Eggspensive!

 

 

Eggs have long been a cheap source of protein and come with a host of important vitamins and minerals including vitamin D, phosphorus, vitamin A, and two B-complex vitamins that your body needs to convert food into energy. Eggs are also a very good source of riboflavin, selenium, and choline. They still are nutritional heros but thanks to the millions of chickens that have died or been destroyed due to the bird flu outbreak, they are no longer cheap. The image above is from a grocery store in southern California, which has been particularly hard hit. There are even stories of egg entrepreneurs snatching up every egg they can find and reselling them to desperate consumers and even business at, shall we say, scalper prices.

 

But in addition to making regular appearances at breakfast table, eggs are also in an enormous variety of other foods, who's prices are now also rising as a result of the egg shortage. Baking, in particular, depends on them.

 

So for something entirely different, here are 25 egg-free desert recipes. I have tried a few of them and you will not miss the eggs. The strawberry shortcake that tops the list was a big hit at a recent church social that I brought them to. Try a few and brighten up your egg-free day.

 

And if you have any tips as to how to better manage in a world of $0.60 eggs, please do share in a comment.

To live Longer and Better, Stop Acting Your Age

 

"Act your age!" is usually said with a tone of disapproval, whether you are a toddler or well into your senior years. Society has clear expectations for us as far as what is proper behavior at any age, and not conforming is not always regarded kindly. Does it matter? New research suggests that perhaps it does.

Research by Hanna Kuper and Michael Mormot of the International Centre for Health and Society at University College in London, raises the question of just how much the way we think about aging impacts how we actually age. 

What Kuper and Marmot found was that those people who thought old age began earlier were more likely to have had a heart attack, to be suffering from heart disease or be in poor physical health generally when they were followed up six to nine years later. 

The Kuper and Marmot study is not the only research to demonstrate measurable benefits of thinking positively about ageing. Becca Levy from the Yale School of Public Health also produced some extraordinary findings. Her study had followed more than a thousand people who were at least 50 at the time. She found that people who had positive ideas about their own ageing (who agreed with comments such as "I have as much pep as last year" and who disagreed that as you get older you get less useful) lived for an average of 22.6 years after they first participated in the study, while the people who felt less positively about ageing lived for just 15 years more on average. 

How can this be? Read this article for answers.

 

How Long Have We Really Got?

 

Since we are here to talk about aging well - happy, healthy and long - I thought it would be interesting to look a little deeper into just how long a human being could possibly live. Is there a biological "design limit" on the human body? A time after which we just simply wear out and stop working?

Worldwide, less than 1% of the population lives to be 100 years old. The oldest documented lifetime is that of a French woman, Jeanne Calment, who lived to be 122 years and 164 days old. Most aging researchers agree that the maximum lifespan for a human being, the biological design limit, is about 120 years. But the truth is that no one really knows.

People today are living longer than ever on average. Most of this is due to societal advances such as vaccines, antibiotics, public health infrastructure, sanitation, hygiene, earlier diagnoses, and increased public awareness about health and longevity. But while people are living longer lives on average, the the age at which the very oldest people die does not appear to have changed much in all of recorded history.

“Everything has to have a limit. There’s no creature on planet Earth that we know of that doesn’t die at some point,” says Briana Mezuk, the co-director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health. . “But there’s obviously substantial variation in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, which is in some ways more important than the first question. How long can we live and be able to have the type of psychological, functional, and social life that makes life worth living? What is that life expectancy?”

And maybe that is the real point. Not how many years it is before we die but how many years we are living the active, healthy, mentally fit lives we want to live. Not the years in your life but the life in your years.

The problem of aging has been shifted down the road. People living into their 70s, 80s and 90s is more common every year. Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related chronic conditions have increased due to people living longer. “Now, many of us are living to our seventies; we’re experiencing this built-in obsolescence of humans that manifests itself in age-related chronic conditions,” said William Mair, the director of the Harvard Chan School Aging Initiative.

