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Research of the Week

improves circadian health, mood, neuroticism, and almost everything.

An oregano oil molecule against COVID.

Hold off on retirement and .

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A seed oil-based ketogenic diet is in young mice.

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Host Elle Russ chats with Barbara Diaz De Leon, a Primal Health Coach who’s passionate about helping women transform their lives as she did hers.

: Host Elle Russ chats with Alicia Luciani, a functional health coach who made it back from total and complete burnout and now shows people how to do the same.

: Tina McDermott wants you to take control of your life.

: Dr. Serena Sterling shows how the body doesn’t lie.

Media, Schmedia

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Interesting Blog Posts

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Simplest thing you can do to improve COVID (and all health) outcomes: .

 

Social Notes

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Everything Else

Some ants have jaws for extra-strong bites.

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Things I’m Up to and Interested In

It doesn’t take much: .

I love a comeback: ?

Underrated ape: .

Interesting podcast: Peter from Hyperlipid on Peak Human whether doctors are giving the absolute worst advice to their patents.

Interesting video: ?

Question I’m Asking

Do you think we should bring back the mammoth? What other animals would you want to bring back?

Recipe Corner

• .
• .

Time Capsule

One year ago (Sep 11 – Sep 17)

• — Well, what?
• — Why we should.

Comment of the Week

“Interesting that researchers were able to find volunteers for the rectal oxygen delivery study. I guess these brave souls were not afraid of being the butt of their family and friends jokes … and embraced the opportunity as a means to an end.

Animal traits or parts … keeping with the fish theme, having gills so that you could breathe underwater for long periods of time might be cool. The animals I admire most are the large cats (cougars, panthers, leopards etc.), so powerful, graceful, nimble and fast.”

-Very progressive of you, .

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Hi folks! PHCI Coaching and Curriculum Director, Erin Power is here for another round of Ask a Health Coach. Today, she’ll be answering your questions about managing hunger, conquering cravings, and why you shouldn’t have to force healthy eating habits. We love getting your questions, so keep them coming over in our or in the comments below.

 

Miriam asked:

“Now that I’m back to the gym I’ve upped my calories to 2000, but I’m always hungry. Carbs are 100g. Protein is 150g. Fat is 111g. Am I doing something wrong?”

I have a lot of opinions about calorie counting, macro tracking, and anything that resembles typical, fussy diet culture. I’m not going to lie: it makes my eyes glaze over a bit! It can certainly offer up a realistic snapshot of how your nutrition is/isn’t serving you, but in my practice, I find that it can sometimes do more harm than good. People become so fixated on their calorie intake, their macro split, or the , that it robs them of the joy in life, takes up way too much mental energy, and disconnects us from our intuition. Which is too bad, because my guess is you’re doing this to feel better, healthier, and happier.

You might be so consumed with searching for the thing you think you should be doing, that you’ve lost sight of what your body actually needs. And it’s no surprise seeing as everything about our culture teaches us to . Feeling tired? Pour another cup of coffee. Drained emotionally? Push yourself anyway. Always hungry? Rack your brain trying to figure out why.

I can’t help but feel that this is, at best, impolite and, at worst, a quasi-dysfunctional relationship with our amazing bodies, and their elegant signalling systems.

Why Am I Always Hungry?

You can make this as complicated as you want, and you can always take a deeper dive into the subject, but in my experience, is typically triggered by one of four things. And with a little trial and error it’s quite easy to figure out. Start by asking yourself:

1. Do I feel hungrier when I eat more carbs?
2. Do I feel less hungry when I eat more protein and fat?
3. How are my stress levels and my sleep?
4. Do I just need to eat more food?

I realized you’ve already increased your calories, but what if you needed to increase them even more? If you’ve been relatively sedentary for the past 18 months and are now back to crushing it at the gym, your metabolic needs have shifted. And there’s no rulebook that says 2000 calories should be your cap.

