Health Podcast: Train Your Nose to Sharpen Your Brain; Wash Your Hands; Eat Eggs for Your Genes

In this episode we feature:

An interview with longevity expert Dr. Kara Fitzgerald.

The link between vitamin D and a healthy brain.

Limit the length of your arguments.

The pros and cons of Intermittent Fasting

And more ways you can improve your health today!

For more information, and to sign up for our private coaching, visit tesh.com

Our Hosts:
John Tesh: Instagram: @johntesh_ifyl facebook.com/JohnTesh
Gib Gerard: Instagram: @GibGerard facebook.com/GibGerard X: @GibGerard

Transcript

Unknown: 0:08

Gib, hello and welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm Gib Gerard. Today we are featuring yet another intelligence for your health with Connie Celica. Episode of the show this week, our guest is longevity expert, Dr Cara Fitzgerald, she's the author of the book younger you, so she'll have all kinds of stuff that will help you slow your body's aging process. So here, without further ado, is intelligence for your health with Connie Celica, if you're anxious about what you have on your plate tomorrow, get more sleep tonight, according to the experts at UC, Berkeley, increasing your sleep by turning in a little earlier or sleeping a little later can reduce anxiety. It works by decreasing activity in the area of the brain that heightens stress, the amygdala. So if you have a job interview tomorrow, an exam or an important sales call, get a little more sleep, and you'll feel calmer and more in control. If you want to sharpen your thinking, start by sharpening your sense of smell. Doing a smell tune up for two minutes every day can quicken your thinking more than playing brain games. Here's how to do it, according to UC Berkeley researchers, while you're waiting for water to boil or something to heat up in the microwave, take out four things in your kitchen to sniff, like cacao powder, black tea, coffee and cinnamon, then close your eyes and sniff each one, trying to identify the scent that type of smell training rewires neural connections responsible for quick thinking. It's so effective that the scientists at UC Berkeley say doing that for two minutes a day can cut the risk of memory problems by up to 50% that's because our olfactory sense is closely linked to our brain's memory center, and repeated exposure to smells stimulates the turnover of nerve cells, while simultaneously sharpening your brain power. Just grab different things to smell every couple of weeks to keep your mind sharp. Coming up, we'll talk to anti aging expert, Dr Cara Fitzgerald. She'll break down the impact exercise has on the aging process from how any type of exercise can slow aging to how skipping a workout can speed up the rate at which our body ages. But first, if you feel a headache coming on, put an ice pack across the front of your throat. The University of Hawaii says that reduces head pain for 77% of people in as little as five minutes. It's because cooling the blood that flows through the neck into your brain acts as a powerful painkiller. We've been told it takes 21 days to form a new habit. Well, when it comes to developing a consistent exercise habit, plan to spend a little longer on it. Researchers from Caltech and the universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania looked at habit formation, and they discovered it takes up to six months to establish an exercise habit. The study also measured how long it takes to develop a hand washing habit, and that only took a few weeks for people to do it on a regular basis. In other words, not all habits are created equal. So why does it take so long for exercise to become part of a routine? In a word, effort, the study followed 30,000 people who swiped their ID cards as they entered a gym, and the results showed that it takes six months for people to establish a consistent gym routine, and one of the biggest factors was if people went on the same days of the week each time, 70% of the successful study participants went to the gym on the same days each week, And the longer the amount of time between gym visits, the less likely someone was to go back. So if you want to make exercise a habit, go the same days of the week every week, that makes you far more likely to stick with it. Okay, listen to this. Only 12% of US wash our hands before eating, even though we know our hands are germy. In fact, even if we don't touch anything after we get into a restaurant, our hands often have hundreds of times more germs than an escalator handrail, which means the germs already on our hands are just as likely to make us sick than anything we touch in a restaurant. So regardless of whether or not you touch the bacteria riddled menu or the ketchup bottle that hasn't been cleaned before you eat. Please wash your hands, because our hands are in constant contact with our mouth and with things we put in our mouth, making them the fastest route to illness. Today, our guest is Lauren. Longevity expert Dr Kara Fitzgerald, her book younger you focuses on strategies for helping us all live longer and better lives. And the good news is that scientists have identified several lifestyle factors that can help us age more slowly than the average person. So I asked Dr Fitzgerald to share the most important anti aging lifestyle habits, controlling our blood sugar, diet is a huge player. How much we're eating, what we're eating, exercise. Exercise is an anti aging elixir. We need to be moving our bodies. Sufficient sleep is essential for slowing biological aging and meditation doing something about stress. Stress