Three Tips for a Healthier Year

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Most people look at the New Year as a time to make some changes to eating and exercise habits to accomplish health goals. For many, it’s reducing their body weight; for others, it’s getting fitter. But health is more than body weight and fitness. Many of us want to improve our diets, lower our blood pressure or cholesterol, become more flexible, or

take better care of our teeth, and for some, managing pain and other health conditions is a goal. Here are three tips to help you become healthier by the end of the year.

Tip 1: Use Available Technology

In a blog from the business builder Seth Godin about using technology, the final line was, “Working harder is rarely a better plan than finding better tools.” The quote was related to business, but it applies to health as well. Sometimes the tool is information; I hope that’s one of the reasons you read the Memo. I’ll have a lot more info coming to help you get healthy in 2024 from webinars, courses, and maybe some live events.

Sometimes, the tool is a device like a smart watch or a specific type of monitoring technology. I recently got a Kardia ECG monitor to collect data on my ECG. With other tools, you can monitor your blood pressure, oxygen level, and blood sugar to determine your patterns. But you must master the use of that technology for it to be helpful. The same is true for any exercise equipment you choose to use. That leads to the second tip.

Tip 2: Know Why You’re Doing What You’re Doing

If you’ve ever heard me speak in a seminar, I always tell people when it comes to taking a dietary supplement, you should know exactly why you’re taking it. Some are non-specific for overall health like a multivitamin-multimineral, but you may be taking a supplement for a specific reason, such as taking ginkgo biloba for increasing blood flow or coenzyme Q10 for more energy. You should know the reason for anything you’re taking.

This is my addition for 2024: you should also know why you’re taking every medication you’re taking. Have a thorough discussion with your physician or your specialist to determine why you’re taking each medication, what its purpose is, and whether you’re taking the lowest dose to get a positive effect. And then you must be able to test that impact somehow. Either you’ll have less pain, more flexibility, lower cholesterol or blood pressure, or some measurable benefit, or it’s time to change things.

You could apply that to foods and exercise as well, but supplements and medications are usually more purposeful.

Tip 3: Be Consistent

It seems I’ve talked about this forever, but you must try a change in lifestyle for at least 90 days to know if it works. You have to be consistent and track the health benefit somehow. Weight and blood pressure are easy; I still use a small notebook to track calories as I work to get to a normal body weight. For pain and digestive symptoms, you can find pain and symptom scales; this pain scale is on drchet.com. Then find a way to record the results every day—electronically on your computer or smart phone, or pencil and paper. I track workouts and total calories on an Excel spreadsheet; Paula has recorded her weight in a paper calendar most of her life.

You have to be able to go back and see any changes or patterns. How will you know you get fewer migraines if you aren’t tracking each one you get? That applies to every change you’re making.

If you can use these three tips, your 2024 will be less frustrating. Not everything works for everybody, but there’s always another approach. If one doesn’t work, go to the next. As long as you pay attention, you’ll finish the year healthier than when you began.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reflections on a New Year

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Welcome to 2024! Many of us look forward to the new year as a starting date to accomplish great things. Getting your health on track is almost always near the top of that list, and I’m no different. I’m also ready to teach you what you can do to improve your health this year.

Let’s begin the year with something that seems small, almost insignificant, but it’s one thing you shouldn’t ignore: wear something reflective if you’re going to leave your driveway to exercise, walk the dog, or whatever you may do while the mornings and afternoons are so dark.

Here are two examples. I was leaving the fitness club, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of color. It was a guy heading into the club dressed in a dark sweatshirt and sweatpants with a red headband. He was invisible. I never speed out of parking lots, so he was in no danger from me. It just so happens, a man was killed crossing a major street in Grand Rapids that night, again, dressed in all black.

