Health News Update: Why Your Exposome Matters

Health News Update: Herbs and Spices vs. Cholesterol 5.18.26 Hello everyone: Suppose you have a family history of cardiovascular disease, and you want to lower your cholesterol. The first thing would be to go to a predominantly plant-based food plan removing refined grains, added sugars, fried things, and consume a lot of fiber through enjoying as many green vegetables as you can. Is there anything else you could do? What about making these meals even more delicious with herbs and spices? Would that help your cause? Abstract : Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of global mortality, with elevated cholesterol as a major modifiable lipid risk factor. This narrative review synthesized evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials examining the effects of herbs, spices, and botanicals on total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in adults with or at risk for dyslipidemia. Ten agents were identified with varying levels of evidence. Conclusions : This narrative review synthesized evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials evaluating the cholesterol-lowering and LDL-C-reducing effects of 10 commonly consumed herbs and spices. Black cumin, garlic, fenugreek, amla, and cinnamon demonstrated robust, statistically significant reductions in total cholesterol (typically 10–33 mg/dl) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (typically 10–35 mg/dl) across multiple independent meta-analyses, supported by plausible mechanisms involving HMG-CoA reductase inhibition, reduced intestinal cholesterol absorption, enhanced bile acid excretion, and PPAR activation. Ginger and dill showed more modest or variable effects, while cardamom, saffron, and turmeric powder exhibited insufficient or inconsistent evidence. Although individual effects are generally smaller than those of pharmacologic interventions and are limited by high heterogeneity and short intervention periods, the potential for additive benefits when multiple agents are incorporated into comprehensive plant-based dietary patterns suggests a meaningful cumulative impact on cardiovascular risk through lipid modification. Beyond their metabolic effects, these botanicals enhance palatability, align with cultural food traditions, generally require minimal cost or infrastructure, and exemplify culinary medicine approaches integrating nutrition and health promotion. Evidence supports their inclusion as functional dietary components for lipid management in individuals seeking non-pharmacologic approaches or as adjuncts to conventional therapies. Future research should prioritize standardized preparations, long-term cardiovascular outcomes, and pragmatic trials assessing combined effects within comprehensive whole-food, plant-based dietary interventions. https://www.academia.edu/3067-1345/3/1/10.20935/AcadNutr8095 herbs & spices lower cholesterol Bottom Line: Why not add some of these herbs and spices to your lifestyle food plan to not only improve the taste and enjoyment but with the additional cardiovascular protective effects? There are others that may assist also, such as bergamot, fenugreek, fermented foods, and don’t forget about fiber…approximately 95% of Americans are not meeting the recommended daily intake of fiber!!Yikes!! Eat more plants!!!

Health News Update: Plant-based Food Plans Against Disease 5.11.26 Hey everyone: Why make the effort to go into a predominantly plant-based food plan? Here are some answers: According to the World Health Organization, type 2 diabetes (T2D), cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancer account for nearly one of every two deaths globally – close to 30 million people in 2020 [ 1 – 3 ]. These diseases had significant clinical and public health implications by undermining health, shortening life expectancy, and causing enormous suffering, disability, and economic costs [ 4 ]. Habitual diet is known to play a critical role in modifying risks of these diseases. Plant-based dietary patterns that emphasize foods derived from plant sources and de-emphasize consumption of animal products have gained significant attention in recent years. They have been associated with lower risks of CVD, cancer, and T2D in prospective human studies [ 5 – 7 ], and thus have the potential to prevent and manage these diseases. In conclusion, higher adherence to plant-based dietary patterns, especially from healthy sources, may be universally beneficial for the primary prevention of T2D, CVD, cancer, and mortality. The current analysis provides further evidence in support of the current recommendations that emphasize consuming high-quality plant-based foods for achieving an optimal health. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10548756/#Abs1 plant-based lowers disease risk Bottom Line: The gradually accumulating trend of scientific evidence about what to eat is clearly pointing to consuming a predominantly plant-based dietary lifestyle, avoiding processed and ultra-processed food like objects, avoiding added sugars, avoiding bad fats, avoiding processed red meats, not overeating and early time restricted feeding (eTRF). This is what is shown in the literature to offer the greatest risk reduction to the chronic degenerative diseases that are killing, disabling, and ruining the lives of our country and now the world. Allow me to repeat what I wrote in the previous blog: Key points: · Eat predominantly plant-based whole foods and avoid ultra‑processed thingies…the Green Med Diet fits the bill for most of us. · In reality, you don’t need to be perfect, aiming for an 80–90% plant-based whole foods lifestyle is an initial and reasonable goal. Start there and watch the transformation as you protect your future!!! · When to eat is also critical…with eTRF being shown to work for most of us. To find out more and how to do this, check out my previous blogs on this topic: https://www.richmondchironeuro.com/health-news-update-when-we-eat-is-as-critical-as-what-we-eat https://www.richmondchironeuro.com/health-news-update-when-you-eat-is-as-important-as-what-you-eat https://www.richmondchironeuro.com/health-news-update-time-restricted-eating-improves-health

Health News Update: Food vs. Disease…Guess Who Wins? 5.4.26 Hello again, everyone: As you know, inflammation will cause, aggravate, and/or perpetuate every known human ailment, including accelerated aging. Furthermore, this inflammation that marinates and destroys our health is mediated through the immune system. Your next question might be: what causes this deadly unbalanced inflammatory situation? The answer is: your food choices are the leading driver of chronic degenerative diseases which are all characterized by their inflammatory burden. What can be done about this? Simply, choose to eat optimally…food really is medicine. “In summary, the results of several studies suggest that the MedDiet may have a dual effect on the prevention of CVD (cardiovascular disease), improving classical cardiovascular risk factors and also having an intense anti-inflammatory effect . In fact, epidemiological studies have shown that the MedDiet may exert its effect partly through mechanisms such as improved lipid profile and reductions in blood pressure or insulin resistance. Its anti-inflammatory effect seems to be greater and more intense in the mid-term compared to the short-term while the effect on classical cardiovascular risk factors is similar, thereby suggesting that the MedDiet exerts its effects on lipids and blood pressure relatively quickly (at 3 mo.), with the maximum effect on systemic inflammatory biomarkers being achieved later (at 1 y). Thus, in the short-term the effect on blood pressure and the lipid profile is higher, whereas in the mid-term the effect on chronic inflammatory response in the arterial wall is more pronounced. The present review also provides evidence that a MedDiet Pattern alone or one enriched with some of its main components (i.e. extra virgin olive oil and nuts), not only diminishes the classical cardiovascular risk factors, but is also associated with important reductions in circulating inflammatory biomarkers, cellular inflammatory biomarkers and improves endothelial dysfunction. Moreover, increased consumption of antioxidant-rich foods as in a MDP in general and of polyphenols in particular was associated with better cognitive performance in an elderly cohort at high cardio- vascular risk. Therefore, the choice of a healthy diet such as the MedDiet associated with regular physical activity is critical in the fight against many chronic diseases. The protection against atherosclerosis by the MedDiet can probably be extended to other chronic inflammation-related diseases, including visceral obesity, the metabolic syndrome, and type-2 diabetes, cancer or neurodegenerative diseases, among others.” https://www.academia.edu/21464761/The_immune_protective_effect_of_the_Mediterranean_diet_against_chronic_low_grade_inflammatory_diseases?email_work_card=view-paper how the Med Diet lowers inflammation and disease risk Bottom Line: Obviously, what you eat will shape your present and future health and thus how well you age. For more detailed information on how food can help different conditions, check out the paper at the link above. Why do I keep writing about diet? Simply because it is the greatest driver of inflammation, disease, death and disability and is a totally modifiable risk factor…and I have yet to see a satisfactory resolution of any chronic health condition when someone is not eating to lower inflammation and improve cellular health. Key points: · Eat predominantly plant-based whole foods and avoid ultra‑processed thingies…the Green Med Diet fits the bill for most of us. · In reality, you don’t need to be perfect, aiming for an 80–90% plant-based whole foods lifestyle is an initial and reasonable goal. Start there and watch the transformation as you protect your future!!!

