⭑ Exercise specifically repairs our brain cells ✔ Recent research All strength to Ukraine 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 Hello,I trust you're well and keeping active. Wow, it's a big week ahead with the presidential election on Tuesday! The world's waiting with bated breath. This week I realised how much I have benefited from being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes 26 years ago when I was 50. It shocked me into starting to exercise regularly, which led to my interest in doing more and keeping it up. Last Tuesday, I was a panellist at an event discussing the role of IT and AI in transforming the electricity grid. It turned out that 3 people I had done business with decades ago were in the audience - one from 1975! I didn’t initially recognise them because of their frailty, and they were each a little hunched over. To be honest, I was a bit taken aback. I realised how fortunate I am. Check item #4 because I am revisiting the YTW exercise, this version with specific techniques that will improve your posture. The USDA just issued guidelines on when and when not to wash your food during preparation. It made me rethink what I have been doing - see Item #3. There's an association between depression and aging, and this shortens people's lives. Research finds a specific diet helps reduce the risk — see Item #2. Exercise doesn't just keep our brain healthy, it repairs it — see Item #1. // 01 How Exercise Repairs Our Brain It sounds just plain simple to understand the benefits of regular exercise as we age. But, of course, it's not about the logic. I know that I *should* do certain things, but I don’t do them, e.g. I should wear hearing aids, but I don’t do it. Medical doctors report that of 100 patients who acknowledge that they need to do something drastic to maintain their health, only 1% take action. Nevertheless, knowing the facts can help tip you across the line into action at those times when you are reflecting on such things. Recently, WebMD noted, " a recent study suggests that certain exercises -- like riding a stationary bicycle -- actually slow cell decline that can happen as you age'. In other words, it’s never too late to reap the benefits of exercise. I searched for this evidence, and what struck me was the benefits for our cognitive health. We know that regular exercise is good for our bodies, and the evidence is clear that exercise improves our brain function positively. Exercise helps our brain's immune cells, called microglia, work more efficiently. As we age, these cells can become less effective, shifting their energy use in a way that contributes to inflammation and cognitive decline. ⇒ Regular exercise reverses this negative change. Exercise improves how microglia process energy and boosts their ability to clear out waste and harmful substances from our brains. This results in better brain health and sharper cognitive function What this means for you: The combination of regular aerobic and strength exercises will give you the best results, e.g., using a stationary cycle combined with weight or bodyweight exercises. If you can only do one type, do the one you will most likely keep doing regularly. Related: As You Age Pistachios Can Help You Sleep Better // 02 This Diet Is Linked To Better Mental Health Research is increasingly shedding light on the relationship between diet and mental health, particularly depression. This is important because depression is associated with increased mortality risk in over 50s, and social isolation is associated with a 29% increased likelihood of mortality. Depression leads to social isolation. Therefore, dietary ways of reducing depression help treat a fundamental cause of reduced longevity. The gut-brain axis is increasingly being found to play a crucial role in how diet influences our moods and mental health. ⇒ A study of 964 elderly participants over 6.5 years found those following the DASH diet had lower rates of depression compared to those eating a typical Western diet. While designed for cardiovascular health, the DASH diet shows promise in reducing depression risk, particularly in older adults. What this means for you: The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, initially developed to lower blood pressure, emphasises:
Here are the MAYO CLINIC DASH Diet suggestions. The beneficial effects of the DASH diet on mental health stem from:
