The Weekly Dose - Episode 48

The Weekly Dose...

... the latest from Dr Karan

  Here is your weekly dose...  

Hi all!Here is your weekly dose of the Sunday Six! A few things I found interesting this week. If you enjoy this please feel free to forward this to friends. families and enemies alike!If you've enjoyed any of my content over the years, I know you will enjoy my new book "This Book May Save Your Life", available to pre-order here: My First Ever Book!**You'll find more in depth analysis of some of these subjects on my social platforms in the links just below, including Dr Karan Investigates! for deep dives into interesting topics on my YouTube channel.**

The Time Paradox...

10 years working as a doctor has made me acutely aware of the value of time.Telling patients they have cancer, explaining to relatives that their loved ones have passed away or just missing events in my personal life because of work - you quickly realise that Time is your most precious asset.To give some perspective on this; at the age of 20 you have about 2 billion seconds left of your life (on average). By the age of 50, you have under 1 billion seconds remaining.I've often realised I have squandered this valuable currency too late. It is one thing that we can't get more of neither can we get it back. Use it wisely doing things you'll never regret.

What You Should Listen To...

The Referral With Dr KaranAfter almost 9 months of planning, it's here. My baby...the podcast.It seems every one and their dog and their fleas have a podcast these days. I wanted to bring something special to you.I've seen so many health podcasts filled with waffle, pseudoscience and people trying to sell you something you do not need. With shaky science at best and at worst, dire evidence seemingly cited from webMD or healthline.I've recorded 4 cracking episodes so far covering a range of topics with some tasty insights from my guests. The first episode will air Tuesday 30th May and each episode will be out on Tuesdays.You can catch it on any of the standard podcast platforms and I'll be posting the full video version on my Youtube channel also every Tuesday.

Why Fries Dipped In Milkshake Taste So Good...

Don't think of me as a madman.If you've tried this combination before, you know how excellent it is.If you haven't..then I feel sorry for your tastebudsHere's the science for you non french fry dipped in milkshake heathens:We have certain "sugar receptors" located on the taste buds that perceive and control sweetness, known as "SGLT1" receptors.These are responsible for enhancing the taste of sweet and salty foods.These receptors are only activated in the presence of salty and sweet foods, such as a French fry dipped into milkshakes or ice cream, which in turn leads to the food in question tasting much better than it usually would.Rather than having your salty taste buds and your sweet taste buds try to cancel each other out, your tongue has this specialized set of receptors that can allow both flavours to be enhanced at the same time.These SGLT1 receptors aren't just activated when you eat salty or sweet foods, like a soft-serve-covered French fry.This same principle applies to other foods, such as salted caramel or chocolate-covered pretzels. The sugariness is not only complimented by the bite of salt, but it's also enhanced by it. Additionally, the soft texture of the milkshake and the hot, crispy texture of the fries "excites" our taste buds because our taste buds not only register heat and cold temperatures but also register saltiness, sweetness, crispiness, and softness all at once.It's like a moderate form of sensory overload, something that activates both your sense of taste but also your sense of touch.This fusion of two wildly different textures and temperatures at perfect balance, neither overpowering the other, that makes such a combination palatable. It's a form of experiencing the best of both worlds at once.

Fad diets...