Health New Update: Millions of Lives Saved by Healthy Eating 4.27.26 Hey everyone: Here is some research that reveals that healthy eating could save millions of lives every year and also improve economics and planetary health. Wow!! They analyzed 3 different types of diets, and all of them are a significant improvement compared to the Standard American Diet, and this study looked at worldwide diets. The different diet scenarios were implemented by adjusting the region-specific diets described in the reference scenario, which maintained the regional character of food consumption. The HGD (Healthy Global Diet) diet included (per day) a minimum of five portions of fruits and vegetables, fewer than 50 g of sugar, a maximum of 43 g of red meat (the size of a small deck of cards), and an energy content of 2,200–2,300 kcal, depending on the age and sex composition of the population. The VGT (Vegetarian)and VGN (Vegan) diets differed from the HGD in including six (VGT) or seven (VGN) portions of fruits and vegetables and one portion of pulses, with no red meat, poultry, or fish, and in the VGN diet no dairy or eggs. What did they find? Moving to diets with fewer animal-sourced foods would have major health benefits ( Fig. 1A ). Compared with the reference scenario, we project that adoption of global dietary guidelines (HGD) would result in 5.1 million avoided deaths per year [95% confidence interval (CI), 4.8–5.5 million] and 79 million years of life saved (CI, 75–83 million) ( Fig. 1A and SI Appendix, Fig. S2 ). The equivalent figures for the vegetarian (VGT) diet are 7.3 million avoided deaths (CI, 7.0–7.6 million) and 114 million life years saved (CI, 111–118 million) and for the vegan (VGN) diet 8.1 million avoided deaths (CI, 7.8–8.5 million) and 129 million life years saved (CI, 125–133 million). Differentiated by risk factor, more than half of avoided deaths (51–57% across the three scenarios) were due to decreased red meat consumption, 24–35% to increased fruit and vegetable consumption, and 19–30% to a lower prevalence of being overweight and obese associated with limiting excessive energy intake. The reduced mortality in the VGT and VGN scenarios compared with the HGD scenario was due to lower red meat consumption (1.7 million additional avoided deaths in each) and higher fruit and vegetable consumption (VGT, 0.8 million; VGN, 1.8 million additional avoided deaths). Across the three nonreference scenarios, about 45–47% of all avoided deaths were from reduced coronary heart disease (CHD), 26% from stroke, 16–18% from cancer, and 10–12% from type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4839446/ Healthy eating saves millions Bottom Line: By eating better, millions of lives could be saved. Please read the above paragraph again slowly as it is a lot to take in. Now ask yourself: is my diet optimal? If I can reduce my risk of chronic disease, extend both my health and life span, what am I waiting for?