Also, it’s been proven that certain carbs are responsible for knocking out the neurons responsible for hunger suppression, so that could be a factor — especially if they’re coming in the form of processed health foods. And protein and fat are well documented when it comes to increasing satiety, so keep that in mind when playing around with your macro split if that’s the road you choose to follow.

 

What Do Stress and Sleep Have to Do with Hunger?

Two of the biggest, most unsung needle-movers though (on hunger levels and health in general) are stress and sleep. Short-term stress, like a tough gym session or a hard day at work, can decrease your appetite as your adrenal glands pump out epinephrine, briefly putting hunger on hold. When stress becomes chronic, your adrenal glands switch gears and start releasing cortisol (also called the fat storage hormone), which increases appetite and makes you feel hungrier, often for less-than-healthy foods. And if you’re not getting a good night’s sleep, you’ll also be triggering more ghrelin and less leptin, two more hormones that can add to your hunger pangs.

It’s all about paying attention to your internal cues, so, take a sec to slow down and reconnect with what your body is trying to tell you. Adjust your macros if that feels right to you; manage your stress and quality of sleep; and respect and trust your body enough to simply eat more food if you feel hungry.

 

Dan asked:

“It’s my first week of following a primal diet and I already caved and had a gluten-free pizza. What’s the best way to handle cravings?”

When the world is loading up on cheesy, doughy dinners it can be hard to resist. Processed convenience foods are woven into nearly every aspect of our culture and deciding that you want to take a different path can have its share of challenges.

I’ve found that cravings are half physiological, and half psychological. Try to connect the dots between what you’re feeling when your cravings come on. Does your willpower start to wane after a stressful day? When you don’t eat enough protein? When you feel anxious or deprived? When you’re dealing with self-doubt?

As a , I’ve helped hundreds of clients conquer their cravings. And you can do it too, on three conditions…

1. You stop being so quick to judge yourself.
   If you’ve never followed a primal diet before, in the first week? Be open to letting go of any all-or-nothing, perfectionist tendencies (which haven’t worked thus far), and try a little self-compassion on for size. So what if you had pizza? Make sure your next meal is primally-aligned and leave the past in the past.
2. You treat yourself with more kindness.
   Shame and guilt aren’t the best motivators. In my and with my health coaching students and graduates in the , I talk a lot about Toward Motivation and Away from Motivation. While the former is designed to spark positive, uplifting feelings that pull you closer to the things you want, the latter tends to be fueled by negative emotions, leaving you stewing over the things you did wrong and wondering why you can’t get it right.
3. You commit to being patient.
   Any kind of habit change takes time, whether it’s flossing your teeth more, scrolling your social media feed less, or grilling a ribeye and veggies instead of ordering takeout the second you feel hungry. You’re in the process of reprogramming your neural pathways, and the more times you repeat a desired action, the more it will become an automatic behaviour.

Anything worth doing, is worth doing well, so ditch the self-judgement, have patience, and commit to treating yourself with more kindness and compassion. You deserve it.

 

Julie asked:

“My 80/20 plan has become more of a 50/50 plan because I have a lot of stressful stuff going on at work and at home. I’m trying to control my diet, but end up eating out more than I should. Any tips for reeling my eating habits back in?”

Maybe you’ve noticed that the more you try, the harder it feels. The more you force a situation, the more it pushes back. I’m not saying everything should come easy, but there’s something that doesn’t sit right with me about our society’s tendency to micromanage every aspect of life.

Strictly controlling your eating habits seem to backfire for most people more than it “works.” At the very least, it makes you miserable in the process. After all, how much fun is it to go out to eat when you’re criticizing yourself for not cooking at home? My personal goal — and the goal I have for all the folks I work with — is to achieve an effortless relationship with food.

Food Rules are Too Fussy

work for a lot of people. But for some, the nutrition portion becomes the holy grail of rules that causes more struggle than it’s worth. . If beating yourself up every time you took a spin through the drive through versus firing up the grill was an awesome motivator, we wouldn’t be here right now discussing this.

