Why You Should Do More Cool Sh*t

When I was a teenager in the 2000s, summers felt endless. 2 months of pure freedom and school was in the rear view mirror.

Fast forward to 2024, responsibilities and work and routine pile up. Where time once felt dilated and stretched out, it now seems to be hurtling through increasingly rapidly every day. The passage of time grows faster and the novelty of my life experiences seems to be ever diminishing.

There was an interesting study from 2016 which studied the effect of age on time perception.

3 different age groups (group 1 = 15-29 years, group 2 = 30-49 years, group 3 = 50-89 years) were all asked to mentally calculate the length of 120 seconds.

Would it surprise you to find out that the mental calculations of 120 s were shortened by an average of 24.6% (28.3 s) in individuals over age 50 years compared to individuals under age 30 years.

This reduction in time perception in older individuals isn't just random; it’s an effect and consequence of our very biology. As we age our internal clocks change due to environmental influences, hormones, as well as neurotransmitter such as dopamine; all these affect how we perceive time.

At the early formative years of our life we are bombarded with new novel experiences – new words, new faces, new places. Add this to the incendiary heights of puberty and the gush of hormones which cement and accentuate these experiences then our brains become flooded with dopamine and a milieu of neurotransmitters which expand the time we experience. A time dilation, perceptually.

Sadly, for most, with age our novelty diminishes as we set our lives into monotony and routine. This isn’t “bad” as it provides structure but it does also mean time speeds up and we have less “novel timestamps” in our life.

Our circadian rhythms and internal clocks are primary governed by dopaminergic neurons and the part of us which reside over memory involves acetylcholine – both these facets are deeply intertwined in shaping time perception.

This is why in some instances antipsychotic medication which often work to block dopamine receptors can lead to feelings of low mood and can “slow down time” and on the other end of the spectrum, stimulatns which raise dopamine can act to speed up time perception.

On a non-drug point of view, novel experiences can slow down time and routine and repetition can speed things up. It’s no wonder that being at home for the bulk of 2020-2022 and work from home culture, lockdowns during the pandemic has felt like this period of time has sped up to the point of not existing in the memories of many.

The perceived acceleration of time as we grow older is a cognitive illusion, one you can manipulate.

Childhood seemed to last forever in the moment due to its association with new discoveries at every corner.

 Adulthood doesn't hold the same level of novelty. But learning new things, new hobbies and taking on new stimulating tasks or ones which load your cognition can also help to slow our internal sense of time.

Growing old isn’t daunting given what I said. Your sense of time is malleable. A beast that you can tame. It should not invoke fear but empower you. No, you cannot stop the march of time but you can change how you perceive it.

Seek novelty, embrace change, take a big picture view on things to dilate time once again. You don’t need to book that flight to Bali to seek this novelty. You can start by picking out some weird exotic fruit in the supermarket. Try learning a new language online.

Time is just a construct of your internal chemistry, biology and life experiences. The fact you can change your perception of it should be seen as ablessing and maybe what you needed to hear to make change.

Vaping Companies & More Dodgy Tactics..

Vaping products are subject to certain public health regulations but in an effort to bypass this, some tobacco companies (which also own various vaping and e cigarette brands) are replacing nicotine in their e-cigarettes with related chemicals which have similar nicotinic effects and properties but unknown health effects.

This was highlighted and explored more in a research letter in the medical journal JAMA from researchers at Duke and Yale university who found that these “nicotine analogs” were also not accurately disclosed on the packaging.

For example, from a regulation point of view. In the USA vaping products which contain nicotine are subject to federal laws that prohibit their sale to people under 21 years of age. However nicotine analogs ae NOT subject to this process and haven’t been studied for their health effects.

These products appear to be designed to bypass and circumvent laws and regulations which exist to protect the public.

Watch this space.

Preventing Diabetes WITHOUT Meds?!

A brand new study from the University of Eastern Finland is the first in the world to show that a healthy diet and regular exercise can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes even in high genetic risk individuals – i.e anyone regardless of risk status can benefit from lifestyle changes.

I mean diabetes is a major issue worldwide, 1 in 11 adults worldwide has diabetes with 90% of these cases being type 2 diabetes. Even though there are over 500 genetic variants that raise the risk of type 2 diabetes, lifestyle factors are an underrated factor that can be modified.