is gasoline on the fire of aging. It pushes it forward. So if we can remedy our stress, if we can turn the volume down on stress, we are slowing and even reversing our biological aging process. Today, we're talking to longevity scientist Dr Kara Fitzgerald. She was just saying that getting regular exercise is an anti aging elixir that's proven to help us live longer. So I asked her to explain more about why exercise is so important and if there's a specific type of exercise that helps us age better than others. So the research on the beneficial effects of exercise are just very far reaching. They will potently prevent the diseases of age when we engage in any form of fitness, be it resistance training, high intensity interval training, cardiovascular training. All of these are beneficial, and then B damage, the pro aging effect of not exercising is as stark and powerful as the beneficial effects of aging. So we need to get out there and get moving now. There is too much exercise, and that can have a pro aging effect. If you were an athlete, if you were a competitive athlete, I was a cyclist when I was in medical school, and I always pushed it too far when I was competing, at the end of every season, I would end up with a case of sinusitis. We can see this increased risk of immunosuppression, of upper respiratory infections and so forth, and even a pro aging phenomena in people who are overdoing it, like the ultra merit honor and things like that. So in general, all exercise seems to be just extremely beneficial, with the exception of no extremes. If you're a woman who loves a spinach salad or some creamed spinach, you are in luck, because no matter how you eat it, even if it's pulverized in a smoothie, it reduces the risk of ovarian cancer. That's according to the International Journal of Cancer, that's because spinach contains an antioxidant called Camp for all that protects cells from DNA damage that can trigger cancerous mutations. And in a 14 year study of 67,000 women, those who consumed the most camphor, all were 40% less likely to develop ovarian cancer. Today's medical term gastroparesis that refers to a slow stomach, meaning your digestion and stomach emptying has slowed to a crawl. According to gastrointestinal specialist Dr Gerard Mullen, it normally takes about four hours after eating a meal for food to move into the small intestine, but with slow stomachs, digestion takes much longer, or it may stop completely. Dr Mullen says that usually happens if there's a blockage somewhere, but for one in 50 people, gastroparesis is a side effect of diabetes, which damages the key nerve between the brain and stomach, called the vagus nerve. When that happens, signals that normally trigger digestion get disrupted. So even if you just ate a full meal, your brain may think you're still hungry and delay starting digestion. Dr Mullen says the main symptoms of a slow stomach include extreme fatigue and feeling full after taking just a few bites of food, since your stomach may not have room to store the food, that can also cause bloating and abdominal pain. So talk to your doctor if any of that sounds familiar, because in most cases, you can take medication to get your stomach moving again. Or Dr Mullins says, Try going for a walk. Because generally speaking, the more we move, the easier it is for things to move along inside our body, and that's today's medical term gastroparesis coming up. We'll hear more from anti aging expert, Dr Kara Fitzgerald, author of the book younger you. She'll answer this question when it comes to vitamin D, what's the best way to get more into our system? System, is it through our diet supplements or more sun exposure, but first, the keto diet could help fight cancer. Scientists in New York found that high fat, low carb, ketogenic diets help starve tumors of the glucose they need to grow. According to the journal Cell Metabolism, the researchers found that combining the keto diet with drugs called corticosteroids, which reduce inflammation, produced cancer fighting benefits. In studies on mice, their tumors shrank and they lived longer. The scientists say keto causes toxic blood fats to kill cancer cells. The experts are really hopeful that this can be added to the arsenal of anti cancer treatment. What's the best way to speed recovery after an intense workout and reduce soreness and stiffness the next day, skip your usual hot shower and take a so called recovery shower instead. It's also being called a contrast shower, and it refers to switching from cold water to hot and physical therapist Kristen main says it's proven to help stimulate the circulation of blood and oxygen and speed up muscle repair. Here's the science behind the recovery shower, first a cold shower immediately after a workout, reduces inflammation and stiffness in muscles, joints and tendons. It also reduces after workout pain and soreness, just like icing and injury. Then when you switch to hot water, physical therapist main says the heat helps flush out the buildup of inflammatory cells, dead cells and scar tissue, which improves the health of your bones, joints and muscles. The hot water also relaxes muscles, improves mobility and reduces the next day soreness and stiffness. And here's the timing for the process. You start with a cold shower for two minutes, then slowly turn up the water temperature from cold to hot, but not scalding. So you can finish with a hot shower for another two minutes, then repeat the cold and hot cycle for five to 10 more minutes for optimal recovery. Okay, listen to this to recharge your brain. Take a