Instead of forcing the situation, tune into why you want to reel in your diet in the first place. Does following an 80/20 plan make you feel energetic and alive? Or does it provide the external validation that you’re doing something “right?”

How To Find Your Why

I feel like I beat this drum too much sometimes, (your deep-down reason for wanting something) is going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, metabolically speaking.

This is a tool I use with my health coaching clients to help them get clear on their true motivating factors for change. It’s an exercise called Whyx5 and all you have to do is ask yourself WHY five times. Ask:

1. Why is this important to me?
2. Why does that matter?
3. What is that important?
4. Why would that be great to achieve?
5. And…why?

I say this after 25+ years in the hardcore fitness industry, not to mention 10 years in the military: Control won’t get most of us mere mortals very far, but figuring out the real reason you want to reel back in your diet? That’s where the serious magic happens.

What about you? Got anything to add?

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As Autumn approaches, your thoughts turn to crunchy leaves underfoot, brisk hikes through brilliant red, orange, and yellow forests, kids in costumes, wool sweaters and scarves, Thanksgiving dinners, and soups simmering away on the stove. Oh, and pumpkins. Pumpkin everything. Pumpkin spice lattes. Jack-o-Lanterns. Pumpkin pie. Decorative pumpkins, culinary pumpkins, that Charlie Brown pumpkin movie. And yet pumpkins as a source of nutrition remain a bit of an after thought.

People don’t really think to eat pumpkins unless it’s in pie or spice form. Few are making pumpkin soup, roasting pumpkin seeds, or sautéing pumpkin slices. But recall that pumpkins are an incredibly ancient American food that, as a member of the winter squash family, they formed one of the “Three Sisters” that many Amerindian populations used as staple crops, the other two being beans and corn.

Today, I’m going to explain the health benefits of eating pumpkin and its various products, including the flesh, the seeds, and the oil from its seeds. Yes, yes, pumpkin seeds are seeds, and pumpkin seed oil is a seed oil, which we normally try to avoid, but these are not industrial products. A pumpkin seed is obviously full of oil. You press it and oil comes out. No hexane or other industrial solvents required.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. More to come on that.

What Are the Benefits of Pumpkin?

Pumpkin is far lower in carbs and far higher in nutrients than you think.

A full cup and a half of pumpkin flesh has just 12.8 grams of digestible carbohydrates and under 70 calories, with around 3 grams of that can nourish and feed your . For that small dose of carbs and calories, you also get:

• Over 700 mg of potassium (notoriously hard to get in the modern diet)
• A huge amount of carotenoids
• 21% of your riboflavin requirements—which we need to metabolize nutrients and generate cellular energy
• 35% of your copper requirements
• A nice healthy dose of manganese, vitamin C, vitamin B5, and vitamin E
• Numerous polyphenols, which provide a to our antioxidant system

Pumpkin offers a quick and easy way to get loads of nutrients, including ones many low-carb, keto, or otherwise carnivorous eaters have trouble getting, like potassium, manganese, and vitamin C, without incurring a big carb or calorie load.

Other winter squashes are just as good, if not even better.

A cup and a half of cubed butternut squash flesh:

• 123 calories
• 22 grams digestible carbs, 10 grams fiber
• 18% of daily thiamine, 19% of niacin, 22% of B5, 22% of B6, 15% folate, 52% vitamin C
• Tons of carotenoids
• 22% of daily magnesium, 23% of manganese, 22% copper, 19% (873 mg) potassium
• Polyphenols
• Very low in carbs for what you get, right?

A cup and a half of cubed acorn squash:

• 170 calories
• 31 grams of digestible carbs, 13.5 grams of fiber
• 43% of daily thiamine, 17% of niacin, 31% B5, 35% B6, 15% folate
• 29% copper, 31% magnesium, 32% manganese, 29% potassium
• Polyphenols

Somewhat more starchy, but not much. Most diets can handle 30 grams of carbs. And the nutrient density is incredible.

