More here – Bloomberg
The idea that what a person eats influences their health no doubt predates any historical accounts that remain today. But, as is often the case for any scientific discipline, the first detailed accounts come from Ancient Greece. Hippocrates, one of the first physicians to claim diseases were natural and not supernatural, observed that many ailments were associated with gluttony; obese Greeks tended to die younger than slim Greeks, that was clear and written down on papyrus.
Spreading from this epicentre of science, these ideas were adopted and adapted over the centuries. And at the end of the 15th Century, Alvise Cornaro, an infirm aristocrat from a small village near Venice in Italy, turned the prevailing wisdom on its head, and on himself.
If indulgence was harmful, would dietary asceticism be helpful? To find out, Cornaro, aged 40, ate only 350g (12oz) of food per day, roughly 1000 calories according to recent estimates. He ate bread, panatela or broth, and eggs. For meat he chose veal, goat, beef, partridge, thrush, and any poultry that was available. He bought fish caught from the local rivers.
Restricted in amount but not variety, Cornaro claimed to have achieved “perfect health” up until his death more than 40 years later. Although he changed his birthdate as he aged, claiming that he had reached his 98th year, it is thought that he was around 84 when he died – still an impressive feat in the 16th Century, a time when 50 or 60 years old was considered elderly. In 1591, his grandson published his posthumous three-volume tome entitled “Discourses on the Sober Life,” pushing dietary restriction into the mainstream, and redefining ageing itself.
More here – BBC Future
PS: My concern about a lot of the animal studies cited in this sort of research is that the the anti aging effects seem to flow from the delaying of puberty in the experimental animals.
A habitually healthy eater, Frank Hu stocks his refrigerator with fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, and chicken. His pantry holds brown rice, whole grains, and legumes, and his snack cabinet has nuts and seeds. He eats red meat only occasionally, rarely buys white bread, soda, bacon, or other processed meats. He’ll purchase chips and beer, but only now and then, mostly when entertaining friends.
When it comes to eating smartly in ways that can help us keep fit and live longer, Hu knows best.
“There is no single, fit-for-all diet for everyone,” said Frank Hu of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
Hu took over the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in January. His eating habits are greatly informed by his research on what constitutes a healthy diet. While he knows they’re not for everyone, he says people can nonetheless move toward eating patterns that both appeal to them and help them stay well.
“There is no single, fit-for-all diet for everyone,” said Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “People should adopt healthy dietary patterns according to their food and cultural preferences and health conditions. I don’t have a rigid regimen, but I always emphasize healthy components in all my meals.”
And so, according to considerable research, can all those who want to reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and other chronic illnesses, and increase both longevity and quality of life in old age.
More here – Harvard Gazette
It is remarkable how much of the blindingly obvious has become lost to a public that on the basis of the available evidence seem to be getting dumber and dumber. It is also extraordinary how many of the things I used to take for granted at university as being common sense now get grants to be studied
What is pain and why does it sometimes persist? In this week’s podcast, South Australian pain scientist Lorimer Moseley will surprise you about the real cause of chronic pain and what this understanding means for its treatment.
Moseley, the Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of South Australia, is helping to develop ways to help people control their pain through scientific understandings of its mechanisms.
The good news is that these techniques can – over time – reduce or even remove pain for some chronic sufferers.
“There’s a whole new sense of the possible,” he says.
Source – InDaily
This was the question I was considering whilst sitting in my gyms cafe after my workout watching the various comings and goings. I tend to live a life of routine and after lifting on Sunday I head downstairs to cafe and have a cup of tea, toast, vegemite and a fresh orange juice. During this time I stare out the window and contemplate various aspects of life. Whilst I was partaking of this ritual yesterday I noticed that the auditorium attached to the gym was holding a karate tournament. Yet another organisation I had never heard of was holding a get together where they pretend to hit one another and are awarded points for the best pretending. I have no idea why they call them martial arts when they dont actually hit someone or have someone trying to hit them.
As I watched the various comings and goings I noticed an interesting thing, most of the instructors and officials were fat and quite surprisingly a good number were ducking outside for a cigarette at what seemed to be any break in proceedings. This did surprise me since the recollection of my instructors were that some were colossal pricks but they were always slim pricks.
Contemplating this made me consider the notion of personal narrative and the integrity that this narrative has for each individual. The word that keep coming into my mind was congruence which in my mind simply means harmony or balance. Your internal and external narrative are in balance – there is no tension between the two. Being a fat martial arts instructor means you have no harmony since the internal narrative and external expression of that narrative are at loggerheads with one another. It is obvious that this need for internal and external harmony didnt occur to many of those I observed yesterday despite harmony or balance being one of the cornerstone philosophies of all styles of karate.
I have always found it hard to understand how people can expect success when the narrative they follow is not expressed in day to day life, surely sooner or later the subconscious rebels against this tension and sets its own course. This may explain why so many people who lack this balance run into problems in aspects of their lives. My example of this in trading is traders who have poorly defined reasons for wanting to trade. As an example I had a conversation many years ago with a trader and during the conversation I asked them their motivations for trading. Their answer was that they wanted to spend more time with their family and working from home would enable that. I then asked how they were going to do this. The answer was by intraday trading FX. You can instantly see that the stated aim is at odds with the vehicle of achieving that aim.
If there is no harmony then there can be no progress.
Nestled in a grassy valley of north-western Namibia, Opuwo may seem like a crumbling relic of colonial history. With a population of just 12,000, the town is so small that it would take less than a minute to drive from the road sign on one side of town to the shanty villages on other. Along the way, you would see a hotchpotch collection of administrative offices, a couple of schools, a hospital and a handful of supermarkets and petrol stations.
For many of the people living in the surrounding valley, however, this small town is also the first taste of modern life. The capital of the Kunene region, Opuwo lies in the heartland of the Himba people, a semi-nomadic people who spend their days herding cattle. Long after many of the world’s other indigenous populations had begun to migrate to cities, the Himba had mostly avoided contact with modern culture, quietly continuing their traditional life. But that is slowly changing, with younger generations feeling the draw of Opuwo, where they will encounter cars, brick buildings, and writing for the first time.
More here – BBC – Future