Worker Bees' Weekly Bites

 

New Biomarker for Heart Failure

Not just an indicator of a long belts
For a while now, scientists have been examining the link between body fat and cardiovascular disease. Back in 2005, researchers from two Texas universities found that human fat cells produce a protein called C-reactive protein (CRP) with an interesting property – the tendency to cause the type of [...]

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Banish Bake Sales?

Even Patriotic Cupcakes?!
‘Tis the season (almost) for those holiday bake sales, church/temple bazaars, and school fundraisers. Can’t you see them? Friendly folding table arrangements with impressive displays of frosted, glazed, and baked creations in all homemade varieties. The glossy brochures full of burgeoning tins brimming with gourmet chocolates, peppermint bark, and all manner of confectionery [...]

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Loathe Handles: Belly Fat Increases Early Death Risk

Keep Tightening That Belt!
Loathe your love handles? A study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests the extra belly fat isn’t just an eyesore; it can increase your risk of an early death.
While the link between extra belly padding and health problems has been long established, this new study is the first to show [...]

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Off-Label Pharmaceutical Promotion

What was this drug intended for again?
What can we say? We’ve got Pharma on the mind this week! On Monday Mark offered commentary on the latest “study” being spun to further promote statins to the general population. It seemed like an opportune time to bring you news of a recent report on the “unofficial” business [...]

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Moisturize, Moisturize, Moisturize

Doing More Harm than Good?
Conventional wisdom (our dear, dear friend) tells us that without the constant application of skin creams and face lotions and mineral moisturizers, we’ll become haggard parchment people with wrinkled mugs that’d put an elderly Sharpei to shame. It seems to have worked, too. Most bathroom mirrors conceal impressive caches of creams, [...]

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Compassion Meditation

Healthy Mind, Healthy Body
When it comes to meditation, most of us probably think about inward focus, personal relaxation response, a deep concentration that allows for release and inner calm. And, certainly, meditation can offer that as well as an impressive host of physical benefits we’ve discussed in previous posts. (All part of the Primal Blueprint [...]

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The Many Faces of the Sugar Monster

Be gone you sugary-headed beast!
Our major qualm with high fructose corn syrup is its overwhelming ubiquity in processed food - which accounts for a significant portion of the average American’s daily diet. While we may not fall prey to the lure of excessive packaging and convenience offered by processed food, far too many people - [...]

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Don’t Let “D” Stand for Deficiency

Remember how we’re always going off about the importance of getting enough vitamin D in your life? How outdoor activity - and vitamin D producing sunlight - is important for any Primal Blueprinter? It seems some recent scientific research is again making this point for us.
Vitamin D and Parkinson’s

Come to think of it, I’ve never [...]

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Don’t Let “D” Stand for Deficiency

Remember how we’re always going off about the importance of getting enough vitamin D in your life? How outdoor activity - and vitamin D producing sunlight - is important for any Primal Blueprinter? It seems some recent scientific research is again making this point for us.
Vitamin D and Parkinson’s

Come to think of it, I’ve never [...]

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Mmmmmmmmmmmm… Fat

Feeeeeed Meeeeee….
If you read that in Homer Simpson’s voice, you’re doing it right. You see, science is starting to admit more and more often that Homer Simpson may have had it right in at least one dietary area: his fat consumption. A recent study suggests that (duh) fat can actually reduce appetite, curb hunger, and [...]

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Abandon the Primal Eating Plan?

Tough Times Call for… Pasta?!
Though we faithfully subscribe to an evolutionary model of living, eating, and exercising – the Primal Blueprint – we still live in a decidedly modern world fraught with all the inconveniences, global upheavals, and politics it entails. Authentically living like Grok is already tough without access to ample wild vegetation, big [...]

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Challenging Assumptions

Here at Mark’s Daily Apple, we talk about food a lot. The Primal Blueprint is basically founded on the notion that following the approximated diet and lifestyle of our Primal ancestors is the key to lasting health. A large portion of our posts center on examining long-held conventional wisdom about food - ridiculous stuff like [...]

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Sports Fans, Fish Eyes and Dental Hygiene

Ah, yes. Another mishmash of random yet relevant contemporary science news updates is upon us. This week’s offering includes news that engaging in sports (or even just being a fan) can improve one’s mental faculties; that though a diet rich in oily fish is supremely beneficial to your overall health, just a once-a-week fishy fix [...]

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A Pooper Scooper-Less World?

You might feel a little pinch…
For running a blog committed to following in Primal man’s footsteps, we Bees were initially all abuzz at the news that the FDA would be reviewing the prospect of introducing genetically engineered animals into the US system. We’re all about kickin’ it old school, as it were, so we weren’t [...]

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Science News Roundup: Brain Health

Noodle
We’re back with another slew of new scientific studies that seem to reinforce our commitment to the Primal Blueprint. Of course, we admittedly don’t need much convincing, but it’s always important for newcomers to see some of the tangible benefits of the lifestyle supported by cutting-edge scientific research.  This week, we’re examining the effects of [...]