I wear a reflective vest if I’m out walking early. All my running suits have reflective tape built in. It’s a simple thing, but you don’t want to get hurt while you’re trying to improve your health. This is one habit to begin right now to reach your health goals in 2024. And make sure the kids and the dog have reflective tape on their clothing, backpacks, leash, etc., especially now when the days are still short.

What are you prepared to do today? Be reflective!

        Dr. Chet

Here’s Your Gift!

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Have you missed hearing my voice? As a little gift for you, I recorded all the Memos related to the Blue Zones docuseries in one audio for your listening pleasure. The advantage is you can download it to your phone or tablet and listen to it over and over again. Instead of looking up the Memos on drchet.com, you can listen on your device.

Do you remember the four lifestyle concepts of most people who live in Blue Zones? It may benefit you to hear them again, especially as we all start thinking about health changes we want to make next year.

Click here to buy the audio for free.

I hope you enjoy this small gift to help you stay on a healthy track for 2024. As always, it comes down to just one question:

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Shhhh… It’s a Secret!

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If your house is as busy as ours, you probably don’t mind that today’s Memo is very short. Here’s the deal: the next Memo will come Friday instead of Saturday and will include a freebie just for subscribers, whether you’re on the Nice list or the Naughty list. Stay tuned to see exactly what’s to come.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Lifestyle, Activity, and Aging

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Here’s the question: if the subjects with the highest leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) lived longer, why did those subjects age faster based on the tests used in the study? The answer is complicated.

Exercise and Longevity

The researchers analyzed the data several ways. In the first analysis, they adjusted the data for sex, age, and health status; that makes sense because we know those factors impact longevity independent of exercise. Then they adjusted for education, body mass index, smoking, and alcohol use.

The first model was as expected with a continuing decrease in rate of death as physical activity increased. But when the other factors were included in the analysis, the hazard ratio (risk of dying) dropped from 23% to the reported 7%. What does it say in simple terms? If you smoke, drink a lot of alcohol, or are overweight or obese, exercise can only do so much. In short, your lifestyle matters.

Biological Aging

Taken from the paper’s text:

“Biological aging is the gradual and progressive decline in system integrity that occurs with advancing age and results in increased risk of morbidity and mortality. Epigenetic clocks produce estimates for biological aging based on DNA methylation (DNAm) alterations within specific locations in DNA sites and are one of the primary hallmarks of biological aging.”

The blood tests used two biological aging “clocks” based on the subjects’ DNA. They found that those who were the most active had a similar aging pattern in their DNA to those who were sedentary. That’s why the headline said high levels of LTPA increased aging.

What they couldn’t explain was why. They defined high levels of physical activity as ranging from fast walking to competitive running—that’s a pretty wide range. Does high LPTA damage those areas of DNA more? Why would it be similar to being sedentary? It lends itself to examining the measurement used for the test and to future research on other factors that may play a role, such as nutrition.

The Bottom Line

The paper provides insight into the importance of physical activity in our lives. What needs further examination is why high levels of physical activity would result in damage to DNA that mimics someone who is sedentary and raises the question of whether excessive exercise has a negative effect. As unusual as it would be to say someone exercises too much, it’s possible, and it could be more harmful as we get older. But it’s important to note that only 5% of the subjects had biological aging tested, so the sample size is small considering the follow-up was 30 years.

The real message? Physical activity isn’t enough to overcome a poor lifestyle. The damage caused by excess weight, smoking, and alcohol use can’t be overcome by exercise alone, even at high levels of physical activity. It still comes down to what I always say: Eat less. Eat better. Move more. That’s a great place to begin.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.02.23290916

How Exercise Affects Aging

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If a headline says, “exercise could make you age faster,” you know I absolutely must read it. There were a variety of commentaries on an unpublished study by Scandinavian researchers who won the Finnish national sports medicine prize; an advanced copy was published in PUBMED.

