Bill W. Brazil Blog: Weekly Link Love

Research of the Week

In the healthy elderly, daily aspirin use failed to improve disability-free survival while increasing the risk of bleeding.

Prenatal exposure to PFCS, found in teflon cooking surfaces and plastics used in food packaging, may reduce penis size and fertility.

Adding powdered mustard seed to your cooked broccoli increases the amount of sulforaphane you absorb.

Whether healthy adults eat high- or low-protein diets has no effect on their kidney function.

Just 12% of American adults are metabolically healthy.

Every McDonald’s touchscreen researchers tested had feces on it.

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Episode 296: Maureen Vincenty: Host Elle Russ chats with health coach Maureen Vincenty.

Episode 297: Brad’s Keto Tips, Health Mindset, and Reaching Your Goals: Host Brad Kearns talks about his most recent keto happenings and personal developments.

Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.

Media, Schmedia

The Chinese scientist who edited human embryos appears to be missing.

Harvard plans to start gene-editing sperm.

Sorry, PETA. On behalf of the gluten-intolerant community, the only acceptable replacement for “bringing home the bacon” is “bringing home the bagels made with a blend of millet, rice flour, and xanthan gum.”

Reader Question

Mark, thoughts on the new study “Hunter-gatherers as models in public health.”

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12785#.XAfqBQCuJzc.twitter

Very interesting. I’ll discuss it briefly today, and maybe later on go into it more in depth.

It hits most of the points I’ve been discussing for years.

Daily activity level is high (over 100 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous activity), energy expenditure is no higher than modern people. So they’re moving around a lot at a slow/moderate pace, but they aren’t chasing “calorie burn.” It’s the daily, frequent movement you do that matters most, not the number of calories you burn in order to “earn” that trove of mongongo nuts or slab of honeycomb.

Calorie density low, micronutrient density high. This is the opposite of the modern Western diet, which is high in calories and low in micronutrients.

Carbohydrate content varies, but is always accompanied by high fiber intake. These guys are eating over 100 grams of fiber, much of it prebiotic substrate for their gut bacteria, a day on the regular.

Normal lifespan (60-70+ years), assuming they survive childhood and young adulthood. They’re not “dropping dead at 30” en masse. Most deaths caused by infection or trauma—two things modern medicine is great at treating.

There’s much more, but that’s a good overview for now.

Interesting Blog Posts

Deleted from Wikipedia for questioning the narrative.

Everything Else

Blood-delivering drone service expands across Africa.

Modeling the harms, risks, and benefits of various statins for different populations.

About food, from food.

One season of football changes the brain scans of young players.

British doctors will soon be prescribing singing, dance, music, and art lessons.

Things I’m Up to and Interested In

Podcast I enjoyed doing: The Primal Example Podcast, where I chatted with Joe about the Kraft acquisition.

Study I found interesting: How hunger (for food) and curiosity (for knowledge) occur in the same brain region.

Question to ponder: Does DNA make us who we are?

Not a bad idea: Restaurant where kids eat free if parents don’t use their phones.

I’m impressed: Type 1 diabetic completes 1008 km non-stop bike race.

Question I’m Asking

Does DNA indeed make us who we are? Where does free will fit into it all?

Recipe Corner

This is a big day: paleo potstickers.
Always great to make a big pan of food for the week ahead. This time, try sheet pan Spanish chicken and potatoes.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Dec 1– Dec 7)

The Modern Hijacking of Dopamine: Supernormal vs Ancestral Stimuli – What are you getting off to?
Ancestral Sleep Breathing– How to breathe easy at night.

Comment of the Week

“It has a well-deserved nickname of ‘MetFartin’.”

– MetFartin‘ is what my buddies and I would do back in high school on weekend trips down to NYC. Hit the museums, find a particularly stuffy group of art enthusiasts, and, well….