How to Health

To start off our fourth season, we're doing something a bit different. In this special episode we're talking about how our very own Scott Lear achieves what he preaches to live a healthy life to support his physical and mental health. We'll touch on his physical activity, nutrition and sleep routines as well as how important socialization is to mental health.   And be sure to subscribe and join us in future episodes which will cover topics on how being active can make you more productive, busting common nutrition myths, how helping others can benefit you and discussing the latest scientific breakthroughs that will come up in the coming year.   

Is long been promoted that any activity is good for you. And in fact many people need to be doing more, but recent research indicates that not all types activity are good for you. In this episode, we discuss what types of activity may actually be harmful, what is the physical activity paradox, can you do too much activity and the biology behind it all. Select references cited in this podcast: The physical activity paradox in cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality: the contemporary Copenhagen General Population Study with 104 046 adults: https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/42/15/1499/6213772 When Moving is the Only Option: The Role of Necessity Versus Choice for Understanding and Promoting Physical Activity in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4411302 Coronary artery calcification and high-volume physical activity: role of lower intensity vs. longer duration of exercise: https://academic.oup.com/eurjpc/article/31/12/1526/7656624

Every three seconds someone in the world is diagnosed with dementia- a disease that leads to a decrease in mental function. There's currently no cure for dementia making prevention all the more important. In this episode we discuss what is dementia (and how it's not just a thing of ageing), what are the risk factors and how you do and eat affects your chances of getting (or not getting) dementia. Select references cited in this podcast: Association of daily step count and intensity with incident dementia in 78 430 adults living in the UK:  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2795819 Flavanoid-rich foods , dementia risk, and interactions with genetic risk, hypertension, and depression: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2823676 Lifestyle enrichment in later life and its association with dementia risk: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2807256

Everyday you make thousands of decisions that affect your health. This includes deciding what to eat, whether to exercise or not, and how much sleep you get. Whether you know or not, you're bombarded with information that influences your decisions. Behavioural economics is a theory that tries to explain why people may make different decisions in different contexts even if those decisions aren't always in their best interest. In this episode we discuss what behavioural economics is, how human laziness leads to decisions we don't want and how you can make use of behavioural economics to make healthy choices the easy choice.

It's estimated that 99% of the world breathes air that exceeds the recommended limits for pollution. Air pollution increases your chances for heart and other disease. But it's not just air pollution that's a problem, noise pollution also can affect your heart. In this episode, we discuss the health risks of being exposed to pollution, how air and noise pollution affect your health and things you can do to reduce your pollution exposure. Select references cited in this podcast: Associations of outdoor fine particulate air pollution and cardiovascular disease in 157 436 individuals from 21 high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries (PURE): a prospective cohort study: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30103-0/fulltext Association between Noise and Cardiovascular Disease in a Nationwide U.S. Prospective Cohort Study of Women Followed from 1988 to 2018: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP12906 The impact of vegetative and solid roadway barriers on particulate matter concentration in urban settings: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0296885  

The global weight loss industry will be worth $400 billion by 2030. And while most people who are trying to lose weight will say they're doing it for their health, your weight is not a good indicator of how healthy you are. In this episode we discuss how people started to equate weight with health, the role of excess body fat (and not weight) in health, what you need body fat for and when changes in weight are good and when they're not. References cited in this podcast: Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines: https://obesitycanada.ca/guidelines/ Weight Circumference and All-cause Mortality in a Large US Cohort: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/775594  

Sodium (and salt for that matter) has been made out to be the villain when it comes to nutrition. In fact, without sodium, you wouldn't be alive. While high amounts of salt in the diet are related to high blood pressure, the evidence to support a link with heart and other diseases isn't clear. In this episode we discuss why you need sodium, how much is too much, is sodium as harmful as we're told and how getting more potassium can help.   References cited in this podcast: Urinary Sodium and Potassium Excretion, Mortality, and Cardiovascular Events: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1311889 Sources of potassium in food: https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/food-sources-potassium  

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Or is it? Most people have some sort of breakfast some of the time. There are also plenty of studies linking breakfast to weight loss, health and even school performance. But is the idea of breakfast based on science or what cereal companies tell us? In this episode, we discuss why people think breakfast is important, how it affects your health and what happens if you don't eat breakfast.   References cited in this podcast: The Importance of Breakfast in Atherosclerotic Disease: Insights from the PESA Study: https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2017.08.027 Effect of breakfast on weight and energy intake: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials: https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l42 Omission of a carbohydrate-rich breakfast impairs evening endurance exercise performance despite complete dietary compensation at lunch: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17461391.2020.1797890

The average person consumes 39 000 to 52 000 microplastic particles per year through food and drink. This number doubles when taking into account how many microplastics we might inhale. Microplastics have been found in blood samples and almost every organ in the human body. In this episode, we discuss what are microplastics, how they get into your body, how they affect your health and how to avoid being exposed to them.   References cited in this podcast: Human Consumption of Microplastics: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b01517 Polypropylene microplastics promote metastatic features in human breast cancer: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-33393-8 Microplastics and Nanaoplastics in Atheromas and Cardiovascular Events: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822

