Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/

You’re here because you want to get the lowdown on rice.

Perhaps you’re wondering: Is eating rice healthy? Does it really matter if we eat white or brown?

Well my friend, you’ve come to the right place!

We provide nutritional guidance as part of our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and we know a thing or two on when and how to serve rice.

Should you be eating rice? If so, how much? Let us help you decide!

Here’s what we’ll cover to answer the question, “Should I be eating rice?”

• Is rice healthy for me?
• Is rice fattening?
• What’s the difference between brown rice and white rice?
• White Rice vs Brown Rice: Our Recommendation
• Should I worry about arsenic in rice? Does eating rice cause diabetes?
• When to eat rice (Next steps)

Let’s jump right in!

Is Rice Healthy For Me?

Depending on how you want to feel about rice, you can point to either of the following studies:

People that live in Okinawa (home to Mr. Miyagi!), with the highest life expectancy on the planet, eat a lot of rice.^[1] Rice HAS to be good for you then. Team Rice!

People of the Marshall Islands, home to one of the highest rates of Type 2 diabetes on the planet, eat a lot of rice.^[2] Rice is the devil! Team No Rice!

Feel free to pick one of the above studies to show that you’re right and superior compared to the other team. It’s like opposing political parties (rice vs no rice) that staunchly follow party lines.

Now, if you haven’t made up your mind on rice (you’re an independent!), or you’ve been avoiding it because you’ve gone Paleo, keep reading. Or maybe you’re up for, gasp, changing parties!

Let’s dig into this election! Feel free to listen to “Hail to the Chief (but just the part you know)” while reading the rest of this.

Rice is technically a seed of the grass species. It comes in many varieties, it’s a grain that doesn’t contain gluten (unlike some other grains), and its macronutrient breakdown is generally something like (in 1 cup of cooked rice):

• 200ish calories
• 0-1 gram of fat
• 45ish g of carbohydrates
• 4-5 grams of protein

Now, depending on how you currently view your diet, you might have a few key thoughts looking at that list above. “45 grams of carbs! That’s bad! Carbs are bad because I read it somewhere! Rice? Ah!”

The reality is this: carbs are neither inherently good nor bad. Kind of like The Force in Star Wars; the Force can be used for good or evil purposes, but it’s inherently neutral: quantity and quality matter.

Rice can be part of a bad (unhealthy) or good (healthy) diet completely dependent upon your goals and lifestyle:

• Are you in the process of building muscle and getting bigger? Rice is a cheap source of high calorie, high-carbohydrate food, easily digestible and helpful in running a caloric surplus.
• Trying to lose weight? You might be trying to lose weight and find that eating a lot of rice is putting you over your calorie and carb goals for the day, so you may choose to eat less or avoid the food entirely.

Let’s chat about that last point a little bit more.

Is Rice Fattening?

At the end of the day, consuming more calories than you burn will add weight to your frame in the long term, and vice versa.

This is Food Science 101, and it will be on your midterm exam.

Here’s the thing: there’s nothing special about rice that will make you fat. It will contribute to your total daily calories just like any other food.

However, we should address this: rice is easy to overeat if you don’t understand portion sizes. 

Carbohydrates like potatoes, bread, and rice are often overconsumed which can lead to extra calories consumed without realizing it. 

It’s a point we strike hard in our Guide to Healthy Eating. That’s why understanding portion sizes is everything when it comes to carbohydrates like rice.

Here are some images to help you learn proper portion sizes (thanks to SafeFood):

Again, that cup of rice would be about 200 calories.

Another good indicator of portion size would be your hands, as demonstrated by our friendly neighborhood web-slinger:

The morale of this section: whether or not eating rice is fattening depends on how much you eat.

In fact, this is true with just about any food you consume, unless you’re hanging out in Neverland:

If you’ve been having trouble losing weight, analyze your servings of carbs. With our coaching clients, it’s often the case that those who are having trouble losing weight are eating more than they realize. 

A Nerd Fitness Coach can guide your weight loss! Learn more here.

There’s obviously a lot more to healthy eating than overall calorie count (quality and type of calories are important too). That may lead us to another question you have…

What’s the Difference Between Brown Rice and White Rice?

“Does getting white rice at Chipotle instead of brown rice make me a bad person? Everybody tells me brown rice is better!”

There’s a prevailing thought in society that eating the brown option of a certain food is better than the white option:

• Wheat bread instead of white bread
• Whole wheat pasta instead of regular pasta
• Brown rice instead of white rice

Like many things, this sentiment has been oversimplified to the point of being unhelpful. What you really want to know is this:

If this was a rice presidential election – a Rice-idential election, if you will, who should I vote for?

Let’s start here: what makes white rice white and brown rice brown, other than color? It all depends on the milling process. You can see here highlighted by Riceland, which is less fun than Disneyland but probably safer than Zombieland:

In milling, brown rice loses only a bit of the top layer above; the non-edible hull goes, but the bran, and germ remain. White rice removes it all; the hull, awn, bran and berm are all gone, leaving behind the endosperm.

