With flu season fast approaching, it’s time to help your immune system by supplementing your vitamin D levels.
But you can also consider an omega-3 supplement.
Recent studies suggest that it not only boosts your immune system, but also the health of your heart and brain.
Omega 3 is an essential fatty acid, which means it’s essential for our health, but unfortunately your body can’t produce it on its own, so the only way to get enough of it is through diet (that’s why it’s “essential”) named. ).
And this is where things get complicated. There are several types of fatty acids in the omega-3 family, but the two most important are DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid).
Among other things, they ensure that your brain cells remain healthy and continue to communicate with each other.
Unfortunately, the only real way to get high levels of DHA and EPA in your diet is to eat fatty fish, seaweed (pictured) or take a supplement.
In a study published last year in the journal Neurology, researchers at the University of Texas found a strong link between blood levels of EPA and DHA and brain health.
After taking blood samples and brain scans from 2,000 middle-aged volunteers, researchers found that people with the highest levels of EPA and DHA performed better on cognitive tests.
In addition, the volunteers who carried a variant of the APOE4 gene, which is associated with a much higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, but also had high levels of DHA and EPA, had less brain damage than those who didn’t do.
These omega-3 fatty acids have brain-protective effects, although we don’t know exactly why.
One theory is that they are an important part of the membranes around nerve cells (or neurons) or that they have powerful anti-inflammatory properties.
Like Dr. Claudia Satizabal, who carried out the study, said: “We show that if you increase your consumption of omega-3 fatty acids even slightly, you will protect your brain.”
Unfortunately, the only real way to get high levels of DHA and EPA in your diet is to eat fatty fish, seaweed, or take a supplement.
There are other types of omega-3 fatty acids in walnuts and flaxseed that your body can convert into DHA and EPA, but not in sufficient amounts to make a big difference to your health.
And this is one of the reasons why the NHS recommends eating at least one portion of fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines or herring (think SMASH) a week. These are all good sources of DHA and EPA.
I now eat nice fatty fish every day of the week – herring for breakfast, sardines on toast for lunch and salmon for dinner – but there are concerns about sustainability.
Add to this the fact that because oily fish eat other fish and store toxins in its liver, it can contain small amounts of pollutants that can build up in our bodies. Therefore, it is best not to overdo it.
In fact, most Brits eat nowhere near the recommended amounts. A 2019 study found that only a quarter regularly eat fatty fish and that the groups that need omega-3 the most (children, teenagers and pregnant women) eat the least.
Previous research from the University of Oxford found that 10 per cent of children aged seven to nine never ate fish and that the amount of DHA in their blood was less than half the recommended amount. Low levels of DHA have been linked to poor reading and memory performance.
If you are vegetarian, vegan or simply don’t like fish, you can try eating seaweed.
Although it does not contain as many omega-3 fatty acids as fatty fish, it helped our ancestors sustain their existence over the millennia.
A recent study published in Nature Communications by archaeologists from the universities of Glasgow and York found that people in Europe, from Scotland to Spain, have been eating seaweed for more than 8,000 years.
One option is nori, the edible seaweed used to wrap sushi, or laverbread, a Welsh specialty made from laver, a type of seaweed mixed with oats to make laver cakes.
I prefer to get my nutrients through food, but a review of more than 40 studies published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings in September 2020 that gave people supplements with DHA and EPA found that it reduced the risk of a fatal heart attack by 35 percent decreased.
As for how much to take, Dr. Carl Lavie, cardiologist and one of the authors of the 2020 study, a supplement with DHA and EPA and at a dose of 1000 to 2000 mg per day.
Since I eat a lot of fish, I’m not sure if I need a supplement. I would like to know what my levels are, but current blood tests are expensive and labor intensive.
Scientists at McMaster University in Canada have developed a new test that they say is simpler and cheaper.
As soon as it becomes available I will try it and tell you: watch this space!
One of the strangest ways to lose weight, but it actually seems to help, is a fecal transplant – of a slimmed-down version of yourself
Do you want to take this pill to stay slim?
We all know that losing weight is hard, but losing weight is even harder. Therefore, over the years there have been many different approaches to tackling this problem.
One of the strangest but actually useful methods is a fecal transplant – of a slimmed-down version of yourself.
In 2006, researchers at Washington University in the US showed that when they took gut bacteria from an obese mouse and transplanted it into a lean mouse, the lean mice gained weight quickly despite not being given any extra food not.
This is because the obese mice’s bacteria were incredibly efficient at extracting energy from the food they consumed.
Since then, small human studies have shown that a fecal transplant—from a thin volunteer, with the treated stool inserted via an endoscope—can help people lose weight, but the effect doesn’t seem to last very long.
Now researchers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel have developed a new approach based on the finding that healthy diets and weight loss in obese people can lead to positive changes in their gut microbes (microbiome).
However, these changes are not permanent as we often return to our old eating habits. And that’s where the new study comes into play.
Researchers put 82 obese, middle-aged volunteers on a low-calorie Mediterranean diet that caused them to lose an average of 18 pounds (8.3 kg) over six months.
Their feces were then collected, analyzed, frozen, put into odorless capsules (“crapsules”) and then stored for the following year: the volunteers were then given either their own crapsules or a placebo pill every month.
So what happened? The first thing the researchers noticed was that the initial weight loss led to positive changes in the gut microbiome in most, but not all, volunteers.
Those whose microbiomes did not improve and those who took a placebo pill the following year gained some weight back, an average of 3.2 kg (7 pounds).
But the group that took the capsules of their own beneficial bacteria not only kept their weight off, but also lost a little more (0.6 kg, or 1 pound).
This may sound like a laborious, expensive and messy method of weight maintenance, but we hope it will help improve our understanding of the role of the microbiome and lead to better treatments.
In the meantime, the best way to boost the “good” bacteria in your gut is to eat more high-fiber foods like leeks and onions, whole grains and legumes, and an occasional pinch of fermented foods like sauerkraut or kimchi .
They must taste better than I think a crapsule tastes.
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