Health News Update: What to Eat and Longevity 4.20.26 Hello again: It is important to note that in our society we are living longer but sicker. The current lifestyle our country offers is not creating a healthy population, but it is supporting medically managed sick people. It seems to me that the optimal strategy would be to combine our traditional medical care with a lifestyle that supports health promotion and longevity. To that end, food is a powerful tool…more powerful than we are told. Here is what this study looked at: “As the global population ages, it is critical to identify diets that, beyond preventing noncommunicable diseases, optimally promote healthy aging. Here, using longitudinal questionnaire data from the Nurses’ Health Study (1986–2016) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986–2016), we examined the association of long-term adherence to eight dietary patterns and ultraprocessed food consumption with healthy aging, as assessed according to measures of cognitive, physical and mental health, as well as living to 70 years of age free of chronic diseases.” And here is what they found: “Higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, unsaturated fats, nuts, legumes and low-fat dairy products were linked to greater odds of healthy aging, whereas higher intakes of trans fats, sodium, sugary beverages and red or processed meats (or both) were inversely associated. Our findings suggest that dietary patterns rich in plant-based foods, with moderate inclusion of healthy animal-based foods, may enhance overall healthy aging, guiding future dietary guidelines.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03570-5 Optimal dietary patterns for longevity. Bottom Line: What this means is switching to the Green Mediterranean dietary food plan is the way to go to optimize your health span and life span while avoiding or minimizing chronic disease risk. If you simply consume unprocessed to minimally processed whole foods, eat predominantly vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans and avoid processed foods, added sugars, and refined grains. Just avoiding the Standard American Diet (SAD) would result in tremendous improvement in the health of our nation and the world. I offer this information for several reasons: · I have not seen anyone recover their health eating a poor diet. · Research has shown that food is the leading cause of death and disability. · No one else can do this for you. · You can literally save your own life with your fork and spoon. · Everything I just said is true and applies to everyone. · There is literally no good reason not to eat as good as you can. 

Health News Update: When to Eat Really Matters 4.13.26 Hello everyone: You have probably heard of the old saying recommending eating breakfast like a king or queen, lunch like a prince/princess, and dinner like a pauper. It turns out that new studies are revealing that meal timing is critical for long term health. “At the study’s conclusion, researchers found that participants following early and mid-day time-restricted eating experienced better outcomes, including a lowering of body weight , waist circumference , body mass index (BMI) , fat mass , systolic blood pressure , and fasting glucose ( blood sugar ) levels, when compared to participants who ate late in the day. “These findings highlight that aligning food intake earlier in the day, when metabolic processes such as insulin sensitivity are more favorable, may amplify the benefits of time-restricted eating,” Chen explained. “The results suggest that not all time-restricted eating patterns are equal. Eating earlier appears to confer broader metabolic advantages compared with delaying food intake to later hours,” he added. Additionally, scientists discovered that late-day eating, when combined with a longer eating window, was the least effective dietary pattern for the most metabolic benefits. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/time-restricted-eating-early-window-best-metabolism?utm_source=ReadNext#Time-restricted-eating-Time-of-day-and-eating-window-size When you eat really matters Bottom Line: Your biology always works best when it is running in time with your natural circadian rhythms. One of the things that can alter your circadian clocks and lead to problems is when we eat and how much, plus the quality of the food. Making sure you align your food intake with your body clock is an important aspect of health and is considered a modifiable risk factor. In other words, it is best to eat in concordance with your own biological rhythms. Will this work for everyone? Probably not, but some form of intermittent fasting will work which means experiment with this concept to find the best clock management that works for you. For example, breakfast like a prince or princess, lunch like a king or queen, dinner like a pauper. The important keys are to have some kind of breakfast and have dinner be the smallest meal of the day as early as possible. To find out more how meal timing can promote health, check out these terms: Circadian autophagy.