So let’s take a look at our two candidates for the Rice-idency: On one side of the ballot, we have 1 cup of Enriched White Rice:

On the other side we have 1 cup of Brown Rice.

They both are running on the platform of “Make carbs great again!” but they have some distinguishing characteristics that make their campaigns slightly different.

Here’s how cooked white rice and brown rice compare:

• Brown rice has 43 more calories per cup than white rice.
• Brown rice has 7g more carbohydrates per cup than white rice.
• Brown rice has more micronutrients: magnesium (79mg vs 19mg), more phosphorus (208mg vs 68gm), and more potassium (174mg vs 55). It also has a lot of manganese, selenium, and copper.
• Brown rice has a lower glycemic index than white rice, meaning it is broken down by your body slower – and causes a lower insulin response.

Now, you’re looking at those things above and probably thinking: “Okay so brown rice has more calories and carbs, that’s bad and I don’t want to vote for that candidate! Wait, it has more micronutrients, and a lower glycemic index. I think that’s good and I should vote for that candidate.”

And then your head explodes.

Like any election, there are positives and negatives to either candidate, and as you’ll see soon enough – neither one is an angel. In this election, the differences in nutritional terms are negligible from the highest macro-level (aka the big policy points). So from a purely caloric and macro-nutrition standpoint, we recommend simply letting your tastebuds decide if you choose to vote:

• If you like the taste of brown rice more than white rice, eat that.
• If you like the taste of white rice more than brown rice, eat that.

That’s the simplified way of looking at it. If one digs into the nitty-gritty of both campaigns, we’ll discover that there’s more than meets the eye.

Like Transformers.

Speaking of rice and all of this good stuff, we’ve built a 10-level Nutritional System that you can follow along with for free – it’ll help you level up your nutrition slowly over time so you can lose weight permanently without driving yourself crazy! You can get our free guide along with a bunch of others when you sign up in the box below!

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White vs Brown Rice: Our Recommendation

For those wanting to nerd out, welcome to the full coverage of the upcoming Rice-idential elections!

Our candidate Brown Rice is running on a platform of more micronutrients for every citizen, something White Rice can’t claim.

However, like any campaign, the whole truth isn’t being represented.

In fact, my research led me to believe that there are two key problems with Brown Rice that keep me from casting my vote for Brown.

You see, brown rice contains something called Phytate, an anti-nutrient that minimizes our body’s ability to absorb the beneficial nutrients. ^[3] Phytate (phytic acid) is found in most seeds, legumes, nuts, and grains…including rice.

Phytic acid is contained in the part that’s removed from white rice. So brown rice has it, and white rice doesn’t.

This is when White Rice comes in to say “I don’t have any of this stuff, vote for me!”

On top of that, because White Rice is enriched, it closes a lot of the gap between micronutrients, and because there are no phytates around, these nutrients can be fully absorbed by the body. ^[4] In the end, White Rice has a pretty good argument that it’s stronger on the “micronutrient issue.”

As this study over in PubMed explains, results show that “despite higher nutrients contents of brown rice compared to white rice, experimental data does not provide evidence that the brown rice diet is better than the diet based on white rice.” ^[5]

Or, as Alan Argon summarizes:

“White rice actually has an equal or better nutritional yield & also has a better nitrogen-retentive effect than brown rice. This is because the fiber & phytate content of brown rice act as antinutrients, reducing the bioavailability of the micronutrients it contains.”

So, does this mean we should proudly cast our ballot for White Rice?

In our hours and hours of research, chats, hangouts, and debates that went into creating this article, we stumbled across some troubling news for both candidates’ campaigns for the Rice-idency: a history of arsenic and a possible diabetes scandal!

(feel free to audibly gasp at this point; we encourage it)

Should I Worry About Arsenic in Rice? Does Eating Rice Cause Diabetes?

We head out to the debate in which the candidates are fielding questions from regular folks (with totally not staged questions).

Mike, a retired teacher and single parent from Vermont asks, “I heard about rice and arsenic – should I be concerned?”

Arsenic is a metalloid, and extremely small qualities of “organic arsenic” is essential as a dietary element. However, inorganic arsenic (from rocks and soil) is a different thing – and this is the stuff that causes poisoning in large enough quantities. Typically we’re only concerned with this if the exposure is a lot over a short term, or a little over a long term. ^[6] So with rice, it starts to become more and more relevant if you are eating rice “every day for years and years.”

The catch is, for millions around the globe, this situation is a reality.

In the long term, taking in too much (inorganic) arsenic has been linked to all sorts of problems: cancer, ^[7] vascular disease,^[8] high blood pressure,^[9] heart disease,^[10] and diabetes.^[11] In short, over time (if we’re consuming moderate amounts regularly), arsenic can act like a slow poison to our bodies.

