Rethinking Protein Intake: Unveiling New Insights from Recent Research

In the world of nutrition and fitness, protein's role has been the subject of much debate. Common beliefs suggest that post-exercise protein intake only offers a temporary boost in muscle growth, with any surplus amino acids being rapidly expelled by the body. Consequently, many muscle-building enthusiasts opt for multiple small, protein-rich meals throughout the day to optimize muscle development and minimize protein loss.

However, recent findings from a study published in Cell Reports Medicine challenge these established views on protein digestion, particularly post-meal. The research unveils groundbreaking insights with far-reaching implications for those focused on health and wellness. Let's delve into the study's key discoveries and their potential impact.

My Morning Routine: Humorous, but Healthy

I have a morning routine that I've been doing for years, but I only recently shared it with a stranger while we were discussing our daily habits. It occurred to me that my routine is quite ritualistic and resembles a luxurious spa treatment. As I was describing my routine, I thought about how I sounded like Christian Bale's character, Patrick Bateman, from the movie American Psycho, when he described his morning routine and saw the humor in it. As much as I see the benefits to doing it, it also sounds comical, so I am going to share it in this post in hopes of amusing most of you and, maybe, enlightening some of you to some lesser-known health interventions. I hope you enjoy it.

Healthspan Versus Lifespan

This post will cover a new phenomenon that describes the disparity between healthy years of living and death. We are all familiar with lifespan, but the number of years we live as healthy individuals is called our healthspan. Since modern medicine and sanitary conditions have increased our lifespans almost 3 times, the disparity between healthspan and lifespan is increasing. Read on for more information.

7 Suggestions To Achieve Unhealthiness

Last week, I discussed the importance of taking charge of your own health and promised to provide tips for maintaining your well-being. Now, let's explore some habits that might lead to poor health. If you want to be unhealthy, make sure you…

Some Quotes About Health I Love

I love concise quotes that convey deep wisdom. This post contains seven gems that could help change your mindset. Here they are in no particular order

Warm Weather Weight Loss

I have always preferred the warmer months to the colder, darker ones. Since I was a teen, I noticed I had less energy in the cooler, darker months and was sleepier. A few decades later, I noticed that I became less lean in the cooler months. No one would notice my condition because my energy levels are adequate and the extra weight is minimal, but I can see the seasonal difference in my body composition. My energy increases, and my leanness returns when the days lengthen, and it gets warmer. My transition to my more energetic, leaner self took longer this year. As always, I looked for a reasonable explanation for why I tend to gain some winter season weight, and why it stayed longer this year. This post will cover a few reasons for seasonal body compositional transitions and factors that can alter the normal process.

The Science of Resistance Training

The health benefits associated with resistance training are not under debate and include decreased gastrointestinal transit time, reduced risk of colon cancer, increased resting metabolic rate, improved glucose metabolism, improved blood-lipid profiles, reduced resting blood pressure, improved bone mineral density, pain, and discomfort reduction for those suffering from arthritis, decreased lower back pain, enhanced flexibility, and improved aerobic capacity. What has been under debate is how to do it best. 1 The American College of Sports Medicine, long considered the expert in resistance training, has dispensed poor advice over the years, largely unsupported by rigorous science.

In 2011, researchers used existing studies that employed rigorous science to more fully understand how we should work out. They included intensity, the number of repetitions, the length of training sessions, the volume of work, whether core exercises were as important as we think, the speed of repetitions, rest time between sets, and whether free weights are better than machines. Their findings might surprise you.

The Downside of Bedrest (PS. I love You Dad)

My father had been hospitalized several times recently and lost significant leg strength. Lately, he was put on hospice due to heart failure, and his legs ceased to be of any use after about two weeks. After living a great life, he sadly passed on March first, 2023, at 93, three days before his 94th birthday. He had a massive heart attack when he was about 52. His heart was so damaged they gave him poor odds of survival. They told him he would die young, even if he survived the next few weeks. They told him not to exert himself. He complied initially but then started lifting weights and walking. He regained his youthful vitality, which kept him alive for the next 42 years. One of his last lessons was about being confined to bed and its many downsides, even if it is sometimes unavoidable. This post is dedicated to him.

Diet, Functional Medicine, General Health, MovementScott Solomons, DDSMarch 6, 2023Bedrest, Sedentary, Sarcopenia, metabolism, DiabetesComment

Moderation Versus Optimization

As part of patient care, I have conversations about the introduction of processed grains to our diets about 10,000 years ago and all the detrimental effects that came with it; tooth decay, gum disease, stunted growth, etc. I also discuss the introduction of industrially processed seed oils like corn, canola, and soy and their connection to heart disease, diabetes, obesity, inflammation, and more. A frequent response I hear is the phrase, "everything in moderation." I am unsure what they mean, and I wonder if they do either. I believe seeking moderation has risks. I suggest optimizing as a better approach to health. This post will cover the difference between the two and seven things we should optimize for health.

Telluride Pediatric Conference PowerPoint Presentation

This post contains the slides for my presentation at The Southwestern Society of Pediatric Dentistry. It is intended for the attendees, but all are welcome to view it and share it. Enjoy.

Is Obesity a Genetically Induced Brain Disease?

You may have heard that a piece on the TV program called 60 Minutes recently sparked some controversy. A doctor stated that obesity is a brain disease, and the largest contributor to obesity is genetics. To quote her, "That means if you were born to parents that have obesity, you have a 50-85% likelihood of having the disease yourself even with optimal diet, exercise, sleep management, [and] stress management..." She tells us that lifestyle won't make a difference for genetically flawed people.