While contemplating how old we might theoretically live is interesting, perhaps a better approach would be to do what we can to ensure that whatever time we do have is a life and not simply an existence. And the best balms against aging poorly are the things our mothers and grandmothers told us to do: exercise regularly, avoid smoking, avoid drinking too much alcohol, and stay away from highly processed foods to focus on a balanced diet of healthy whole foods.

How Is France Avoiding the Global Obesity Trend?

 

Worldwide adult obesity has more than doubled since 1990, and adolescent obesity has quadrupled. In 2022, 890 million were living with obesity. That is 1 of every 8 people on the planet. Previous estimates by the World Obesity Federation suggested that there would be 1 billion people living with obesity by 2030, but we surpassed that number in 2024. More than half of the global population—51%, or over 4 billion people—will be obese (not overweight, obese) by 2035, and the condition will touch all regions and continents of the world. The new projection marks a sharp jump from current numbers.

The total cost of treating illnesses related to obesity will be an estimated $4 trillion per year, which is about how much the COVID-19 pandemic cost the world in health care expenses in 2020. Meanwhile, the total U.S. weight loss product market grew to a historic $90 billion annually (2023 data), boosted by soaring sales of popular (and very expensive) prescription weight loss drugs. And yet we are fatter than ever. So fat, in fact, that instead of dealing with it, the US seems to be shifting its focus to accepting and living with it.

A quick glance at the graphic above shows that this truly is a global problem, impacting countries large and small. Thanks to Egypt, the USA is not the fattest country on the planet but we can take scant comfort in being #2.

A close look, however, reveals an interesting discrepancy. Of the 15 countries shown in the chart, only two do not show an ever increasing rate of obesity among their citizens. In Germany the obesity rate has leveled off, while in France is is actually decreasing.

How have these two countries managed to rein in the soaring rate of obesity? It turns out to be no mystery: by eating less and being more active on a daily basis. They didn't need $900 a month drugs or supplements or special diets or coaches or gym memberships to do it.

The French government introduced its National Nutrition Health Program in 2001, targeting schools, the food industry, restaurants and researchers, setting national standards, providing financial and educational support and tools and programs. It seems to be working.

In Germany, the flattening of the obesity rate seems due to changing eating habits, with younger generations consciously choosing a lighter, healthier diet over traditional German fare.

So with government intervention or without it, it seems to have come down to what we all knew all along. We eat too much of the wrong things and spend too much time sitting.

What are you going to do?

Soy: Poison or Superfood?

 

 

 

Sometimes people can become so invested in a particular belief or position that no amount of new information can move the needle on their outlook. As Scrooge's nephew Fred said in A Christmas Carrol, "It seems the less uncle Scrooge knows, the more stubbornly he knows it."

This is not to suggest that there was never a good reason to regard soy and soy products with suspicion. Some of the earliest studies conducted on soy suggested that genistein, which is one of the primary isoflavones in soy, increased the risk of breast cancer, specifically estrogen receptor-positive tumors. These studies were preliminary, and done in mice. They used massive doses of pharmacological genistein (not soy itself) and contained so many methodological flaws that even some of the original study authors have retracted their conclusions.

In 2011, it was shown that mice and humans metabolize genistein very differently. Some types of mice are unable to metabolize isoflavones effectively, and were shown to have up to 150 times the amount of genistein concentrations in their blood than the highest concentration ever observed in human subjects. This study casts doubt on the usefulness of conducting soy-related studies on mice, and emphasizes the importance of using human studies to draw meaningful conclusions.

Subsequent human studies have been conducted, and have found women who consume more than two servings of soy per day have the lowest incidence of breast cancer. Among breast cancer survivors, higher isoflavone intake was associated with a lower risk of death. There may even be implications for soy in the treatment of breast cancer, as preliminary research suggests it may be able to destroy cancer cells. Much more research will be needed in that area, though.

Soy, and in particular genistein, seems to protect against a variety of other cancers, including prostate cancer. It seems to inhibit tumor growth with no effect on testosterone levels. Even uterine fibroids, benign but often causing pain and heavy menstrual bleeding, may be able to be treated with genistein. However, these studies were done in vitro, so further research is needed to determine if the findings are consistent in the human body.