AND here comes White Rice to respond with a vicious attack:

“Consumer Reports found that Brown Rice has 80% more arsenic on average than white rice of the same type!”^[12]

Our moderators are telling us this is a crucial turning point towards a White Rice victory.

(There are all sorts of differences in arsenic amounts among brands, types of grains, and even how you prepare your food. If this is important to you, be sure to click on over and read more.)

Suzy, a happily-married steel-worker from Ohio asks, “What about diabetes, I heard that is an issue with rice!”

It’s here that Brown Rice steps up and starts slinging some mud as well. The candidate proudly proclaims, “ignore that negative nonsense about my arsenic count, White Rice gives you diabetes! ISN’T THAT RIGHT WHITE RICE!?”

A meta analysis found that “higher white rice intake is associated with a significantly elevated risk of type 2 diabetes, especially among Asian populations… In addition, the dose-response relations indicate that even for Western populations with typically low intake levels, relatively high white rice consumption may still modestly increase risk of diabetes.”^[13]

Now if you’re watching this debate at home, you’re probably asking,” I’m in the ‘at risk for type-2 diabetes’ group, would swapping out white rice for brown rice improve my future?”

Researchers found in an observational study that people who consumed five or more servings of white rice per week had a 17% increased risk of diabetes, compared to people who ate less than one serving per month.^[14] But eating two or more servings of brown rice per week was associated with an 11% reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes, compared to eating less than one serving of brown rice per month. Fitness Skeptics, be sure to look closely at this one.

Either way, in true election fashion, we now have two imperfect candidates.

So, who the heck do you vote for!?

When to Eat Rice (Next Steps)

This is Steve Kamb, reporting live from Nerd Fitness News, and we feel confident enough to make our endorsement in the Race for the Rice-idency.

This campaign has been ugly as hell; both candidates are running on a very similar “Rice is great” platform, which we have no problem with (in moderation).

Let’s break it down for voters out there:

Again, our official recommendation is to vote for whatever candidate you think tastes better (okay, our metaphor might be breaking down at this point). But for those of you at home who want to make the most informed decision as possible or are concerned about a specific health issue, here’s our detailed recap:

Here’s our official recommendation:

• Rice can be a healthy part of a diet, but it’s the rest of it that will determine if you’re healthy or not. Plus, rice is great if you’re really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something. Boom. Hat-trick! (Thanks Steven!)
• Not eating rice is fine too, provided you’re eating some sort of healthy starch/carb source (we love veggies!).
• We feel that for most people, you should pick what you like best and eat it. Done! If we had to pick one generalization in our nerdy, non-doctor opinion, we would guestimate that white rice is (only slightly) better option for most people, due to the phytate and arsenic levels in brown rice.
• If you are eating lots of rice or other arsenic-containing foods regularly over a long period of time, consider white rice, looking at specific brands, and preparation methods to mitigate these risks.
• If you are struggling with weight and or a sedentary lifestyle and thus concerned with diabetes, consider brown rice in moderation over other unhealthy foods. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re being healthy by eating buckets of brown rice though. Clyde Wilson, Ph.D, a nutrition professor in the Stanford University and University of California, San Francisco schools of medicine, puts it succinctly: “The reality is that eating too much of any carbohydrate, including brown rice, can lead to diabetes.” ^[15]

No matter what candidate you vote for, we urge you not to get WHITE RICE or BROWN RICE tattooed on your forehead, giving yourself a green light to eat 1,000s of calories of it (rice, fruit, anything!). Moderation, as always, is a boring lesson that we urge voters to be mindful of.

TL;DR #50 – Eat rice in moderation if you choose to eat it. If you are bulking up intentionally, rice can be a great part of your diet. Trying to lose weight? Consider minimizing rice consumption. If you’re gonna eat rice regularly, white rice is probably healthy for you in the long run. If you are a type-2 diabetic (or at risk), minimize consumption of grains and carbs, but IF you do eat rice, go for brown rice.

Tune in after this commercial break where we’ll answer the question: is the monster under your bed trying to kill you? The answer may shock you!

Still tuned in?

Amazing!

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Now, I want to hear from you!

Do you regularly eat rice?

Did you vote for White Rice or Brown Rice?

Any awesome tips or recipes you can share?

Let me know in the comments!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Chipotle!

-Steve

PS: If you want to get the lowdown on other types of food (potatoes, fruit, dairy), then make sure you check out The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating. 

It has Winne the Pooh and Deadpool in it! 

That’s how we roll around these parts.

###

Gif: Luke Skywalker, Kramer, Simpsons, Ballot Box, Will Smith, Hook, Rice Dinner.

photo: White Rice, Brown Rice, Laughing Buddha, Colin Kinner: Question Mark, Arria Belli: Brown Rice, Al Case: Rice Field

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It can be uncomfortable and frustrating when it happens, but could it also be more than a nuisance – perhaps a sign of a more serious health condition? It’s likely that you have experienced tingling or numbness in your lips before, but what does it mean? Read on to find out. Where do sensations come […]

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Research of the Week

Eating peanuts before one year of age may protect against peanut allergy.

