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This call is closed. Beta testing has been successfully completed. HealthCorrelator for Excel (HCE) is now publicly available for download and use on a free trial basis. For those users who decide to buy it after trying, licenses are available for individuals and organizations.To download a free trial version – as well as get the User Manual, view demo YouTube videos, and download and try sample datasets – visit the HealthCorrelator.com web si...
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Human traits are distributed along bell curves: You need to know yourself, and HCE can help
Most human traits (e.g., body fat percentage, blood pressure, propensity toward depression) are influenced by our genes; some more than others. The vast majority of traits are also influenced by environmental factors, the “nurture” part of the “nature-nurture” equation. Very few traits are “innate”, such as blood type.This means that manipulating environmental factors, such as diet and lifestyle, can strongly influence how the traits are finally expressed in humans. But each individual tends to respond differently to diet and lifestyle changes, because each individual is unique in terms of his or her combination of “nature” and “nurture”. Even...
Monday, November 15, 2010
Your mind as an anabolic steroid
The figure below, taken from Wilmore et al. (2007), is based on a classic 1972 study conducted by Ariel and Saville. The study demonstrated the existence of what is referred to in exercise physiology as the “placebo effect on muscular strength gains”. The study had two stages. In the first stage, fifteen male university athletes completed a 7-week strength training program. Gains in strength occurred during this period, but were generally small as these were trained athletes.In the second stage the same participants completed a 4-week strength training program, very much like the previous one (in the first stage). The difference was that some...
Monday, November 8, 2010
High-heat cooking will AGE you, if you eat food deep-fried with industrial vegetable oils
As I said before on this blog, I am yet to be convinced that grilled meat is truly unhealthy in the absence of leaky gut problems. I am referring here to high heat cooking-induced Maillard reactions (browning) and the resulting advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs). Whenever you cook a food in high heat, to the point of browning it, you generate a Maillard reaction. Searing and roasting meat usually leads to that.Elevated levels of serum AGEs presumably accelerate the aging process in humans. This is supported by research with uncontrolled diabetics, who seem to have elevated levels of serum AGEs. In fact, a widely used measure in the treatment of diabetes, the HbA1c (or percentage of glycated hemoglobin), is actually a measure of endogenous AGE formation. (Endogenous = generated by our own...
Friday, November 5, 2010
TEDxGreatPacificGarbagePatch streams live this Saturday
This Saturday 6 November you have the opportunity to take part in an amazing worldwide live screening of the TEDxGreatPacificGarbagePatch conference, which has been organised by the Plastic Pollution Coalition.The theme is the Global Plastic Pollution Crisis and will be a forum where issue experts, youth leaders, visual and performing artists, actors, musicians, politicians and many others will share observations on how plastic pollution affects ocean/environmental health and public health; explore solutions for reducing our plastic footprint, and begin to develop ideas about eliminating plastic pollution through individual action as well as public- and private-sector innovation.Beth Terry from Fake Plastic Fish will also be contribibuting to the line up through her presentation, aptly titled...
Monday, November 1, 2010
Amino acids in skeletal muscle: Are protein supplements as good as advertised?
When protein-rich foods, like meat, are ingested they are first broken down into peptides through digestion. As digestion continues, peptides are broken down into amino acids, which then enter circulation, becoming part of the blood plasma. They are then either incorporated into various tissues, such as skeletal muscle, or used for other purposes (e.g., oxidation and glucose generation). The table below shows the amino acid composition of blood plasma and skeletal muscle. It was taken from Brooks et al. (2005), and published originally in a classic 1974 article by Bergström and colleagues. Essential amino acids, shown at the bottom of the table,...