⇒ Key fact: People who consume more fibre have more diverse gut bacteria, which produce various chemicals that influence mood. Related: All Exercise Improves Your Mood - Five Theories Why And Six Steps To Get Started @Medium - Follow me on Medium ↗, covering ⭑food, ⭑brain, ⭑body, ⭑life // 03 Washing Your Raw Chicken? Why You Need To Stop Raw poultry can look slimy, and we naturally think to wash it off - I often do it. However, the USDA recommends cooking to eliminate bacteria. Surprisingly, a recent USDA study found that 60% of people who washed raw poultry had bacteria in their sink, and 26% transferred bacteria to salad lettuce. Apparently, current guidelines stress cooking instead of washing to ensure the safety of all meats. Red meat cannot be cleaned effectively through washing as bacteria hide within muscle fibres; cooking it to at least 65°C ~ 145°F is vital to kill these bacteria. Fish should also not be rinsed - I often do rinse it! - except for shellfish like clams and mussels that need rinsing to remove sand. Eggs and produce like mushrooms and avocados require special care, says the USDA:
What this means for you: Here's a summary, which should help reduce unintentionally spreading bacteria that we are trying to remove by washing:
Related: Skipping Breakfast May Make You More Likely To Develop Diabetes - Research // 04 The Best Way To Do Scapula Retraction Our exercise of the week is the ... AYTW with resistance bands. I introduced the YTW exercise only a few weeks ago. Perhaps that primed me to notice a better version on YouTube - one I feel has so much added value that I want to bring to your attention. The AYTW adds A's (Arms forming letter A) and then arms forming YTW. The differences with the previous YTW version are:
⇒ The overall message is that this method prioritises quality movement and proper muscle activation to enhance your shoulder health and function rather than merely going through the motions or concentrating on arm positions. What this means for you: Here's the drill. Firstly, note the key differences between the "usual" YTW videos and this method:
The video demonstrates everything; it's 3 minutes long: ( 0:23 A 1:07 T 1:36 W 2:10 Y). Related: Holy Mackerel! Researchers Confirm Walnuts Help Your Muscles Stay Stronger Helping Live Longer Thanks for reading! P.S. If you are not yet subscribed to my free exercise app, try now ↓↓↓ Free forever. Opt-out any time. Opt-in by CLICKING HERE PLEASE SEND ME THE EXERCISES. NOTE: YOU ONLY NEED TO SUBSCRIBE ONE TIME. >> My Latest Blog Post: Energise Your Golden Years: Boosting Your Desire to Exercise with Gut-Healthy Foods About the newsletter: Do you think it can be improved? Have a story idea? Want to share about the time you met Chris Hemsworth, or your questions about how to live longer better? Send those thoughts and more to me at walter@bodyagebuster.com '4 Most Valuable' is a weekly newsletter from Walter Adamson. If you like it, please forward to a like-minded soul. Someone forward this to you? You can subscribe from this page. Each of these weekly emails has 4MV in the subject line to help you filter them and search for previous ones. |
"I empower mid-life men and women to make the choice to live as actively and as independently as they can, for as long as they can", Walter Adamson Get access to my weekly research that I don’t share elsewhere. “My wife and I both read your articles each week, and I have to say there is so much confusing data out there, but yours is a great source, well researched, scientific and always relevant.” — Steve Ridgway, subscriber.
⭑ Doing to much too soon will derail your exercise program ✔ Take a step back⭑ Skipping warm-up and cool-down stresses your joints ✔ Allow time⭑ Plateaus are natural, longer when you're older ✔ Learn to love them⭑ Good posture and controlled movements get you the best return on exercise ✔ All strength to Ukraine 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 Hello, I trust you're well and staying active. The newsletter is a different format today, just one item, with 10 hints to avoid mistakes that can reduce your gains...
⭑ Maintaining muscle health is one key to healthspan ✔ Three tips⭑ Inflammaging - what is it and how to tame it ✔ Gets worse as we age⭑ You can track your body's capacity to resolve stress ✔ I find it interesting⭑ Healthier back shoulders and biceps with the dumbbell row ✔ All strength to Ukraine 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 Hello, I trust you're well and keeping active. Summer's here down under. We’ve had some weird nights with the highest temperature for the day at 5 am! Perhaps that's why my...
⭑ These doctors will fact-check your medical queries ✔ For free⭑ How walnuts improve your brain health and your blood pressure ✔ Research⭑ Regular bad dreams? Talk to your doctor about it, here's why ✔⭑ The squat-calf raise combo is a fabulous muscle builder - not difficult ✔ All strength to Ukraine 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 Hello, I trust you're well and keeping active. Ouch! Running for the train last Wednesday I tore my nearly repaired hamstring again - set me back a few months. The irony was that...