The average person sits for more than 6-8 hours. While we can't avoid sitting (and sometimes it's necessary), most of us do too much and continuous sitting can increase your risk for disases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer and dementia, and early death. In this episode we discuss the problems with sitting, how it affects your metabolism, can your exercise counteract sitting and provide you with tips on how to reduce your sitting.   References cited in this podcast: Association of Sitting Time with Mortality and Cardiovascular Events in High-Income, Middle-Income and Low-Income Countries: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/article-abstract/2793521 Device-measured physical activity, sedentary time, and risk of all-cause mortality: An individual participant analysis of four prospective cohort studies: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/57/22/1457 Breaking Up Prolonged Sitting Reduces Postprandial Glucose and Insulin Responses: https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/35/5/976/38374/Breaking-Up-Prolonged-Sitting-Reduces-Postprandial  

From frozen vegetables to heat-and-serve burritos, processed foods are all around us and make up a large portion of most people’s diet. Ultra-processed foods, such soda pop, frozen meals and soup, have been associated with heart disease, cancer, diabetes and early death, but can all these foods be grouped together, and can processed foods be part of a healthy diet? In this episode, we discuss what makes a food a processed food, how processed foods affect your health and whether you should be concerned if they’re in your diet.   Some references cited in the podcast: Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses: https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-077310   NOVA classification of foods: https://world.openfoodfacts.org/nova   Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413119302487

Strong body, strong mind, is a common saying, but the reverse can be true too. How you think can affect your physical health because each and every thought you have is the result of a chemical reaction. In this episode, we discuss how certain thoughts affect performance and health, what happens in your body to make this happen and how to shift to a more positive way of thinking.   Some references cited in the podcast: Association of Optimism with Cardiovascular Events and All-Cause Mortality https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2752100 Become More Optimistic by Imagining a Best Possible Self https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005791611000358?via%3Dihub Interactions of momentary thought content and subjective stress predict cortisol fluctuations in a daily life experience sampling study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-33708-0    

More than 40% of adults consume artificial sweeteners, with most of this coming from diet pops. But they're also found in yoghurts, chewing gum and cereals, among other foods. Commonly used by people wanting to avoid calories, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended against their use. In this episode, we discuss what artificial sweeteners are, what the WHO is concerned about, and whether you're putting your health at risk by consuming them.   Some references cited in the podcast: https://www.who.int/news/item/15-05-2023-who-advises-not-to-use-non-sugar-sweeteners-for-weight-control-in-newly-released-guideline https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02223-9 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916522031860  

Over 50% of people consume alcohol in Western countries. Many guidelines indicate having 1-2 drinks per day is acceptable and may even be beneficial. However, recent studies and experts have said no amount of alcohol is safe. In this episode we discuss how common alcohol is, what alcohol use disorder means, how your body responds when you have a drink and untangle the conflicting research as to whether alcohol is good or bad for your health.

Nearly half of adults report having challenges with sleeping. Getting a good night's sleep is important to maintaining physical and mental health. In this episode we discuss tips to help you get a good night's sleep from setting up your nighttime routine to home remedies to when you might need to speak with your doctor. In Part 1 of this episode, we discussed the health consequences of not enough sleep and the biology of how your body knows when to sleep.    

Guidelines recommend you get between 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Yet many people don't get enough sleep potentially putting their health at risk. In this episode we discuss how not getting enough sleep, or getting too much, can affect your health, along with the biology of how your body knows when to sleep. In Part 2 of this episode, we discuss strategies for getting a good night's sleep.

From exercise is good for weight loss to no pain no gain, there are literally dozens, if not hundreds of exercise myths out there. Some myths are so entrenched in society it can put people off exercise altogether. In this episode, we bust seven of the most common myths around to help you get the best out of your exercise program.   If you have your own exercise myths you would like us to bust on a future episode, or even ideas for a future episode, send us an email (how2healthpodcast@gmail.com) or DM us on Instagram (@howtohealthpodcast).

For over 50 years, dietary fat has got a bad rep from a small number of early studies indicating eating fat led to heart disease. But these early studies may not have shown the full picture. We now know that not all fats are the same and you may not need to fear having fat in your diet. In this episode we discuss the different types of fats, what recent studies say about eating fat and your health, along with the role the sugar industry had in making fat out to be the health villain.

Exercise has long been thought to weaken the immune system and make your body more susceptible to infections. However, recent science challenges this belief and suggests exercise may indeed make you more resistant to infections. In this episode we discuss the basics of the immune system, problems with early studies suggesting exercise weakens the immune system and how exercise works to improve your immune response, resulting in less infections.

Strength training isn't just for bodybuilders. It's for everyone. Muscle mass starts to decline in your 30s and by your 60s, one quarter of muscle is lost. Reductions in strength are even greater. In this episode we discuss how strength training can benefit you at any age, how it can prevent muscle loss and how to set up your own strength training program (no gym required!).   Strength training programs you can do at home: Kettlebell (you can use a jug in if you don't have a kettlebell): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27S7sL-ajkw Resistance band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c22RfIEzKv4 No equipment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2cMMnUuKYQ