Researchers used data collected from an ongoing twins study with close to 23,000 twins who were 18 to 50 years old when the study began in 1975. The variables they used were leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) collected via questionnaires, self-reported height and weight, smoking and alcohol use, as well as education level. The data were collected from one to three times on the subjects; researchers also collected blood samples on 1,153 twins over the years as well. They gathered the samples to determine biological measures of aging using epigenetic clocks, biochemical tests that can be used to measure age. Their primary outcome measure was mortality, both in the short term and long term.

What did they find? As I would have expected, as LPTA levels increased, all-cause mortality decreased. But was it as simple as that? That doesn’t fit the headline. There’s more, and I’ll cover it on Saturday.

Speaking of what I’ll cover, on tomorrow’s Insider conference call the topic will be V.O.M.I.T. as well as answering your questions (including what V.O.M.I.T. is). You don’t want to miss this one, so give yourself a healthy Christmas gift and become an Insider by tomorrow at 8 p.m. ET.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.02.23290916

Anticipate Change

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Adapt. Innovate. Improvise. Overcome. That’s a group of words I put together years ago about how to respond when faced with challenges. The approach works in the present. When it comes to changes in health that are associated with aging, we don’t know exactly what they will be. Therefore, we must anticipate what might happen. I’ll give you some examples to consider.

Things to Consider

What we value the most is our independence. Still, your body will change; you may see changes in strength, balance, vision, joint health, mental acuity, or fitness. That doesn’t count any new conditions or diseases.

Should you continue to drive? That would be about the last thing I’d want to give up, but glaucoma may have a say in it. And reaction time declines with age. Which abilities can you work to improve? What alternatives can you prepare for?

Having a two-story home with a basement is great. Will you always have the capacity to go up and down the stairs to do laundry or to retrieve stored items? Would moving to a ranch home with everything on one level be a better choice?

Going up and down a ladder to clean gutters could become a problem. Heck, getting the extension ladder out of the garage could be an issue. Plan for gutter covers. That’s one change I made when I could do it myself. I could still clean them, but now I don’t need to.

What about cooking? Cleaning? Snow shoveling? Lawn maintenance? Anticipate what you really want to do yourself and what you’re willing to let someone else do.

Am I Just Giving Up?

Understand this. This is not about giving up; this is making a conscious decision to adapt to new circumstances. Your body is different from what it used to be.  Doesn’t matter whether you’re 40 now, or 50 or 60 or over 70—your body doesn’t have the same capabilities, and it will differ even more in 10, 20, or 50 years. You must adapt to it, or you’re going to end up frustrated all the time. Because believe me, you’re not going to be able to do everything that you used to do in the same way.

Anticipate the changes that may occur. If you start preparing for that now while you may not need it, you’ll be ready for it if you do. The choices of what you will and will not be able to do are going to be different for every person, but we can probably all stand to simplify our lives.

Anticipate. Innovate. Improvise. Adapt. And you will overcome.

The Bottom Line

There’s a new year on the horizon, so now is a good time to think about the changes I’ve talked about. Most of us are not good at anticipating what our bodies will do, but I can virtually guarantee one thing: the less body mass you have, the easier it will be to do everything. What you can do starting now is methodically get to a normal body weight for your height, stay active, and work on your strength and stamina. I’ll continue to provide you with research-based actions you can take to age with a vengeance. Nobody ever said you have to go quietly.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Life Is Change

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Do you ever think about your life in five or ten years or even longer? Doesn’t matter how old you are today, whether you’re 30 or 70. What will your life be like? Let me define it more clearly for you with this example.

After Thanksgiving, Paula began setting up the Christmas tree. As she hit a snag with the lights, she stopped and asked herself a question: will I be able to do this in five or ten years? Not just putting ornaments on the tree, but all the other tasks associated with it. We talked and she decided the answer was no; it just wasn’t worth the tears and frustration. I heartily agreed—I can’t stand it when she cries. We bought a smaller tree that’s easier to set up, sold the old one to a younger family who wanted one that large, and moved on.