High levels of de novo lipogenesis-derived fatty acids linked to heart disease.

Oyster farming is environmentally congruent.

Fat cats.

Given ad libitum access to food, dogs prioritize fat and protein over carbs.

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Episode 391: Martin Silva: Host Elle Russ chats with Martin Silva, a coach who’s been training and body sculpting since age 13 and today helps people discover their health, fitness, and optimal body composition.

Primal Health Coach Radio, Episode 36: Laura and Erin chat with Niraj Naik about using breathwork to restore and strengthen your default state.

Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.

Media, Schmedia

Why are younger Americans dying?

Should obese people hibernate through winter?

Interesting Blog Posts

The case for Epicureanism.

How controlled burns might beat back tick infestations.

Social Notes

This is athleticism.

Why Thanksgiving is the most Primal holiday.

Everything Else

Paleolithic hunters in Mexico lured mammoths into traps.

Ancient foragers in Puerto Rico barbecued clams.

This is athleticism.

A classic video from Kelly Starrett: Conquering the load order error in the deadlift.

Things I’m Up to and Interested In

Exclusive interview I did: With Dave Asprey. Just order a copy of his book and submit the receipt for access.

They’re just now realizing this?: Prevention of cavities is more effective than treating cavities.

Marathon variety I can get behind: The one where you run one mile every hour.

I’m not surprised: Adhering to indigenous cultural traditions helps indigenous children’s outcomes.

This is a powerful story: 82-year-old female bodybuilder beats up home invader.

Question I’m Asking

Why aren’t you giving up coffee in favor of sunning your perineum?

Recipe Corner

• Crispy roast potatoes: if you’re going to eat potatoes, make them as crispy as can be.
• Low-carb (relatively) sweet potato pumpkin pie.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Nov 23– Nov 29)

• An Amazing Development for the Primal Movement – The big news from a year ago.
• Why an “Ab Routine” Isn’t Necessary (and What I Do Instead)– My paddling habit.

Comment of the Week

“It’s absolutely a combination. It takes individual action, but it also takes creating an environment. I hear you on the cookies. For most of my life I couldn’t resist eating sugar. What worked was keeping it out of the house. If it wasn’t there, I couldn’t eat it. Testing my willpower by having it in the house never worked. Changing my environment so that sugar wasn’t easily available is what did the trick.

And that’s what I’m suggesting as the environmental strategy for society at large. Make it more expensive. Make it harder to find. Make it socially unacceptable. It may be that addicted individuals can’t or won’t quit. But there will be fewer new ones to start. We didn’t rely on individual willpower to reduce smoking — and we had 350 years of experience to show that didn’t work — but changing the environment has worked pretty well.”

– The problem is that the people with the (dubious) power to change society from the top down don’t believe in our solutions, Mark E. Field.

The post Weekly Link Love — Edition 57 appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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Nutrition has far-reaching impacts on the body and mind. Find out how the connection between nutrition and mental health and how a personalized, ancestral approach to food can help you restore your health.

The post Nutrition and Mental Health: What’s the Connection? appeared first on Chris Kresser.

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Most likely, toenail fungus isn’t high on your list of health concerns. You are probably more worried about severe, life-altering conditions such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, which is understandable. However, small, everyday issues can build up and impact your life in surprising ways. One of those issues is toenail fungus, a painless (at […]

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Per Primal tradition, the bees and I are off for the day.

I’ve said before that I consider Thanksgiving to be the most Primal of holidays. The elevated act of preparing and sharing a traditional meal is about as basic—and sacred—as human ceremony gets. It’s like gathering around a fire together. We bask in the comfort of ritual and cycle this time of year. We offer thanks for the year’s blessings.

Each year I say it, and each year I’m filled with the truth of it: I look to this community with heartfelt gratitude. Thank you for reading, for sharing, for contributing. Thank you for carrying the message of health and for supporting each other here.

Today I wish each of you the very best—of health and happiness. However you’re celebrating today, enjoy your holiday, everyone.

The post Happy Thanksgiving appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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Many people get to age 60 or so and, if they haven’t lived a healthy, active life up to that point, assume it’s too late for them. After all, things only get harder the older you get. You’ve got aches and pains. Your doc is always reminding you about your weight. Things creak and crack. You look wistfully at the gym you pass by every day, thinking to yourself, “It would never work.”

At least, that’s how most people deal with getting old: they lament their “inability” to do anything about it as oblivion approaches and overtakes them.

Forget all that. While you can’t turn back the chronological clock, you can “de-age” yourself by engaging in the right diet, exercise, and lifestyle modifications. So—how?