Another concern about soy consumption is mostly from men. They have heard that the phytoestrogens in soy will have a so-called “feminizing effect” on them. There were a few individual case studies that suggested this could happen. The first example was of a man who was consuming three quarts (12 cups) of soy milk per day, and the second is of a man consuming multiple types of soy products daily, which amounted to around 360 mg/day of isoflavones — roughly nine times the intake of older Japanese men, who consume soy daily.

Well-designed studies and literature reviews have revealed soy intake at usual amounts to have no effect on physical appearance or male reproductive hormones, and support the long-held advice of health care practitioners: too much of anything, even healthy foods, can potentially have adverse effects.

Meanwhile, soy has been shown to have a large number of salutary heath benefits that include reduced cancer risk, reduction of serum cholesterol levels and overall heart health. For example, Lunasin, a peptide contained in soy protein, now has a well understood mechanism of action for producing these and other desirable outcomes.

The clear majority of the evidence points to soy not only being safe, but even beneficial for most people to consume. While people with certain medical conditions might want to talk with their doctors about including soy in their diets, most can do so with peace of mind. If you would like to read more about the latest scientific research on soy safety, here is a place to start. It includes suggestions for those who might still do well to avoid it.

 

Lifestyle and Dementia Risk

 

Even if your genetic heritage puts you at a high risk for developing dementia as you age (like mine), the healthier your lifestyle, the lower your risk. A study of 11,561 Americans of European and African descent and published in Neurology, estimated genetic risk for dementia based upon factors such as blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol, exercise, smoking, diet and weight. Among those at the highest genetic risk, those with the best lifestyle scores were 34% less likely to develop dementia.

While this type of study cannot prove cause and effect, it is just one more piece of the overwhelming evidence that lifestyle choices produce better health. Want to do something about it? Try this.

Science Probes "SuperAgers"

 

Perhaps one of the scariest things we face as we age is the possibility of mental decline or even dementia. We can deal with almost anything so long as our mental state remains lucid, alert and healthy. Sure, some amount of mental decline seems inevitable as we age into our 80s and beyond. Our brains age just like the rest of us. We all hope to escape the worst of it but is there anything we can DO to improve our chances?

The answer, it turns out, is maybe.

The term "SuperAger" was coined by The Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease, which is located at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Their definition of a SuperAger is "adults over the age of 80 who have the memory capacity of individuals who are at least 3 decades younger."  Dr. Bradford Dickerson, a neurologist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital and his colleagues have been studying superagers for several years. Their results suggest that embracing new mental challenges may be the key to preserving both brain tissue and brain function.

Additionally, SuperAgers show less brain volume loss than is typical for someone their age. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), scientists measured the thickness of the cortex in 24 SuperAgers and 12 members of a control group. Normally aging adults lose roughly 2.24% in brain volume per year, but the SuperAgers lost around 1.06%. Because SuperAgers lose brain volume more slowly than their peers, they may be better protected from dementia.

That is great for them, of course. But are they just lucky or is there something the rest of us can do to slow the aging of our brains? Research shows that genetics and biology each play a role. And, fortunately, it appears that lifestyle does as well. And none of the habits associated with being a SuperAger will come as a surprise. 

An important factor in maintaining cognitive health is something known as neuroplasticity. The term refers to the structural changes to neural networks in the brain that are generated by the act of learning and retaining new things. That learning can take place on a physical, mental or emotional level.

Taking care of the physical body is also important. That means staying physically active, maintaining a healthy weight and eating a healthy diet. There is evidence linking ultra-processed foods to increased risk of cognitive decline, so limiting those makes sense. It is also important to manage diabetes, hypertension or high blood lipid levels. The good news is that no matter your stage in life, it is possible to reap benefits, both physical and cognitive, from these habits, activities and lifestyle choices.

You can read more about SuperAgers, and becoming one yourself, here.

Wishin' and hopin' and prayin' won't do it for you though. You actually have to invest the effort and take action.