nap. A study in the journal General Psychiatry found that people who napped scored higher on tests of working memory, attention span and problem solving, that's because a nap lowers inflammation, which in turn boosts your brain power back with more health intelligence from anti aging expert Dr Kara Fitzgerald and most people associate getting older with growing more forgetful and having a higher risk for dementia, but a new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition says almost one in five cases of dementia could be prevented if more of us just got healthy levels of vitamin D. So I asked Dr Fitzgerald how vitamin D specifically plays a role in helping us age better. Vitamin D regulates so many physiological processes. It's involved in so much in the body, it's not surprising that when we're deficient there's far reaching Fallout, and so we know people who are deficient in vitamin D have increased risk of dementia. They also have smaller brains. So when they actually measure total brain volume, vitamin D, depletion is is associated with a lower total brain volume, whereas somebody who is sufficient in Vitamin D has a larger brain volume. So via a variety of mechanisms, regulating neuronal growth, blunting inflammation, helping with calcium regulation, enhancing immune response, just really kind of far reaching influences on brain health. Vitamin D is just incredibly important. And I want to point out that in this country, most of us are either insufficient or frankly, vitamin D deficient. So about 40% of us have insufficient vitamin D levels in our blood, and almost 30% of us are, frankly, vitamin D deficient. So it's such an easy nutrient for us to get enough of and yet. So so so many of us don't do it back with more health intelligence from Dr Kara Fitzgerald, anti aging expert and author of younger you. She was just saying that at least a third of North Americans are deficient in vitamin D, even though it's essential for helping us stay healthy and live longer. And we often hear that one of the easiest ways to get more D naturally is to just spend more time in the sun. But surprisingly, Dr Fitzgerald says sun exposure alone probably won't provide. All the vitamin D most of us need. I don't know that we can count on sun for sufficient vitamin D anymore. Unfortunately, a lot of us are wearing sunscreen as we should be. We need to be mindful of damage from the sun rays. We can go out and have some sun exposure early in the morning. But is that adequate? The only way that we're going to go is if we measure it in our blood. My experience in clinical practice is that, yes, we want to get some safe sun exposure without question, but we have to supplement, and most of us need to actually supplement through the summertime. So I think those days of thinking we can get adequate tea from the sun are gone and that we really need to have our levels measured regularly, and most of us will see that we need to be supplementing. So as you said, sun exposure is not the best solution for getting adequate amounts of vitamin D in the body. But can we get more through food sources, or is supplementing the only way to go? I think that supplementing is the easiest way to get sufficient vitamin D. I mean, it's not an expensive nutrient. It's just widely available. You can get it from food. If you want to do a little bit of liver there's vitamin D fortified nut based milk. You know, regular cow's milk is vitamin D fortified, so you can get it in certain foods, but you'd have to pay attention to make sure you're getting enough to keep your levels high. I have to say I'm pro food. I want to have a food forward approach with my patients, but vitamin D is one of those exceptions. It's just easier to take it. Do we need to worry about germs in our backyard? Here's the answer from microbiologist Dr Philip Tierno, author of the book The Secret Life of germs. He says, unless you have pets that use it as their bathroom, rolling around in the grass is perfectly safe. That's not to say your yard is free from bacteria. It is loaded with it, but most of it is not harmful to humans. The germs aren't pathogenic, which means they don't cause disease. As a matter of fact, there's a common bacterium found in garden soil that increases our feel good hormone levels, so after gardening, you'll feel less anxiety and have better concentration. The only exception in the backyard is the sandbox. Cats like to use them as a litter box, and kids can pick up parasites. More intelligence for your health from longevity scientist Dr Kara Fitzgerald, if you'd like to know more about her or her book, younger you check out younger you program.com, and since there's been a lot of research coming out lately on the health benefits of intermittent fasting, I asked Dr Fitzgerald if fasting has any influence on how well we age or not. I want to say that the research on fasting is really quite solid. It's very regenerative, restorative. It kicks in stem cell production helping us to rebuild it lowers blood sugar. Of course, we lose weight. It lowers blood pressure, increases energy, helps with brain health, produces something called ketones, which are anti inflammatory fuel for the body. So via a variety of mechanisms, either a full fast or an intermittent fasting structure is smart for us, but we want to make sure we're doing what's right for us, the individual. And I think this is key, we have, certainly in our clinical practice, seen individuals become nutrient depleted because they're fasting their self prescribed fasting structure was too intense. We've seen people move into