Perhaps you’ve heard of the “Blue Zones,” regions that are characterized by long life expectancies and an unusually high number of centenarians. There is some controversy over the accuracy of the Blue Zones data, but the basic idea of the project – try to identify areas where people seem to live longer and better lives and study them to see what we can learn – makes sense. Not surprisingly, the commonalities that residents from the different Blue Zones seem to share include regular physical activity, a traditional diet that is low in processed foods and made up mainly of home cooked meals, and strong family and community ties.
Autumn is almost upon us, and with it, virus season. Over the next few months, we’ll see a steady rise in cases of colds, flu, COVID, and bronchitis. Fortunately, these common viral conditions rarely cause death or serious harm. Unfortunately, none of them have a cure, and treatment consists mainly of waiting for things to run their course and be fought off by our own immune systems.
While a common cold is not a life threatening event, it can certainly be a miserable experience, and patients frequently ask me what they can take to help. Therefore I did some research on this topic and am creating this post as a useful reference.
To give you a straightforward punchline, here are three evidence-backed treatments for common winter viral infections such as cold and flu:
Researchers had over 11,000 participants wear a light sensor during sleep for one week, and recorded how much light the subjects were exposed to overnight. Then they did two things:
They performed a cardiac MRI on each person 3 years later
They also followed the participants for a full decade, recording how many suffered cardiovascular events such as heart attacks, strokes, atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, and cardiac related death.
A little over a year ago, I posted my thoughts on GLP-1 agonist medications (that’s things like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound). In all, I offered some serious criticisms and concerns of these medication. You can read my initial post by clicking here.
I want to return to the topic of GLP-1 medications today, because since that post my thinking on these medications has evolved. That’s not because I’ve changed my philosophy. I still have many of the concerns that I outlined in my initial post. However, science constantly makes new discoveries, and it’s a professional obligation of mine to keep an open mind and evaluate new pieces of data as they come in, constantly weighing the risks versus the benefits of various treatments.
The fact is that over the past year, a string of new studies have come out suggesting that there may be far more benefits to GLP-1 medications than were previously realized. I’ll briefly touch on just a few here:
We all know that sugar is bad for us. Just how bad is highlighted by a fascinating recent study that was made possible only because of terrible world events.
In 1940, Great Britain stood alone in its fight against NAZI Germany. Facing critical shortages of supplies and a desperate need to provide for its soldiers, sailors, and airmen, the British government responded by enacting a strict food rationing policy. This included allowing each citizen to have only about 40 grams of sugar per day (roughly 9 teaspoons). Thankfully, as we all know, the Allies eventually triumphed. But Britain was in such difficult shape after the war that it continued rationing many foods for years to come as it struggled to rebuild its economy. It was not until September of 1953 that the rationing of sugar was lifted and British subjects could return to simply buying as much sugar as they needed and could afford.
This in effect created a natural experiment of sorts, a “before” and “after” of a time when sugar was scarce. Recently a team of researchers leveraged this fact to ask a simple question: does the amount of sugar consumed during the first few years of life lead to any long-term health effects?
