I recently came across these empty cooking oil containers that had been deposited behind a restaurant near my home. It’s not an unusual sight in areas with catering establishments. Less visible is the damage that these commonplace oils do to human health.
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Without sufficient iron, you’re likely to feel very, very tired. But that’s just the start of it. And if you think you’re immune because you already eat plenty of iron, think again. What you eat and what you absorb are two very different matters.
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Treatment for mental health conditions is not always effective. Sometimes the meds work, sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, science has to look beyond the usual parameters for the solutions needed.
That’s why, between 2019 and 2020, French psychiatrists carried out an experiment on adults with “severe, persistent mental illness”. These various illnesses included major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizoaffective disorder. Their symptoms had responded poorly to intensive drug treatment.
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A raw food diet sounds like the perfect antidote to these polluted, toxic times: clean and detoxifying, even a touch spiritual. You can atone for past dietary transgressions with uncooked vegetables.
There’s more than a whiff of the puritanicals at work here, but little evidence to substantiate the many health claims made in favour of this departure from the usual human diet. That’s probably because a raw food diet is both unnatural and unhealthy. Here are three reasons why you should carry on cooking.
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The human brain is often likened to a computer. I don’t know why; it’s nothing like a computer. Break open a head and you will see that the organ within is just a lump of wobbly fat. Yet it took millions of years of human evolutionary biology to fine tune that lardy lump. It runs entirely on what you feed it.
The dry weight of the brain is 60% fat. The rest of it is cholesterol (also very important) and protein (ditto). No other organ contains so much fat or needs it so much. Without it, the brain simply cannot function.
This protein is involved in the process of creating new neurons and is crucial for their protection and survival. It is involved in brain plasticity and regulates inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters.
BDNF is very much involved in maintaining mood.
Without sufficient BDNF, you are at risk of, among others, major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder. The lower the BDNF level, the more severe the symptoms.
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It takes around 20 years to grow a complete human brain, from newborn baby to mature adult. Careful nurturing is a wise, lifelong investment. Although a little shrinkage is to be expected, with age, anything beyond that puts you at risk of memory loss and eventually dementia.
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While cholesterol remains a contentious issue – for good reason – there’s nothing contentious about homocysteine. A high level is a known risk factor for the development of dementia (especially Alzheimer’s), stroke, and cardiovascular disease (CVD). In most people, homocysteine is easily controlled, without the use of medication. That so few people know about it is nothing short of a scandal.
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Protein builds muscle and bone. The reason why you need more, the older you get, is that your ability to digest and absorb amino acids — the “building blocks” of protein structures, reduces over time. You need more, just to stay at the same level.
There are two musculoskeletal conditions that can arise from insufficient protein: sarcopenia and osteoporosis. Sarcopenia is age-related muscle loss and function. Osteoporosis is loss of bone density.
Read moreIn 1924, German medical doctor and scientist Otto Heinrich Warburg made a discovery that was to potentially revolutionise our understanding of cancer. His astonishing breakthrough, that was to later earn him a Nobel Prize in physiology, could have — should have — changed the course of cancer prevention and treatment. But it didn’t. It wasn’t about drugs.
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