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Going Grubby: The Primal Benefits of Dirt, Dust and Dishevelment

Friend or Foe?
Clearly, cleanliness is next to godliness, as they say, in this country. The number of products devoted to the sacred rite of purging and scouring American households staggers the imagination. (Ever roamed the cleaning supply aisles at Target? It’s a trip unto itself.) Every strength, size, scent, packaging, active ingredient, and formula (Would [...]

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Science News Roundup

While we here at MDA like to pay close attention to our bodies and use common sense to help determine what is and isn’t healthy, actual scientific evidence forms the backbone of our philosophies. We scour breaking health and nutrition news releases to make sure our ideas are supported by science. It’s important, we [...]

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Cranberry Juice and UTIs

Not Just Anecdotal Evidence Anymore
You’ve known for years that cranberries can help stave off urinary tract infections (UTIs), but now scientists have figured out the mechanism behind the benefit!
In a study published in this month’s Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces, researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts analyzed the Gibbs free energy of adhesion changes [...]

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Workout in a Pill?

Pill or no pill, they’re still working out…
As you probably already know, we here at MDA are all about making informed decisions that produce the best results with a minimal amount of effort. For example, what’s the point in running yourself to death when you can achieve better results with a short and intense workout [...]

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Carbs: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

How Thoughtful of You!
Earlier this week I addressed the question of ideal weight and the research that suggests people in their later years benefit from a few extra pounds. But just as I cautioned that a little goes a long way, new research shows that older men and women, particularly those who eat more carbohydrates, [...]

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Are New Prescription Drugs Safe?

I feel a rant coming on…
In the midst of the Primal Challenge and provocative issues like insect eating, we’ve gotten away lately from our more “salty” side, shall we say. Truth be told, we realized this week that we haven’t quite felt like ourselves. We couldn’t put our proverbial finger on it until the realization [...]

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Eggs - It’s What’s for Breakfast

Keep on Crackin’
Stop the presses: A new study published online in the International Journal of Obesity suggests that eating two eggs for breakfast (and not just the whites!) is healthier than eating a bagel.
As avid Mark’s Daily Apple readers, this one is easy to chalk up as a “well…duh” type of study, but the researchers [...]

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Exercise Variety is Key

Time to Change Things Up!
Boredom. Monotony. Tedium. The same day after day. Dull as tombs. Nothing new under the sun. As fun as watching paint dry. While we hope these phrases don’t apply to any part of your life, we definitely hope they don’t describe, above all things, your workout! We’re half-kidding, of course. Nonetheless, [...]

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Calorie Restriction and Bone Loss

Bones Need Care Too
It can seem like a cruel contradiction: lose weight, lose bone mass. Lose a lot of weight and lose even more. (Rest assured there’s more to the story, but we continue….) A collaborative study involving researchers from the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri highlights the downside of weight loss [...]

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Weekend Backsliding?

Slippery Saturdays
Researchers say Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the most productive days of the week. Monday tends to be “recovery” day from the weekend, and the rest of the week, well, we’re often coasting along waiting for the weekend to arrive, aren’t we? (Ah, the lure of the weekend: the free time, the social activities, special [...]

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Should We Allow Drugs in Sports?

Dear Mark,
I know you used to be involved in triathlon sports administration. I see so much written about “banned substances” and “cheating” going on in the world of professional sports these days, especially with the Olympics looming. What do you make of all this?
Ray

Ray, my position hasn’t changed on this issue in a long [...]

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Relaxation Response

Control Your Mind, Control Your Genes
In the last few months we’ve been highlighting new research that illustrates the power of individuals to influence their genetic expression through basic lifestyle choices, whether through diet, exercise, or avoidance of pollution. The message, as always, is that we aren’t passive victims to aging or any propensities in our [...]

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Sleep More to Forget Less

Don’t Forget to Get Your ZZZs

A study presented this week at the Forum of European Neuroscience conference in Geneva, Switzerland suggests that a good night’s sleep can improve memory.
For the study, researchers from the University of Geneva in Switzerland enlisted 32 volunteers to each learn a new skill, such as following a moving dot on [...]

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Fat-Oxidation Damage Control

There’s More to Pairing than Taste
Earlier this week we watched Mark make his signature salad: a veritable cornucopia of vegetable wonder (and anti-oxidant powerhouse). We’ve also heard Mark talk about his personal penchant for a good glass of red wine (another bearer of anti-oxidant goodness). It seems we primal types can’t get enough of those [...]

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Unrestricted Low-Carb Diet Wins Hands Down

Dig In
The New England Journal of Medicine has just come out with perhaps the most definitive comparison of low-fat, Mediterranean and low-carb diets ever, and the findings dovetail very nicely with what we’ve been discussing here recently about the merits of the Primal Blueprint. I think it also addresses some of the concerns shared about [...]

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Watermelon a Natural Viagra?

Juicy.
A study by researchers at the Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center at Texas A&M University suggests that watermelon may act as a natural version of the erectile dysfunction (ED) drug Viagra.
The Food of Lust?
While researchers have always been aware of watermelon’s high citruline content, studies had suggested that the bulk of the chemical was in [...]

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Single Serving Packs Don’t Curb Overeating

100 Ways to Eat More
In a study to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, researchers from the Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal suggest that single-serve packages do little to curb overeating and may actually lead consumers to eat more.
To determine the impact of smaller, individually packaged food items on overall consumption, researchers [...]

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