a complete restoration of working memory and performed as well as healthy controls in a maze task. Dosage was 30 mg per kg - an amount that is realistically achievable by humans eating a healthy diet or using supplements.
🍷 Alcohol consumption raises the risk of high blood pressure - even in moderate amounts.
Researchers analyzed data from 17059 adults who participated the NHANES study between 1988-1994. Compared to those who never drank, moderate drinkers (defined as 7-13 drinks per week) were 53% more likely to have stage 1 hypertension and twice as likely to have stage 2 hypertension. Heavy drinkers were 69% more likely to have stage 1 hypertension and 2.4 times as likely to have stage 2 hypertension. Overall, the average blood pressure was about 109/67 mm Hg among never-drinkers, 128/79 mm Hg among moderate drinkers, and 153/82 mm Hg among heavy drinkers. Please refer to this article for more information on the complicated relationship between alcohol consumption and long-term health.
😌 A sedentary lifestyle is probably not healthy - even if you are lean.
Researchers analyzed cross-sectional data from adults aged 40-79 in the 2011-2016 NHANES. Individuals at a healthy BMI (18.5-24.9) who exhibited signs of poor fitness (more abdominal fat, shortness of breath upon exertion, relatively high waist circumference, inadequate physical activity) were found to be at similar risk of a cardiovascular event as overweight adults. This, of course, doesn’t mean that body mass is wholly irrelevant - individuals who exhibited signs of fitness and a healthy BMI were significantly less likely than overweight adults to be at high cardiovascular risk.
Videos We Loved This Week
- Denis Noble and Michael J. Joyner: The integration of evolutionary biology with physiological science. Via the Physiological Society.
- Kevin Hall: The Calculus of Calories: Quantitative Obesity Research. Via the National Capital Area Skeptics.
- Richard Wrangham: Fire, Starch, Meat, and Honey. Via CARTA (Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny).
Products We Are Enjoying
Gourmet Garden cold-blended pastes (ginger and lemongrass).
Ginny says: These pastes are super convenient if you don’t have the time or patience to grate and mince fresh ginger or lemongrass (Who does?). The flavor is excellent, especially in curries. They are versatile, keep well in the fridge, and are super easy to find in refrigerated sections at groceries across the country - I have seen them at Target, Safeway, Ralph’s, Kroger, etc. I cannot speak for the quality of their other products, but the ginger and lemongrass pastes are both worthy purchases!
New Feature
New API Upgrade: You may have received an email recently alluding to some changes to the site. We are taking the first steps now toward direct integrations with various fitness tracking devices, which will ultimately enable us to integrate with some awesome new devices to which we presently cannot connect via the old system. This means that in the relative near future, we will be supporting Oura Ring, Apple Watch, GoogleFit, and others! 🙌
Now, in the meantime, this did mean that we had to redo our present device integration architecture. Here’s what this will mean for current users:
- Fitbit Users: Our new Fitbit integration is already complete! If you have a Fitbit device you will need to re-authenticate your connection to humanOS.
- Garmin Users: A direct integration with Garmin is coming second. We should have it set up within the coming weeks.
- Withings Users: We will reconnect the Withings service third.
Don’t worry, we will notify you as we reintegrate with services, so you won’t be kept out of the loop as things change.
In the meantime, we actually have a temporary workaround that lets you connect other devices and services into humanOS (like Apple Watch, for example). To learn how to do this, and learn about other devices with which we intend to integrate in the near future, click here.
Quick Tip: For the best experience please be sure to delete your humanOS cache for your device.
- For IOS devices: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201265
- For Android Devices with Chrome Browser: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en
New humanOS Content
- Blog: Supplement Industry Trends: Natural Products Expo West 2019. By Greg Potter.
This week on the blog, Greg discusses some of our observations from our trip to Natural Products Expo West last week. This is an annual event in Anaheim where nearly 3,000 food, drink, and supplement exhibitors come together to showcase their products for more than 86,000 attendees. We met lots of wonderful people, and tried an absolutely mind-boggling array of different products (I had to skip dinner entirely on at least one night because of the ridiculous number of samples I ate 🤦♀️). As you can imagine, an event of this magnitude can be pretty overwhelming, but in the midst of the chaos, we did manage to glean some common characteristics that united these products and services and noticed some very interesting new ingredients that seem to be popping up. Check the blog for our take on the major trends that are emerging in the food, beverage, and supplement industry.