That’s what I’m talking about. It doesn’t matter your age or your health today. Your body is going to change as you get older. What are you going to be willing to change? What are you determined to fight for? It’s not a question of giving up; it’s a question of planning. We’re trying to be smart about choosing our battles.

We’re still going to have a large-ish tree with amazing decorations. Ten years from now, we may downsize again, but in the meantime we have a tree we can manage.

Then there are the things we’ll fight for. Two torn biceps and a fall on the ice last winter has made picking things up over my head challenging. I found that out when Riley asked me to pick him up like I used to even as little as a year ago. Training will only get me so far; the joints and tendons still have the damage of seven decades, but I’ll keep working to build back strength. Paula is working in physical therapy toward another new knee in January, because she has things to do and places to go.

I’ll continue this train of thought in the Saturday Memo with some potential solutions.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Yes, the Nutrients Are There

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My question is whether you get any nutrients besides sugar and fat from those marshmallow-covered yams or the green beans swimming in condensed mushroom soup and topped with fried onions from a can. The research on cooking techniques and retention of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients in vegetables and fruits is not extensive but overall, the answer is yes. Here’s a synopsis of what I found.

Cooking and Nutrients

The vitamin that seems to be lost regardless of whether it’s boiled, microwaved, or sauteed is vitamin C. Microwaving seems to preserve the most nutrients, but close to 90% of vitamin C is lost.

For some nutrients, such as beta-carotene and other carotenoids, starting with fresh vegetables as opposed to frozen seems to help retain nutrients. The amounts of carotenoids in carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and yams seem to increase when they are cooked. The same may be true in greens such as spinach and collard greens. Adding bacon doesn’t appear to cause any issues. Using nuts and fruit to make the veggies more attractive can add nutrients as well; for added color and texture, we added slivered almonds and pomegranate seeds to the brussels sprouts with parmesan—yum!

Casseroles may provide the best cooking style when appropriate. Whatever minerals leech out of the vegetables or fruits will be retained in the liquid of the casserole.

Surprise Finding

Cooking may reduce the amount of pesticide residues in vegetables. It’s nice to know that blanching, boiling and even stir frying may decrease residues by 10–80%. The research didn’t look at the liquid used for blanching or boiling, so we don’t know whether it’s a chemical change in the structure of the pesticide or it just leaches it out. Still, it was a welcome surprise.

The Bottom Line

Traditional holiday foods do retain beneficial nutrients. They can’t offset all the fat and sugar that were added, but we’re getting some of the vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients the foods contain. To me, the real lesson is that the way the food is prepared may help you eat more vegetables and fruit. Steamed green beans? Yecch. But covered in a sauce? Maybe that will help get more vegetables into your picky eaters. As long as we control the amount and the frequency, we can feel good about eating holiday foods all year long.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

References:
1. Food Sci Biotechnol. 2017 Dec 12;27(2):333-342
2. Nutr Bull. 2022 Dec;47(4):538-562.  doi: 10.1111/nbu.12584.
3. Foods. 2022 May 18;11(10):1463. 

Nutrients in Holiday Foods

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I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. With all the traditional and maybe not-so-traditional foods associated with the holidays, did you wonder how you fared from a nutrient perspective? We had a few of those foods that make you wonder: cheesy grits, corn pudding, and cranberry chutney to go along with the turkey. And don’t forget that pumpkin pie.

Never one to leave well enough alone, I wondered how much nutrition we actually get from traditional holiday foods that typically include more fat and involve more than just lightly steaming vegetables. How much butter and cream did you add to those mashed potatoes? How long did those greens beans cook? How about those marshmallows on the yams?

Do we end up with any nutrients—especially phytonutrients—from all those vegetables and fruit? Yes, you do, and how you cook the food makes a difference; in fact, one nutrient may increase with cooking! I’ll tell you what the research says on Saturday, but one thing’s for sure: Thanksgiving beats Halloween for nutrition.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet