Alzheimers 9: What are the low-hanging fruits you can do right now, to reduce your all-cause mortality?
How Vitamin D, Omega-3s, & Exercise May Increase Longevity: notes from a video by Rhonda Patrick
Introduction
Dr Rhonda Patrick is a clear communicator who explains complex matters well, so be sure to scroll down to find her video talk and listen to it (one hour, or 40 minutes if you play back at 1.5 speed).
Don't worry if you don’t have a spare 60 minutes. I’ve presented my notes of her talk in a way that you’ll get something useful in as little as two minutes.
Super quick summary
Cover your dinner plate with a massive helping of leafy greens and come back for seconds!
Eat sardines, mackerel and wild salmon three times per week!
Exercise (moderately, like walking and/or very gentle jogging) 20 to 60 minutes daily.
Work up a sweat four times per week (short bouts of heavy breathing - not so hard that you can’t make it a long-term habit).
Dr Patrick does not cover sauna benefits in this video. Read her comments on saunas here.
These summary graphics are worth a read
More detail
There are 30 to 40 known essential minerals, vitamins and fatty acids, many of which are deficient in the modern diet. Just three will be focussed on in this video, namely Vitamin D, Magnesium and Omega 3 oils.
Summary of Dr Patrick’s vitamin D advice
70% of Americans have inadequate vitamin D levels.
Vitamin D, when provided from suntanning or from the diet in sufficient amounts, beneficially regulates more than 1,000 different genes.
One example of how vitamin D switches genes on is that it improves Serotonin production. [My comment: This may be the reason why trials have shown that vitamin D supplementation (at approximately 7,000 units per day for a minimum of 6 weeks) nearly halves symptoms of anxiety and depression and may actually go a long way to reducing the need for serotonin-enhancing drugs (Ref 1 Ref 2).]
Young or working-age people often require 4,000 units of vitamin per day to bring themselves up to a sufficient level.
A 70-year-old makes a quarter of the vitamin D they could make as a twenty-year-old. Therefore, gentle suntanning does not work for older people as well as it does for younger people and people of retirement age in general may require 7,000 units of vitamin D for 3 months to correct a Vitamin D deficiency.
Dr Patrick takes about 4,000 units daily, of vitamin D daily. I myself take 4,000 units of vitamin D daily in winter and 2,000 units daily in summer. I take vitamin K2 with my vitamin D supplement. I do this on the basis of advice from Dr Mercola.
The above are generalisations merely, but they work for most people. Some people - due to genetic mutations - need ten times this dose while some people need less. It’s always important to plan your vitamin D supplementation based on your current blood vitamin D tests. [In New Zealand, you are legally entitled to walk into a blood testing clinic and request a vitamin D test but it will cost you $70.00 and they are happy to do this; it will cost you less if your doctor is willing to request the test on your behalf).
(I cannot remember whether Dr Patrick advises daily suntanning. Dr Mercola recommends 15 to 30 minutes of daily sunbathing, along with other simple advice, in a graphic that is available here).
Summary of Dr Patrick’s Magnesium advice
50% of the US population is deficient in Magnesium.
Approximately 400 mg of magnesium daily is required for optimal health, 15% more if you are exercising or taking a sauna (if you sauna or exercise, you also increase your Sodium Potassium and Calcium requirements).
Dr Patrick takes an extra 125 mg of Magnesium daily, alongside plenty of leafy greens.
Summary of Dr Patrick’s Omega advice
For optimum health, the Omega-3 index should be Omega 3 greater than 8% of total red blood cell lipids. In America, two-thirds and as much a 95% of children test deficient on the Omega 3-index test.
Adults with sufficient blood levels of Omega 3 were approximately 50% less likely to suffer depression (Ref.)
Omega-3 oils reduce inflammation, improve genetic stability, slow muscle atrophy and reduce all-cause mortality.
[My comment: Except in people on a very poor diet, Omega 3 supplements do not protect against Alzheimer’s dementia, and it is not yet known if they protect against vascular dementia. There is, however, evidence that cold water fish, such as wild salmon and sardines and Krill oils, do protect against dementia (Ref.)(Ref.) A likely reason for the ineffectiveness is that “degumming” during the processing of Omega 3 fish oils removes the phospholipids, (Ref.). I will share more information about this in:
Read: Alzheimer's 10: why krill oil and fatty fish provide a better omega 3 for brain health
Comment about Hormesis
Hormesis is when intermittent exposure to short periods of stress switches on stress response genes.
[My comment:
A mildly noxious food or environmental stimulus [that lasts for a few minutes or a few hours - fasting would go for longer], switches on protective genes that last for a number of days. The net health benefit outweighs any harm done by the short-term stressful stimulus. Examples of hormetic foods include Turmeric and Sulfuraphane. Examples of hormetic stresses include exercise and saunas].
Moderate (aerobic) exercise
Do 20 to 60 minutes daily. Be consistent. You do not have to do it all at once. [My comment: it could be broken up into short walks, for example, parking on the wrong side of the parking lot or taking the stairs, not the elevator].
Heavy breathing (lactate-producing) exercise
Lactic acid in the blood is a ready energy source for brain cells. Lactic acid also increases brain-derived neurotropic fact (BDNF).
Both aerobic and anaerobic exercise increases blood flow, which (because cancer cells are fragile) physically breaks down any cancer cells that are travelling in the bloodstream.
The following graphics from Dr Partrick’s video are worth studying
Dr Patrick does a Tabata interval workout four times a week
A Tabata workout is:
20 seconds cycle sprint at 170% of VO2 max
Rest for10 seconds
Repeat 8 times for a total of 4 minutes
Do four times weekly
The original research was on very fit young college athletes and went for a total of 6 weeks
References:
1. Metabolic profile of high intensity intermittent _intermittent.15.aspx
2. Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and ˙VO2max
[My comments]:
1. “At the end of your Tabata session, you should be completely spent. If not, then you need to push harder! (Ref.)”.
2. Tabata is a research finding and not a sustainable one-size-fits-all training program. Read: Stop doing Tabata intervals, they suck”]
3. For me (an athlete who trains and competes in the 400-meter endurance sprint), the Tabata protocol would be a very destructive training program. It would be a massive hormetic overload!