It is a human trait to pursue quick fixes which is why we easily succumb to fad diets that promise a lot, sometimes offer short term results but ultimately fizzle out.The majority of these "fad" diets or trends prove to be ineffective because they lean on short-term changes, prove overly restrictive in the foods they recommend making them difficult to maintain for a long time, are often nutritionally inadequate, and lack scientific backing. All of which leave them unsustainable for long term use or benefit.1. Going rawThere's this appeal to nature fallacy in which we think that modern day inventions such as cooking is bad and all natural only is good. Life is rarely so black and white.Certainly cooking can degrade some a food's nutrition it also allow it to be consumed more easily and crucially for many food substances destroy harmful pathogens. Published literature suggests that long-term devotees to raw-eating are more likely to end up underweight and nutritionally deplete B vitamins, vitamin D, iron, and calcium. Although the raw food diet was fading into the sunset, I have sadly seen a resurgence of this on social media. Like an angry haemorrhoid that had disappeared but reared its flagrant head again.2. Like a cavemanThe caveman or paleo diet was another episode of the naturalistic fallacy. This diet encourage a "natural" diet like that of our ancient ancestors; consuming fruits, vegetables, lean meats, fish, eggs, nuts, and seeds. Unfortunately, it meant food groups that were scarce before the advent of farming - whole grains and legumes, were left out.Less fibre = an unhappy colon and usually an unhappy person.We tend to have this idea in our heads that our cave dwelling ancestors had gladiator like physiques and were super human because they ate "natural". The problem with this rose tinted view is that we miss the point that by not having a wide ranging, variable diet they likely had significant nutritional deficiencies which led to a number of acute and chronic health conditions from pellagra to scurvy and beyond which resulted in high mortality rates.Let's also not forget some early human groups also resorted to cannibalism. Not recommended,3. Gluten freeSimply put, unless you have gluten intolerance or have coeliac disease, you do not need to go gluten free.Gluten, a protein naturally found in grains like wheat, barley, and rye, is likely NOT the reason for your tummy troubles. However there may be certain hard to digest sugars (FODMAPS) that you can find in some food containing gluten which could be the real issue.If you have chronic abdominal pain or find certain foods cause problems it's worth doing a couple of things:1) See your doctor for the abdominal pain - I usually go with the notion that anything over 6 weeks of unexplained abdominal pain is worth getting checked out.2) Keep a food diary to see which foods specifically trigger your symptoms. Once you find the culprit you can try your own elimination diet to see if removing the offending food type improves your symptoms.   

What You Should Watch...

AirThis isn't a film about how Michael Jordan became one of the greatest BBallers of all time. This is a story of how Nike came to dominate basketball and how Micahel Jordan's mum set a precedent that changes sport forever.The deadly duo of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck combine for a great film. AI Won't Take Your Job...A person using AI will..Lets look beyond the editing capabilities of AI or chatGPT..this one single use is alone worth its weight in gold. Scientists have used AI to discover a new antibiotic that can kill a deadly superbug. AI after honing in on thousands of potential chemicals, came up with an experimental antibiotic known as abaucin. This is particularly timely as antimicrobial resistance is increasingly becoming humanity's greatest looming threat. Worryingly, there has been a lack of new drugs for decades and bacteria are becoming harder to treat, as they evolve resistance to the ones we have.The researchers focused on one of the most problematic species of bacteria - Acinetobacter baumannii, which can infect wounds and cause pneumonia. You may not have heard of it, but it is one of the three superbugs the World Health Organization has identified as a critical threat. It is often able to shrug off multiple antibiotics and is a problem in hospitals and care homes, where it can survive on surfaces and medical equipment. Scientists trained AI on information about this superbug, and also allowed it to learn the chemical features of drugs that could attack the problematic bacterium. Shockingly, it took the AI an hour and a half to produce a shortlist of potentially usable chemicals to counteract the bacterium. The researchers tested 240 in the laboratory, and found nine potential antibiotics. One of them was abaucin.In laboratory experiments, they revealed it could treat infected wounds in mice and was able to kill A. baumannii samples from patients.The next step is to perfect the drug in the laboratory and then perform clinical trials...which could give us the first prescribable AI antibiotics in 2030.Interestingly, this experimental antibiotic had no effect on other species of bacteria, and works only on A. baumannii.The precision of abaucin will make it harder for drug-resistance to emerge, and could lead to fewer side-effects.   

As always, please give me feedback on Twitter. Which of this weeks Sunday six is your favourite? Is there something you want more, or less of? I'm open to any suggestions so please let me know! Just send a  tweet to @drkaranrajan and use the hashtag #theweeklydose at the end so I can find it!

Have a wonderful week, all.

Much love,

Karan