Newsletter #82: Home Fitness, Simple Food, and Bright Light 💡
Hello Friends!
Welcome to the latest edition of the humanOS newsletter! 🤓 Here, as always, is where we share our work, plus the various studies and media that caught our attention this week.
This Week’s Research Highlights
🏃 Improving physical fitness, even later in life, can cut your risk of dementia nearly in half.
Researchers linked data on estimated cardiorespiratory fitness and other factors from the prospective Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT) with dementia data from the Health and Memory Study and cause of death registries (n=30375). Cardiorespiratory fitness was estimated on two occasions 10 years apart, on 1984–86 and 1995–97. They found that the risk of developing dementia was 40% lower for those who were among the 80% with the best cardiorespiratory fitness in both the 1980s and 1990s. Better still, it was 48% lower if one had changed from poor to higher fitness levels between the two survey periods. Each increase of 1 MET was associated with a 16% reduced risk of developing dementia.
💊 Prebiotic supplementation may improve cardiometabolic risk factors and reduce formation of advanced glycation end-products in high risk individuals.
Sixty-five female subjects with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to either an intervention group, receiving 10 grams daily of resistant dextrin, or a control group receiving a placebo. Researchers took fasting blood samples at baseline and after the intervention to assess glycemic indices, lipid profile, and markers relevant to AGE formation. They found that resistant dextrin, compared to placebo, induced a significant decrease in cardiometabolic markers, including fasting glucose (− 17.43 mg/dl, 9.80%), triglycerides (− 40.25 mg/dl, 23.01%), TC/HDL (− 0.80, 21.87%), LDL-c/HDL-c (− 0.80, 17.85%), and atherogenic index (− 0.40, 15.80%). Markers relevant to oxidative stress and advanced glycation end products were also affected, including LPS (− 6.5 EU/ml, 23.40%), hs-CRP (− 8.02 ng/ml, 54.00%), malondialdehyde (− 1.21 nmol/mL, 25.58%), carboxymethyl lysine (− 93.40 ng/ml, 26.30%), and 8-iso-PGF2α (− 4.65 pg/ml, 15.00%).
🍷 Regular consumption of red wine vinegar may improve blood sugar metabolism.
Researchers recruited 45 healthy adults deemed to be at elevated risk of metabolic syndrome. Subjects were randomly assigned to either consume red wine vinegar daily or a control treatment for eight weeks. Blood samples and body measurements were collected before and after the intervention. Analysis revealed significant reductions in fasting blood glucose and insulin in the intervention group after the study period. Furthermore, insulin resistance was reduced 8.3% in the red wine vinegar group and increased 9.7% in the control group. No significant changes in body mass or body composition were observed.
New humanOS Content
This week on humanOS Radio, Dan interviewed Aly Orady, founder and CEO of Tonal. Aly’s story is an example of the insidious price of success that so many people pay in the modern world. Aly was excelling professionally, but in the process his health was falling apart. He was overweight, with type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea. And he was only in his mid-thirties. Recognizing the peril that he faced, he quit his job and pivoted to an all-encompassing focus on health and fitness. He embraced strength training and lost 70 pounds in the process.
But one morning at the gym, he realized that this routine was not sustainable. Eventually, he was going to have to return to work, and he would not be able to continue to commit the same amount of time and effort to exercise. As he surveyed the equipment around him, he came up with an idea to remove all of the sources of friction associated with the gym, by consolidating all of the exercises he performed into a single machine. And that inspired him to found Tonal.
Tonal is an elegant, wall-mounted device that employs electromagnetism to simulate and control weig ht, which enables it to replicate the resistance provided by many machines and lifts. Tonal can deliver 200 pounds of resistance in a device smaller than a flatscreen TV, without having to drive to a gym, rack weights, or even change into workout gear. Better still, it can remove all of the usual guesswork involved with choosing exercises and planning programs. Tonal offers hundreds of guided workouts, presented via a 24” interactive display, and tracks your progress over time. To learn more about Tonal, and about the future of home exercise training, check out the interview!
Podcasts We Loved This Week
- Dave Rabin: How psychedelics and wearable devices can help improve people’s lives. Via STEM-Talk.
- Robin Tucker: Impact of sleep on taste perception, cravings, and food reward. Via Sigma Nutrition Radio.
Products We Are Enjoying
GEZEE 10W Edison Style Vintage LED Filament Light Bulb.
Exposure to bright light (especially short wavelengths) during the day promotes alertness, cognition, and other benefits. ☀️ One study found that people who were exposed to more sunlight during their work day were more physically active and got an additional 46 minutes of sleep per night. But intense full spectrum light is obviously pretty hard to come by this time of year, when days are short, chilly, and often overcast. 😭 That is why these bulbs are a nice addition to the office or wherever you spend your time during the day. They are super bright (1000 lumens), emit a white light akin to sunlight (6000K), and the bulbs themselves even have a slick retro design. Just make sure not to use them at night, or for taking selfies (that cool bluish-white is not especially flattering).
humanOS Catalog Feature of the Week
Want to watch this course with us this week? First lesson is just a little over 40 seconds long, and should give you a quick sense for the style of the course. Not yet a Pro user of humanOS? No sweat, this initial module is available for everyone, so go ahead and check it out.