There isn’t much research into pumpkin flesh eaters. But that’s okay, because we can look at the nutritional facts and know including all those micronutrients in our diets will have positive effects.

Most of the research is on pumpkin seeds. What does it say about pumpkin seeds?

 

Pumpkin seeds are extremely high in magnesium and other minerals.

For just an ounce of pumpkin seeds, you get 155 mg of magnesium (nearly half your daily requirement), 1.3 mg of manganese (over half your requirement), 40% of your copper, and 20% of your zinc. That’s for 5.5 grams of omega-6 fats, 4.5 grams of monounsaturated fat, and 2.4 grams of saturated fat. Omega-6 linoleic acid isn’t nearly as problematic in whole foods as it is in refined, industrial seed oils or fast food fryers—and 5.5 grams isn’t that much.

Pumpkin seeds could lower blood glucose.

The seeds have been shown to reduce postprandial blood glucose when consumed as part of a meal. The same meal using flax instead of pumpkin seeds had no such beneficial effect on blood glucose, despite flax being far higher in fiber (which supposedly improves glucose control). Further analysis has identified several components of pumpkin seeds, including inositol, nicotinic acid, and trigonelline, as responsible for the hypoglycemic effects.

Pumpkin seeds may help men with benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Benign prostatic hyperplasia is benign in that the enlargement of the prostate gland isn’t cancerous but it’s non-benign in that it can impede the flow of urine. In one placebo-controlled trial, a pumpkin seed extract improved the symptoms of men with benign prostatic hyperplasia. Those who took the extract (but not the placebo) for a year reported better symptoms. Another study had similar results using a fat-free pumpkin seed extract, finding that the supplement reduced nighttime urination.

Pumpkin seeds may improve erectile function, if they’re roasted.

Albeit in rats, the consumption of roasted (but not raw) pumpkin seeds improves biomarkers associated with erectile function. PDE-5 levels (the same thing that Cialis and Viagra target) improved, MDA (a marker of lipid oxidation and general inflammation) improved, as did nitric oxide levels. You aren’t rats, and this didn’t actually measure erectile outcomes, but it’s promising.

Pumpkin seeds lower the risk of urinary stones despite containing oxalates.

I’ve seen some people worry about the oxalate content of pumpkin seeds. After all, most seeds contain oxalates—they are a form of “antinutrient” that plant use for their own protection—and pumpkin seeds should be no different. It turns out that eating pumpkin seeds actually lowers the calcium-oxalate crystal occurrence in the urine.

Pumpkin seeds fixed one man’s depression.

I read a single case study on the power of pumpkin seeds found in an old letter to the editor of a medical journal. A patient who’d been maintaining his mental health for years using 1.5 grams of L-tryptophan was suddenly plunged into deep depression when L-tryptophan was pulled from the shelves. After lots of research, his doctor (the author of the letter) realized that 200 grams of pumpkin seeds was the most cost effective source of L-tryptophan. He ate the seeds and the depression lifted.

What about the Phytic Acid?

Now, pumpkin seeds are still seeds. They do contain phytic acid, which can have undesirable effects on calcium and other mineral absorption. But there’s another side to phytic acid—it seems to enhance anti-cancer cell activity. And if you have the right gut bacteria, you can degrade phytic acid into inositol, a compound with many benefits including blood sugar and mood regulation.

If you want to mitigate or eliminate some of the phytic acid, there are things you can do:

• You can always roast or sprout your pumpkin seeds to degrade some of the phytic acid.
• You can consume vitamin C with your pumpkin seeds to counter some of the effects on mineral absorption.
• You can consume meat alongside the seeds; this improves mineral absorption.

But if you’re interested in boosting your intake of magnesium and manganese and perhaps enjoying some of the other benefits I listed, an ounce of pumpkin seeds is a great option that shouldn’t cause any problems for you.

Pumpkin flesh (and that of other winter squash) is definitely worth incorporating into your diet.

So, I’d love to hear from you. What’s your favorite way to eat pumpkin? Do you roast the seeds? Ever notice any of the benefits listed above?