Realize That It’s Never Too Late

The scientific literature is rife with examples of older individuals making changes to their lifestyle, diet, and exercise and seeing great results.

How about 68-year-olds still getting gains from strength training?

Older women switching to high-fatty-meat or high-cheese diets and enjoying better heart health.

Verifiable examples (or “anecdotes”) from people online are also available. Like PD Mangan, who went from this to this. That’s not impossible, or even difficult to achieve. What you need is the will and means and know-how—all freely available.

Know that it’s possible. Know that it’s probable. Know that your efforts will not be in vain.

Realize That It’s Your Fault—And Even If It’s Not, It’s Your Responsibility

I don’t care where you fall on the belief spectrum. It could be that “your body is a temple ordained by God and you’d be remiss to let it fall to ruin and in doing so fail your creator.” It could be that “your body was the work of hundreds of generations of ancestors who fought and suffered and scrounged and died to ensure you’d make it and to fail to maintain your health is a huge insult to their sacrifices.” It could be that “your body is the product of millions and billions of years of evolution through natural selection, a chance byproduct of a process that probability says shouldn’t have even happened, and you’re going to waste it?”

However you approach it, what matters is that you have a remarkable body (and mind) that deserves your attention, care, maintenance and nourishment. Only you can do anything about it. Maybe you were fed bad food as a kid and bad info as an adult (this is most people). Doesn’t matter. You still have to own it and take the steps necessary to improve your condition. Responsibility means ability to respond. Claim it.

Eat More Protein

If you’re over 50, you need more protein than you think.

If you’re over 50, your ability to utilize protein isn’t as good as it used to be.

If you’re over 50, you need more protein to do the same job as a person 25 years younger.

If you’re over 65, the supposed negative relationship between meat and mortality the “experts” are always crowing about reverses, magically becoming a positive relationship.

And if one of your issues is trouble losing body fat, more protein will also help you beat back exaggerated hunger and keep food intake low enough to lose weight. Many people in the ancestral community don’t like acknowledging this, but it’s true for a great many people: protein is the most satiating macronutrient.

Moreover, protein will help you lose body fat and retain (and even gain) the all-important lean muscle mass. Losing muscle when you’re over 50 is harder and harder to recover from.

The only catch is that if one of your “aging-related maladies” is kidney failure, you may have to slow things down and keep your protein intake low to moderate. Emphasis on “may.” Check with your doctor if that’s the case.

Get As Insulin Sensitive As You Can

The relationship between insulin signaling and aging is a bit unclear. What we know is that people with higher insulin sensitivity live longer and healthier lives. We know that insulin resistance is strongly linked to most degenerative diseases, like cancer, diabetes, sarcopenia, and osteoporosis (to name only a few). But researchers are always oscillating between “cause” and “effect.” Is insulin resistance a cause or a sign of aging? Are insulin sensitive people healthier into old age because they’re insulin sensitive, or are they insulin sensitive because they’re healthier?

I’m not sure it really matters. Either way, to become more insulin sensitive you have to do a bunch of things that will also make you healthier and age better like lifting weights, quitting overeating, taking more walks, doing more low level aerobic work, and regulating your carb intake.

I’ve always said that you should burn as little glucose as possible. The more you can rely on stored body fat for energy and daily maintenance, the better. Well, the more insulin sensitive you are, the less insulin you’ll have blunting your ability to liberate stored body fat, the more fat you’ll burn and the better you’ll age.

Walk Every Day

One of my favorite predictors of mortality in older people is walking speed: they ask people to walk at their normal speed and then track how fast they go. The slower the walk, the higher their risk of dying earlier. It’s my favorite because it’s so elegant. And no, actively forcing yourself to walk more briskly when you get tested won’t increase your longevity. But if you get up and walk every single day, walking will be second nature. Your walking speed will increase naturally, and it’s the natural increase in walking speed that presages a longer, healthier life.

Walking will also force you to get out and see and experience the world. It’ll lower your fasting blood glucose and postprandial blood glucose (hint: walk after meals). It will introduce novelty to your life and in doing so extend your time horizon.

Eat Tons Of Collagen

Collagen improves skin health, elasticity, and reduces wrinkling. This might sound superficial, but altering those “surface level” signs of aging indicates that you’re also modifying the internal aging markers.

Another reason to up your collagen intake is to balance out the meat you’re eating. As an older person, you’ll need to eat more meat to counter your suboptimal protein utilization. That means you need to process more methionine, which requires more glycine, which comes from collagen.

The easiest way to get collagen and hit a few birds with one stone is to eat lots of collagenous meats—shanks, skin, knuckles, oxtails, ears, snouts, feet, tendons. That way you get your muscle meat protein and collagen protein. Collagen protein powder is another option.