The 60 Minutes Program then segues into the new weight-reducing medications, stressing how effective they are, potentially leaving the audience with four takeaways: 1) Obesity is a brain disease. 2) Obesity is genetic 3) Lifestyle changes won't work for the genetically flawed. and 4) Drugs are better than lifestyle changes, especially for the genetically flawed. This post will address these issues and more.

The Ice Age and How it Shaped Human Evolution

Evolution takes place because we successfully adapt to changes in our environments over vast amounts of time, leading to the false belief that evolution occurs only when the environmental change is stable over time so that the adaptive changes can take hold and the species can flourish. After all, if the adaptative pressure goes in one direction and then reverses course, the adaptive changes might never happen or become maladaptive and cause extinction. But the climatic record during human evolution has been extremely variable, especially in the recent past, so it does not support the idea that environmental stability produced our adaptation. This post will discuss the accepted definition of ice ages, glaciations, interglacials, and their effect on human evolution.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Why Sucking Air Sucks

Poor sleep is often caused by poor breathing, which, in turn, is often caused by poor jaw development. In 2016, the American Heart Association released a "scientific statement" on the connection between poor sleep and heart disease; you can find it here. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine states that severe sleep apnea doubles one's chance of dying from heart disease. I have spoken at length about the connection between facial development and obstructive sleep apnea before. In my post today, I am going to focus on the pressure changes to the body that sleep apnea causes and their consequences.

A New Italian Study Reveals Omicron Much Less Dangerous Than Previous Strains

I found a recent Italian study that is in preprint. The paper uses Italian statistics on the infection rate, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and deaths from the different strains of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus. The authors used what appears to be reliable, high-quality data and analyses. The authors noted that hospitalization, admission to intensive care, and death from infection with the Omicron variant phase are at least 20 to 40 times less than the initial acute phase. I will break down the major details of the study in today’s post.

My Interview With Cavin Balaster

I enjoyed talking to Cavin Balaster on his Adventures In Brain Injury Podcast. Cavin is a survivor of a terrible traumatic brain injury who has a book called How to Feed a Brain: Nutrition for Optimal Brain Function and Repair and a podcast about all things health related, especially how to have a healthy brain. We met in Austin at a charity for the Farm To Consumer Legal Defense Fund and immediately hit it off. When He asked me to do it, I was skeptical that I could contribute much to the subject of brain injury, but after speaking with Cavin for a few minutes, I was convinced I had something to offer. Cavin and I understand that good health has more to do with things like breathing, nutrients, sunshine, and connecting with one another, not pharmaceuticals and surgeries. Although the latter two items have their place, they should be rare, whereas lifestyle practices should be constant. We had a blast and could have spent all day talking about health.

Waist-To-Height Ratio: An Easy Way To Determine Your Cardiometabolic Risk

A few years back, I wrote about the negative health consequences of visceral fat, which is the kind of fat that surrounds our organs. Too much of it is bad for our health. I spoke about several ways to measure it, but I want to concentrate on one very easy and free method called the waist-to-height ratio. It is a simple and free method you can do at home to determine your health risk. I will tell you why it is so important and tell you how to calculate yours. For the math-challenged, I have a link to an automatic calculator.

How To Do Your Own Medical Research: A Cautionary Tale

The law of the instrument, otherwise known as Maslow’s hammer, whereby he states that I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. Likewise, if the only tool you have is a scalpel, I also suppose it is tempting to treat everyone as a surgical candidate. A few years ago, I had a procedure recommended to me, and when I asked the doctor to justify why I should receive it, he stated,” anyone in my profession would recommended it.” In other words, “because I said so!” I did my own research and had the procedure.

But recently, A surgeon took one look at my MRI and concluded I needed surgery right away. He never bothered to ask my thoughts on the matter. I am now involved in a process cultivating me for the knife. In the meanwhile, I have been doing my homework. I am not surprised that the procedures they recommend have similar outcomes to non-surgical approaches. This post is designed to teach you how to do your own research, how to receive REAL informed consent (not the rushed one they do a foot from the operating table), and decide for yourself what is best for YOU. I will also talk about spinal health since the recommended surgery involves my cervical spine.

Age is only a number

I was on a digital detox this week and therefore did not look at any research or explore new topics in health. I was incidentally celebrating my sixtieth birthday at the same time. During the week, I saw some old college friends, one of whom I had not seen since 1985. I was feeling a bit nostalgic, so I went on social media after my detox was over to look at pictures from the past. I found this one of me in a striped shirt from 1985 that my dad took by our pool. My wife always tells me that she thinks I look just as good as the younger me, so I got the crazy idea to try and strike the same pose and see how I really stack up to a younger man. We had a good laugh trying. She claims to like the silver fox with the fancy watch better! Unfortunately, many of the years in between the photos were spent with avoidable health problems. This post will cover what happened and how I was able to get healthy and strong again.

The Incredible Human Part One

Human evolution has resulted in our total domination over most of the plants and animals of the world. There are many reasons for our success as a globally dominant species, and I will start covering them in future posts. But in part one, I will focus on our superior hunting skills and our adaptations for them, that rank among the best explanations for our success.

Before the advent of farming, our jaws were larger; our faces were broader, our teeth were straight, we had adequate room for our wisdom teeth, larger brains, and more space in our throats to breathe. It is a virtual certainty that our changing diets contributed to crooked teeth and a lack of adequate space for wisdom teeth and constricted airways. SMALL JAWS CAUSE BIG PROBLEMS. Heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, ADHD, depression, and anxiety are a few. In this post, I am going to cover how our lifestyles have changed leading to our current problems, and what we can do about it.