Take care, everyone.

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Yerba mate (YERB-ah mah-TAY). Ever heard of it? It is an herb with a storied history as an alternative to traditional teas for the inhabitants of its native South America. I’ve received numerous emails recently asking about its properties and its role in the . Let’s dive straight in.

What is Yerba Mate?

Yerba mate tea is prepared by steeping the dried leaves and twigs of the mate plant in hot water (not boiling water, which can make the tea bitter). It has an herbal, almost grassy, taste, with some varieties somewhat reminiscent of certain . Traditionally, yerba mate is drunk communally from a hollow gourd with a metal straw, but a coffee mug works just as well (you know, for when your gourd is in the dishwasher).

Like many and coffees, yerba mate is imbued with an impressive amount of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, including B vitamins and vitamin C. Minerals include manganese, potassium, and zinc, and the antioxidants include quercetin, theobromine, and theophylline, which all have notable health benefits.

The Benefits of Drinking Yerba Mate

The big draw for most yerba mate enthusiasts is the promise of a “clean” -like buzz, free of jitters and unpleasantness, which yerba mate is said to provide. Drinkers report being in control of their wakefulness; they can stay up for hours, alert and on their game, but sleep is always right around the corner – if they want it. Basically, yerba mate is supposed to give you energy without the negative side effects of a cup of coffee, making it a potential .

A common claim is that yerba mate is actually completely free of caffeine and that its stimulating effects come from a mysterious compound called mateine. Mateine, they say, is a stereoisomer of caffeine, thus giving it the stimulating qualities with none of the downfalls.

Mateine is actually caffeine. It’s just a synonym, possibly derived from the word “mate” itself. In fact, the caffeine content of dry mate leaves is similar to that of dried coffee beans and tea leaves (though brewed yerba mate tends to have lower levels). How do we then explain away all the anecdotal evidence of jitter-free wakefulness?

Well, there’s more to yerba mate than just caffeine/mateine. Take theobromine, for example. Theobromine, best known for being the primary alkaloid in cacao and highly toxic to dogs, exerts a smoother, longer-lasting stimulatory effect. Whereas caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, theobromine is an effective vasodilator, relaxing the smooth muscle in blood vessels and allowing better blood flow.

They are present in varying amounts in each variety of yerba mate, some with caffeine/theobromine ratios of 10:1 and others with ratios of 2:1, and can actually lower in hypertensive individuals. Pure caffeine has the tendency to increase blood pressure. It’s plausible, then, that various ratios of theobromine and caffeine have different effects paired together than either do alone.

 

The Downfalls of Drinking Yerba Mate

Still, the effect of caffeine on glucose tolerance and blood sugar control is somewhat troublesome. It can impair insulin sensitivity, even in healthy individuals. But is this actually a problem for healthy Primal eaters? Probably not, as long as you’re reasonable about your caffeine intake. Don’t live on a pot a day and avoid eating sugary baked goods with your coffee, and you’ll be fine.

And remember – yerba mate is not coffee, and it’s not just caffeine. In fact, yerba mate extract has been shown to restore insulin sensitivity in obese rats. Even without that study, the yerba mate we drink has less caffeine than coffee, and about the same amount as most teas, which are linked with improved insulin sensitivity despite the caffeine content. The caffeine in yerba mate most likely isn’t an issue.

There’s also been some mildly troubling research into a possible link between yerba mate and certain cancers. Although this is purely epidemiological, researchers studying hot yerba mate drinkers in South America have noticed a positive correlation between hot mate intake and oral cancer in several studies. Similar correlations exist with other hot drinks too, though, so it could be a temperature issue.

Yerba mate intake has also been associated – however weakly – with increased incidence of bladder, head and neck, and esophageal cancers. Hot temperatures probably can’t explain all of this (if there is any causation going on), but this study might shed some light: researchers found high levels of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in multiple varieties of yerba mate, perhaps from processing of the raw mate leaves (higher than in cigarette smoke).