Lift Heavy Things To Build Your Musculoskeletal System

Exercise isn’t just good for your muscles and your heart. It’s also the only reliable way to build and maintain bone mineral density. But in order for exercise to improve bone mineral density, it must satisfy several requirements. It should be dynamic, not static. It needs to challenge you. It needs to challenge your muscles. In other words, you need to lift (relatively) heavy things. You need to progress in weight, intensity, and duration. It should be “relatively brief but intermittent.” No long drawn-out sessions that do nothing but overwork and overtrain you. Keep it short and intense. Also, the exercise should place an unusual loading pattern on the bones. That could be different movements, or increased resistance, as long as you’re introducing something “new” to the body; don’t just do the same old weights forever. Finally, for exercise to improve bone mineral density it must be supported by sufficient nutrition, especially calcium, vitamin D, sufficient protein, and vitamin K2.

Develop Your Balance Yesterday

The number one cause of death and degeneration after age 70 is falling and breaking something. You step out of the shower, slip, and break a hip, then never recover. You step off a curb and fall on your knee, breaking your femur, and never recover. Avoid this at all costs. Improve your balance as soon as possible.

Get a slackline: Keep it low to the ground, have a partner to help, or use something like a walking stick to support you. Focus on simply balancing rather than trying to walk.

Try standup paddling: Not only is it a great workout and a great time, paddling forces you to balance—constantly. And as long as you can swim, falling is totally safe.

Walk on uneven surfaces (carefully): Go for hikes, walk in the sand or in the grass, walk along cobblestone streets, walk on slopes.

Walk along curbs (very carefully).

Wear footwear that is as minimalist as you can handle (or just go barefoot if you’re up for it): The bottom of the foot is loaded with nerve endings that inform you and guide your balance as you make your way through the world. They help you subconsciously make those micro-adjustments to your posture and body position that make up “good balance.” A big clunky rubber sole blocks that out and cuts you off from your body.

Play Every Day

They say that when you stop moving, you start dying. I say when you stop playing, you start dying. We see this in dogs; once a dog no longer wants to play, chase the ball, roughhouse, or do the things he or she used to love doing, they’re on the way out. I firmly believe the same is true for people—just spread out across a longer timeline.

So have fun. Play sports. Try Ultimate Frisbee (my favorite).

Don’t forget about the mental games. Game nights. Crosswords in the morning (that’s what I do). Play cards. Do a weekly poker night with friends and make it a potluck.

What I’m not saying is that doing the crossword will stave off Alzheimer’s or make you smarter. What it will do is send the message to your brain and body that “this person hasn’t given up.” Ideally, your physical play will train your muscles, bones, and balance—that way you can satisfy all those requirements and have fun doing it.

Don’t Do It Alone

If you’re an older person reading this and actually preparing to make the changes necessary to be healthy and vigorous, you are a rare bird. Most of your peers have given up. Most have resigned themselves to being less healthy and less vigorous with every passing day. Don’t let that happen. Enlist a friend, a loved one, a peer. Not only will it give you another person to play, train, and walk with, but it will help you stay the course and enjoy doing it. It will also save another person—or at least give them the best chance they’ve got.

Those are the big tips. There are others, though. And for anyone interested in better health and longevity and more life in the years you have, Keto for Life, offers more information than I could fit here. All the points I covered today and many more are fleshed out and expanded upon twenty-fold.

But if you just focused on these 10 tips, you’d be pretty far along on your way to health (no matter what age you are).

That’s it for today, folks. Take care, drop your own tips down below, and have a great Thanksgiving!

The post Late To the Healthy Living Game? 10 Essential Tips Making the Transition to Better Health appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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As we covered in Parts I and II of this series, during perimenopause and menopause women can experience a complex web of physical, psychological, and social symptoms.

The treatment usually prescribed by doctors, hormone therapy (HT), is controversial and not appropriate for some women. I won’t get into the HT debate here—Mark did a great job covering the pros and cons recently. Suffice it to say that HT isn’t the answer for everyone, and it’s not a panacea by any means.

Whether or not they choose to go the HT route, many women desire additional support during perimenopause and beyond. For the sake of keeping this post from becoming a novella, I’m going to focus on mind-body therapies today.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of nonhormonal options, nor is it meant to try to dissuade you from trying HT. That’s a decision you have to make for yourself with your doctor. The approaches below can be used alone or in combination with other modalities, including HT.

As with any medical-adjacent tools, if you are considering any of the options here, take the time to educate yourself, talk to your doctor, and find qualified practitioners to help you implement these practices.

A Note Regarding Research Evidence…

Because so many women are interested in complementary or alternative approaches, there’s a fair amount of research into nonhormonal treatments. There are also important limitations.

A lot of the randomized control trials—experiments that are best for establishing causal effects—are small. There is considerable variability in research design, so it’s difficult to generalize across studies.

Participants in these studies tend to be white and well-educated. Since there are cross-cultural differences in the experience of menopause, we shouldn’t assume that the findings apply to all women. Likewise, a lot of the research focuses on women with a history of breast cancer because HT is generally contraindicated in this population. While the results of these studies probably generalize to other women, it would be great to have more data.