Health News Update: Sleep Timing, Mood & Performance 4.6.26 Hello everyone: In taking a history at the start of a healthcare process, I often find people of all ages have sleep schedules that do not match optimal circadian rhythms and have un-knowingly contributed to degrading their health. Sleep is a significant component of leading an anti-inflammatory lifestyle as it fosters autophagy (an immune based essential self-cleaning function, hormonal regulation, stress reduction, immune resilience, optimal aging, and more. As it turns out, getting your sleep timing right lowers depression, reduces morning fatigue, improves physical functions, and can markedly increase your ability to think, recall things and overall cognitive functions. Proper sleep timing aligned with our natural circadian clocks may also decrease mortality risks. Background There is conflict between living according to our endogenous biological rhythms and our external environment, with disruptions resulting in negative consequences to health and performance. This is often documented in shift work and jet lag , but ‘societal norms’ (eg, typical working hours) can create profound issues for ‘night owls’, people whose internal biological timing predisposes them to follow an unusually late sleep-wake cycle. Night owls have also been associated with health issues, mood disturbances, poorer performance and increased mortality rates . Results Overall, participants demonstrated a significant advance of ∼2 h in sleep/wake timings as measured by actigraphy and circadian phase markers (dim light melatonin onset and peak time of the cortisol awakening response), whilst having no adverse effect on sleep duration. Notably, the phase advance was accompanied by significant improvements to self-reported depression and stress, as well as improved cognitive (reaction time) and physical (grip strength) performance measures during the typical ‘suboptimal’ morning hours. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1389945719301388?via%3Dihub resetting sleep timing improves brain function and overall health. Bottom Line: For long term health, assisting recovery, optimal aging, improving immune resilience, lowering your total inflammatory burden thus reducing your risk for developing chronic diseases…it looks like a very good idea to get your sleep cycles in line with your natural biological rhythms. The researchers aimed to accomplish this using only simple practical natural lifestyle methods…no medications. Here is some of what they did: · Avoid blue light after dark. · Get some early morning sunshine…even 5 minutes will help. · Exercise in the morning or early afternoon. · Adopt early time restricted feeding schedules (eTRF). · Fix a time to sleep and stick to it. If you have any chronic health issues, or just want to optimize the aging process, simply adopt a few simple lifestyle strategies. I have seen this clinically be one of the major keys to the success when it comes to overcoming fatigue, brain fog, digestive issues, and any chronic health problem. Best wishes to you for a healthy life!

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Health News Update: How To Fight Inflammation and Chronic Disease 3.23.26 Hello again everyone: You might wonder why I keep focusing on food…so here are some of the reasons: food choices are the leading cause of death in the U.S. and spreading around the world. Poor food choices lead to inflammation which slowly destroy health. It is that simple, plain, and clear and backed by research. The next question: how do we fight back? Introduction The positive impact of food on health was postulated by the ancient Hippocrates, father of modern medicine with his famous quote: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” [1]. In the 21st century, scientists have focused on the effect of nutritional habits in diseases. Nowadays, it is well documented that food plays a noteworthy role in the pathogenesis of chronic diseases namely cardiovascular diseases (CVD), metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus type II, and cancer [2–5], as it correlates with others with the lipid pattern, the blood pressure, and the endothelial function. The scientists examine the effect of nutritional habits on disease emergence and progression in both individual nutrient intake and dietary patterns models. Worldwide, two dietary patterns are usually compared—the Mediterranean diet (MD) and the Western diet (WD) [3,6]. The Mediterranean diet reflects the food culture of most Mediterranean countries based on olive oil consumption, seasonal fresh vegetables, cereals, and plants in balance with low consumption of meat [7]. The Western diet, on the contrary, is dominated by high-fat dairy products processed and red meat [8]. However, discordance in the different MD patterns and consumed food doses had been recognized. Without any doubt, those discrepancies could confine and restrict our knowledge on the health benefit mechanisms of the MD [9]. Due to the above, the medical community along with nutritionists and dieticians take a keen interest in MD and its traits [7]. https://www.academia.edu/45378994/biomedicines_Mediterranean_Diet_as_a_Tool_to_Combat_Inflammation_and_Chronic_Diseases_An_Overview?email_work_card=view-paper food choices can fight inflammation and chronic disease Bottom Line: This is a 2020 paper and since then literally hundreds of papers on the MD have emerged showing how the food plan lowers inflammation and the risk for developing multiple chronic illnesses. Even still, lots of research needs to be done to elucidate the many mechanisms of how food impacts our system and how to optimally individualize dietary recommendations. At this point, our best strategy to prevent and/or recover from any chronic condition is to eat as clean and natural as possible. It has become rather obvious that the further away from a natural diet we get, the sicker we become. On top of that, I have yet to see a full recovery from any health issue without the foundation of a predominantly plant-based, unprocessed, whole foods approach…which is why I keep posting about this subject. All the best to you and yours!