Yerba Mate and Eating Primal

I don’t mean to scare you away from yerba mate. I’ve had it, and it’s a very pleasant, mildly stimulating beverage. The antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals are nothing to scoff at, and it certainly feels less taxing on the body than the daily pots of coffee most people rely on. Tim Ferriss credits it for helping him write, and there are numerous other anecdotes from those that prefer it as a coffee substitute. And so, sneaky caffeine content and troubling cancer studies aside, I think yerba mate can be integrated into a healthy Primal eating strategy. Just don’t drink it scalding hot or by the liter (which appears to be an “excessive” dose). The occasional, even daily cup is probably fine and can be .

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Most of us know that high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels are risk factors for heart disease. Dr. Rachel Climie would like us to add vascular aging to that list. The Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow based in the Sports Cardiology Laboratory at Melbourne’s Baker Institute says that early vascular aging is an issue that society needs to start thinking about.

“When they’re functioning well, our large blood vessels ensure that as blood is pumped around the body, it isn’t placing pressure on the system,” she explains. “As we age, however, the blood vessels progressively lose elasticity and become stiff. That means the blood is moving around the body at a faster speed, which is damaging to our organs.”

Here, Dr. Climie gives us a primer on vascular health and why it matters.

What causes vascular aging?

Damage to the blood vessels typically start occurring in our fifth decade, but some people exposed to risk factors will experience premature vascular aging. This could be as a result of obesity, diabetes or due to drugs used to treat cancer, or it could be related to lifestyle factors such as smoking, blood pressure, inactivity or poor diet. Women’s arteries age differently to men’s. Post-pubescent girls have more elastic arteries compared to boys the same age, but post-menopausal women have stiffer arteries compared to men. The female sex hormones are protective until menopause.

Is there an easy way to determine your vascular age?

Current methods of measuring vascular age are pretty much limited to research settings. However, a number of new devices are in development, including an item that functions like a blood pressure cuff around your arm. In the future, these technologies will make measurements more accessible.

What should we be doing to improve our vascular health?

The first thing we can do to slow down vascular aging is to engage in more regular physical activity, because it helps to maintain the elasticity of the arteries. The current recommendation for adults is 30 minutes of aerobic physical activity a day, whether that’s walking, cycling, swimming or some other form of exercise. You need to be huffing and puffing, you need to get that heart rate up, to actually have an effect. If you are going for a 30-minute walk, the whole walk doesn’t have to be high intensity – you could do two minutes at a faster pace and then two minutes at a slower pace. The key thing to remember is that some physical activity is better than none. More is better, but doing a little is better than nothing at all.

What else do we need to think about?

Minimizing our salt intake is vital. The current recommendations are no more than 5g a day, but we know people consume a lot more salt than that. We need to reduce the amount of processed food we eat and increase the amount of fresh produce.

This article was originally published by Tonic Magazine

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Whether it’s hitting a powerful forehand, sprinting across the court, or reaching up high to serve, tennis can be pretty tough on a player’s body. This is why stretches and warm-up exercises are so important for players to improve mobility and prevent injuries like tennis elbow and tennis knee.

In this 30-minute guided stretch session, Zeel Virtual Wellness instructor, Mahri Relin, demonstrates dynamic stretches tennis players can do before a match and static stretches to help them cool down.

About Mahri: An in-demand Zeel Virtual Wellness instructor, Mahri Relin has used her extensive research and experience as a professional dancer, personal trainer, and expert in wellness and nutrition to provide clients with the most intelligent, personalized, and joyful fitness experience possible. Mahri is a NASM Certified Personal Trainer, Corrective Exercise Specialist, AFPA Pre and Postnatal Exercise Specialist, Certified Postnatal Corrective exercise Specialist, Certified Wellness and Nutrition Consultant, and fitness enthusiast.

Get more like this in our Wednesday Wellness series of free, live 30-minute wellness sessions. Tune in for a wellness break every Wednesday at zeel.com/blog/live.

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