Finally, vasomotor symptoms—hot flushes and night sweats—are studied more than other types of symptoms. Though they are the most common complaint, many women do not experience debilitating vasomotor symptoms. They might, however, experience mood fluctuations, depression, sexual issues, memory problems, and more. We know less about how these approaches might help those women.

Nevertheless, I’ll highlight some of the potentially fruitful avenues you might explore. When possible, I’ll focus on systematic reviews and meta-analyses. They pool the results of multiple smaller studies to help a more reliable picture emerge.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

In CBT, individuals are encouraged to explore how their thoughts (cognitions) affect feelings, behaviors, and physical symptoms. With help, they change their thoughts or beliefs about a situation to help manage their responses and improve coping skills.

Although there isn’t a ton of research on CBT for menopause, available studies are very promising. Whether or not CBT reduces the actual number of hot flushes—and the data here are mixed—CBT should work by changing women’s perceptions of their hot flushes. Multiple studies do find that after CBT women view their hot flushes as interfering less with daily life. As expected, they are also less bothered by them.

Women who see themselves as having less control over their hot flushes also tend to experience more distress. Changing their perceived control could be an effective intervention for improving quality of life. Indeed, in one study, 95 women received either group-based or self-help CBT. After therapy they reported feeling greater control over hot flushes and having better coping skills compared to women in a no-CBT control condition. Further analyses showed that women’s beliefs about control and coping predicted how problematic they found their hot flushes to be. (Having more positive beliefs about how hot flushes affect sleep also helped.)

Women who participated in CBT also experienced fewer sleep issues and insomnia as well as fewer depressive symptoms and sexual concerns.  They also noticed less impairment at work. Positive results were found with in-person therapy, self-help programs, and telephone-based therapy. When studies included a follow-up assessment, the beneficial effects of CBT persisted for at least six months.

Mindfulness, Meditation and Relaxation Training

A cross-sectional study of 1744 women found that women with higher scores on a mindfulness assessment tended to report less severe menopausal symptoms. For women with higher life stress, this association was especially strong. The idea here is that when women are able to be present-focused and observe their symptoms without judgment, they are protected against some of the distress, and possibly the physical symptoms, associated with menopause.

Although some of the women in that survey are probably mindful by nature—lucky them—mindfulness is also a skill that can be learned and cultivated. Among the many reasons to do so, mindfulness and meditation training can apparently lessen menopausal symptoms.

For example, researchers assigned 110 women to either an intensive eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program or a control group. The women who received mindfulness training reported having less bothersome hot flushes, better sleep quality, less anxiety and stress, and greater overall quality of life compared to the control group. When the researchers followed participants over the next 11 weeks, these results persisted or became even stronger.

A few other studies found that women who receive mindfulness or meditation training report fewer and less bothersome hot flushes, improved sleep, and better psychological functioning, though the results have not consistently endured over time. However, when looking at more general relaxation training and paced breathing techniques, effects are minimal, at least for hot flushes.

Yoga

An ethnographic study of nine female yogi masters concluded that they tend to skate fairly easily through menopause. The authors concluded that menopausal women should be encouraged to practice yoga. Of course, in addition to yoga, these yogi masters’ lifestyles included “healthy food habits, adequate sleep, and the use of nature cure techniques (i.e., fasting, detoxification, selection of suitable food products, and living in well-ventilated houses) that facilitated the art of living in tune with nature.” This sounds pretty great, but can we give really yoga all the credit here?

Probably not. However, two recent meta-analyses did conclude that yoga offers small but significant relief from symptoms of all types: vasomotor, psychological (including depression), somatic (including fatigue and sleep disturbances), and urogenital. Women also report better overall well-being and quality of life after receiving yoga training.

In one study, a group of breast cancer survivors received twelve weeks of yoga and meditation instruction, and they were encouraged to practice daily at home. Compared to women in a control group (no instruction), they reported fewer symptoms and improved quality of life at the end of the twelve weeks and again when asked three months later. A later analysis found that many of the effects were mediated by improved self-esteem in the yoga group.

Note that most of the individual studies are small, and they employ different types of yoga practices. This might be considered a strength insofar as different practices have been shown to work, or a weakness in that it’s not clear if one approach is particularly effective.

Exercise

Cross-cultural surveys find that women who are more active tend to have an easier time with menopause. For example, two large surveys of Swedish women found that women who exercised at least once per week reported less intrusive symptoms than women who never exercised, and women who exercised more than three hours per week were significantly less likely to experience severe symptoms than their less active counterparts. Sedentary women in this Finnish study experienced more vasomotor, psychological, and somatic/pain symptoms than women who were at least somewhat active.

While promising, experimental studies have not yielded such favorable results. When women were assigned to “physical activity” conditions (often walking), some studies report improvements, but others find no improvements or even worsening symptoms (perhaps depending on women’s baseline fitness). Multiple reviews have concluded that there is no systematic effect of exercise, particularly not for vasomotor symptoms.