something we call orthorexia, or which is a form of of disordered eating, because they're restricting so severely. So we want to make sure that we're doing something that's sustainable and smart for us, and so I would, I would get guidance in this arena, what's better for your health than going for a walk, going for a walk with someone else? Over 40 separate studies confirmed that people walking in groups reduced their body mass index and body fat. They also lowered their blood pressure, resting heart rate and cholesterol. But it's the social aspect that really makes a difference. Dr Kylie ball is a professor of exercise and nutrition Sciences at Deakin University, and she says seeing other people engaging in exercise sends the message that it's a positive and socially desirable experience. Also, compliance for group fitness activities is as high as 98% where solo Fitness Plans are followed only 35% of the time. And when we walk with others, we walk longer and farther than we do when we walk by ourselves, and we walk more often when we walk with others. And in a study by UCLA, one. We feel socially supported, like by exercising with others, we have fewer food cravings and are less likely to overeat. Here's an email I received at Connie at intelligence for your health.com. It comes from Amy Olson, who writes, I've always felt like I have a lot of earwax. What is normal? Amy, if excess earwax is something you've experienced your whole life, it's probably normal for you, because according to Dr Maura cosetti, the director of the Ear Institute at Mount Sinai, some people simply have more earwax than others, and here are a few reasons why. First, some people genetically just make more ear wax. It's an inherited trait. Also, some skin conditions can cause people to make more ear wax too, like eczema and psoriasis, because those skin conditions can also occur in the ear canal. And older people tend to have more ear wax as we age, the outer part of the ear canal where the ear wax is made, starts to sag. When that happens, ear wax can get trapped in the ear canal. Finally, your ear buds could play a role. If you wear them regularly, they could result in a larger amount of wax in your ears because it gets trapped. The same thing happens with hearing aids. However, if your hearing is muffled, or you feel a sense of itchiness or fullness in the ear, you should see an ear, nose and throat professional to get things checked out. Thank you for your email. Amy, I hope this helps. Okay, listen to this. Only ever argue for three minutes, that's According to psychologist Dr John Gottman from the University of Washington. He says the most important points in any argument are brought up within the first three minutes. After that, people start throwing in things that are unrelated, or they start repeating themselves, and usually at a higher volume. So cap arguments at three minutes for each person to express themselves, then digest what's been said and reconvene later to come to a compromise. Health focused apps really do help us lead healthier lives. That's according to new research from the University of Washington, which analyzed more than 200 studies looking at the effect of different technologies on diet, exercise, weight and tobacco and alcohol use, they found that people who used health tracking and support apps were more likely to eat better, exercise more, quit smoking and engage in other behaviors linked to health and longevity. The apps that were most effective were ones that incorporated goal setting and self monitoring, like logging calories or miles walked. Other features that helped the most were forms of communication, like getting encouraging or motivational text messages or being able to video chat with a counselor. If you want to try a health focused app, the experts recommend looking for ones that help you to set goals and make you accountable for your behavior, by recording what you eat or how many steps you take, more intelligence for your health. From longevity scientist Dr Kara Fitzgerald, and in her book younger you, she breaks down a list of quote gene whisperers, which are foods proven to influence our DNA in a way that helps slow down the aging process. And at the top of Dr Fitzgerald's list of gene whispers is eggs. So I asked her how eating more eggs could help us live longer. Eggs have a fairly important brain, liver, heart, sort of total body nutrient in it, called choline. Choline is also very essential for gene expression, so it plays a key role in supporting which genes are on and off. We don't make it very efficiently so we are able to make it in the body, but we just don't do a good job. And not surprisingly, as we get older, we make it less and less efficiently, and so we need to get it from our foods. And one of the best, richest sources of choline is found in eggs. We can also get choline in mushrooms like shiitake or enough key or maitake, we can get choline in soy, but I would suggest that you get organic forms of soy and even fermented forms of soy, and we can get a nice amount of choline in liver. That's it for our show today, our special intelligence for your health with Connie Selig. Edition of the podcast, I'm Gib Gerard, don't forget to rate comment and subscribe on Apple podcast. Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. It helps us out a lot. And also you can reach out to us on social media. All of our links are listed down in the show notes. We try to respond to every DM, every mention of the show, because ultimately, we do the show for you guys. So thank you so much for listening. You.