The T2D-FENE trial was a 3 year lifestyle intervention that included 1000 men aged 50-75 in eastern Finland and all included participants had an elevated fasting glucose.

600 of these men had lifestyle interventions and the other 400 were “controls”. The lifestyle group had guidance on health promoting lifestyle and group meetings and had dedicated websites with advice.

The lifestyle change group increased their intake of dietary fibre, quality of diet, improved quality of fats in their diet, and experienced weight loss. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes was significantly lower in this group than in the control.

Bear in mind this whole study included patients with a HIGH RISK for diabetes.

It just goes to show even simple web based interventions or simple lifestyle advice can not only safe health care resources but promote major health changes.

Small steps always win.

The Trouble With Tiktok (& Other Platforms) For Health Information…

You see a doctor online and trust them right?

You see someone talking about health conditions online.. surely they know what they’re talking about?

Well, not always.

Some of the biggest audiences on these social media platforms aren’t just kids looking for a quick laughter fix. It’s people with chronic conditions seeking advice or extra information about their condition.

Yale researchers looked at how accurate some of this information may be, specifically on Tiktok and specifically when it comes to certain women’s health conditions (pelvic floor issues etc)

The research looked at the quality of female pelvic floor conditions on Tiktok with the highest numbers of likes, comments and shares.

74 videos were carefully examine by two reviewers specialising in these conditions and then they were rated on a 5 point scale to capture the level of misinformation followed by a 16 point tool to judge the quality of basic consumer health information.

Basically the outcome wasn’t good – “higher user engagement was associated with more misinformation. Most Tiktok videos (96%) in this field have poor quality information and 18% of these studied Tiktok videos contained misinformation (out of the 74 analysed).

I love Tiktok and social media for empowering patients and people with knowledge but use social media as a springboard to read up more yourself.

Do not always blindly believe what you see or hear.

P.S if you are looking for real science, real evidence based information that took me over 2 years to compile.. that combines science with my fruity language to help you make positive changes to your health… order my book “This Book May Save Your Life”

Why No Newsletter For 3 Weeks?!

I have been battling swarms of pathogenic bacteria which have attempted to hijack my meat suit.

It all started a couple of weeks ago now when I started feeling lethargic and was overcome with full body myalgia (muscle aches). I thought little of this and rested the entire day.

As the days went on I developed hot sweats, chills, a tickly cough which quickly turned productive (juicy green sputum, yum!) and had temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius.

My next week was spent between the toilet and bed.

I eventually took some antibiotics which began to quell the raging hordes of evil pathogens but the collateral damage began to creep in and the “good guys”, i.e the microbial tenants any landlord would love to have… also suffered heavy losses.

The antibiotics had begun a demolition job on my pristine gut microbiome.

I ended up going to the emergency room a couple days back to get a chest xray and some blood tests because I was absolutely hanging… my first ever chest xray! – it was clear.

I’m happy of course but there’s a small part of me that wishes I could have seen a big chunky pneumonia that can help me justify why I felt flatter than a Mumbai pancake in the last 2 weeks.

I now have to state taking my own gut health advice!

So here I am now, slowly improving but having to optimise my gut health and get back into the swing of things. Hence why my activity online has been somewhat curtailed in the last few weeks and hence the scarcity of newsletters.

If it’s any consolation, here’s my cheat sheet to gut friendly and generally health friendly food combos (rooted in science of course), which you can stick on your fridge or save to your notes app on your phone the next time you’re meal prepping or going food shipping!

What You Should Watch:

Chef – Netflix

One thing my illness has allowed me to do is just zone out and watch movie after movie.

Last night however, I stumbled upon a feel good movie which just made me feel great – I guess it did its job then.

Jon Favreau is this celebrity chef, estranged from his family and also awaiting a world famous food critic to visit his restaurant and review his meals.

The reviewer comes and goes and he gets absolutely trounced and demolished in the review.

Fast forward a few meltdowns later, he goes back to basics and goes from celebrity chef to Cuban food truck start up at the same time repairing his relationship with his ex-wife and young son.

7/10 film, easy watch and makes you feel warm inside. One of those films you can watch in the background, zone out, be on your phone, and still make sense of it. Plus it has a surprisingly stellar cast… Jon Favreau, Sofia Vergara, Robert Downey Jr…