Does that mean menopausal women shouldn’t exercise? Obviously no. It’s clear that being active—or at least not being sedentary—is important for overall health, and it probably helps menopausal women through the transition. However, there isn’t enough research to know what types of exercise are most effective and when. Do the types of movement you enjoy and that make your body feel good.

Acupuncture

A recent review concluded that acupuncture is effective for reducing vasomotor symptoms, both frequency and severity, as well as for improving quality of life. However, the reviewers also found that acupuncture was not reliably better than sham acupuncture where needles are inserted at points other than the prescribed pressure points and at a shallower depth—a placebo condition.

Hypnosis

A handful of studies have shown that clinical hypnosis can reduce hot flush frequency and distress among breast cancer patients. Another study of 187 women without breast cancer found that women who received hypnotherapy had fewer, less severe, and less bothersome hot flashes, as well as improved sleep. These results were evident at the end of the five-week treatment protocol, and they remained or got stronger in the six-week follow-up period.

The Experts Weigh In…

In 2015, the North American Menopause Society released a position statement on nonhormonal management of vasomotor symptoms. Of the approaches discussed here, the only ones NAMS recommended based on the strength of the available evidence were CBT and hypnosis. Mindfulness-based stress reduction earned a “recommend with caution,” which means, “We think it might work, but the evidence isn’t conclusive.”

The others—yoga, exercise, relaxation and paced breathing techniques, and acupuncture—were not recommended. This does not mean they are not worth trying! It simply means that based on their standards, the evidence was not strong enough for the committee to conclude that they are likely to be effective treatments for vasomotor symptoms specifically. This says nothing about other types of symptoms, nor about general well-being or quality of life.

Mind-Body Therapy Pros and Cons

So where does this leave us? Each of these therapies shows promise for alleviating at least some symptoms of menopause. Moreover, all these therapies have the potential to improve overall quality of life, sleep, stress, and general health. While reading these studies, I did wonder whether some of the women felt better simply because they were investing time and energy in taking care of themselves. If so, is that a problem? I don’t think so. They are low-risk interventions with a lot of potential upside.

That said, these aren’t quick solutions. The effective mindfulness/mediation trainings included six to eight weeks of classes and multiple hours per week. Women practiced yoga for two to four months during the study periods. Hypnotherapy was five weeks or longer. It’s not clear what the minimum time frame is for each of these therapies to be useful, but they’ll certainly involve a time commitment that might not be practical for all women. However, yoga, mindfulness/meditation, exercise, and even CBT can all be practiced at home once you know the proper technique.

As I said at the beginning, this is not an exhaustive list of nonhormonal therapies. There are also various supplements that might help, as well as lifestyle modifications that most of you Primal-savvy readers are probably already implementing: eating a variety of nutrient-dense foods, getting plenty of sunlight, practicing good sleep hygiene, and nurturing social connections.

Whatever you choose, be patient. Don’t just focus on one symptom; focus on the big picture. Pay attention to how you’re feeling more globally. Consider that while an intervention might not hit its desired mark, it might help you in ways you didn’t expect.

Have you used mind-body techniques (these or others)? What’s been your experience? Share your insights and questions below, and have a great week, everyone.

References:

Atapattu PM. Vasomotor symptoms: What is the impact of physical exercise? J SAFOMS. 2105 Jan-Jun;3(1):15-19.

Goldstein KM, et al. Use of mindfulness, meditation and relaxation to treat vasomotor symptoms. Climacteric. 2017 Apr;20(2):178-182.

McMillan TL, Mark S. Complementary and alternative medicine and physical activity for menopausal symptoms. J Am Med Womens Assoc (1972). 2004 Fall;59(4):270-7.

Molefi-Youri W. Is there a role for mindfulness-based interventions (here defined as MBCT and MBSR) in facilitating optimal psychological adjustment in the menopause? Post Reprod Health. 2019 Sep;25(3):143-149

Moore TR, Franks RB, Fox C. Review of Efficacy of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Treatments for Menopausal Symptoms. J Midwifery Womens Health. 2017 May;62(3):286-297.

Sliwinski JR, Johnson AK, Elkins GR. Memory Decline in Peri- and Post-menopausal Women: The Potential of Mind-Body Medicine to Improve Cognitive Performance. Integr Med Insights. 2014;9:17–23.

van Driel CM, Stuursma A, Schroevers MJ, Mourits MJ, de Bock GH. Mindfulness, cognitive behavioural and behaviour-based therapy for natural and treatment-induced menopausal symptoms: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BJOG. 2019;126(3):330–339.

The post 6 Mind-Body Approaches for Menopause appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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If you’re feeling stuck, frustrated that your efforts haven’t delivered the results you wanted, and you are spinning your wheels, then the answer is a simple, yes. You should audit your training.

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