Newsletter #020: Better cardiovascular health may lower risk of dementia in seniors 🫀
Welcome to the latest edition of the humanOS newsletter! Here, as usual, is where we share our own work plus the interesting media and studies that we stumbled upon this week.
Last week on the blog, Greg reviewed how dietary nitrate works in the body, particularly with respect to exercise performance (if you missed that, do go read that!). This week, Greg expanded his focus to other areas where dietary nitrate appears to be helpful. Nitrate supplementation, for instance, has been shown to lower blood pressure, which is a huge plus for long-term health, especially as you get older. Additionally, dietary nitrate seems to support the health and performance of the brain, a phenomenon that we discussed previously in our podcast with Jonathan Burdette. Finally, Greg also identifies foods that are the richest sources of bioavailable nitrate, so you can ramp up your own nitrate intake. There doesn’t seem to be any downside to eating lots of nitrate-rich veggies, so go for it - your brain and your blood vessels will thank you.
This Week’s Research Highlights
🩸 Exposure to BPA - at a level that the FDA has deemed safe - may alter insulin response in non-diabetic adults.
Researchers had subjects visit the lab on two separate occasions. During one visit, they were given a placebo, and on the other they were given a BPA dose of 50 µg/kg body weight, which is a dose that has been deemed safe by the FDA and EPA, and which resulted in the same level of BPA in blood that would be experienced when handling a cash register receipt. After both treatments, insulin responses were assessed through an oral glucose tolerance test. They found that BPA led to altered insulin release, compared to placebo, in these subjects. In a separate animal experient, the researchers found that repeated exposure to BPA led to insulin resistance. Co-author Frederick vom Saal said, "This exploratory study needs to be replicated because it suggests that BPA exposure at a dose considered safe by U.S. regulators could alter glucose-stimulated insulin responses in humans. Our study is an initial step toward investigating whether exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals, such as BPA, contributes to insulin resistance and eventually Type 2 diabetes.”
🍲 Improving food quality at a population level could pay off big time in the future.
Researchers in Brazil obtained data on purchasing decisions from the Brazilian Household Budget Survey, and categorized all food items into levels of processing based on the NOVA classification. From there, they devloped models to estimate the number of deaths from cardiovascular disease in 2030 if intakes of ultra-processed foods stayed the same or changed substantially. They determined that reducing the collective intake of ultra-processed foods by 75%, and processed culinary ingredients by 50%, could reduce cardiovascular disease mortality by 29%, and reduce stroke mortality by 32%. This suggests that reducing intake of ultra-processed foods, or modifying the nutritional composition of these foods, could lead to drastic reductions in the CVD burden in the population.
🧠 Taking care of your cardiovascular system may also protect your brain.
Researchers examined data from 6626 older French adults who did not have a history of either cardiovascular disease or dementia at the start of the study. Over an average follow-up of 8.5 years, they repeatedly underwent neuropsychological testing, and each person's cardiovascular health was assessed using the American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7 metrics. These metrics include things like smoking, physical activity, blood pressure, etc. The researchers found that having a higher cardiovascular health score was linked to substantially lower risk of going on to develop dementia during the study period. Among seniors with the lowest scores of cardiovascular health, dementia developed at a rate of 13.3/100 people. Among those with the highest scores, the rate was only 7.1/100 people.
Videos We Loved This Week
- Matthieu Ricard: The habits of happiness. Via TED.
- Martin Blaser: Missing Microbes. Via the American Society for Microbiology.
- Daniel Lieberman: Brains, brawn, and the evolution of the human body. Via TEDx Bermuda.
Products We Are Enjoying
Xanthan gum.
Ginny says: This stuff is like magic. I like to add a tiny amount (like ¼ teaspoon) to smoothies to make the texture smoother and creamier. It’s especially helpful for smoothies that contain a ton of greens or berries, which are obviously super healthy but can also make blended concoctions kind of watery and mealy. Remember that a little goes a long way with this stuff.
New humanOS Content
- Blog: Dietary Nitrate and Health: Effects on Blood Pressure and the Brain. By Greg Potter.
Media Featuring humanOS
- 1. Dan Pardi: The Sneaky State of Food Science. Via Wellness Force Radio.