How to Health

With every passing year, and passing day for that matter, you get older and age. It's unavoidable, but while everyone gets older at the same rate, not everyone ages at the same rate. In this episode, we discuss why some people age faster than others, what biological age is, and what you can do to slow it down. Select references cited in this podcast: Longidtudinal changes in epigenetic clocks predict long-term mortality: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-026-01095-1 Three months of strength training changes the gene expression of inflammation-related genes in PBMC of older women: A randomized controlled trial: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/11/3/531 Higher diet quality relates to decelerated epigenetic aging: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916522001204

What to spice up your sex life? Try exercise. Exercise does more than just strengthen your body, it can also strengthen your connections with others, including that special somone just in time for Valentine's Day. In this episode, we discuss how exercise can make you more attractive to others, how it improves connections (enhances new and existing ones) and what's going on in your body to make that happen. Select references cited in this podcast: Effects of Exercise Interventions on Body Image: A Meta-analysis: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359105309338977 Snychrony and Physiological Arousal Increase Cohersion and Cooperation in Large Naturalistic Groups: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-18023-4 Marital Benefits of Daily Individual and Conjoint Exercise Among Older Couples: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/fare.12307

The holiday season is upon us and with it the parties, food and time with family and friends. This can be season of joy, but it also brings with it challenges to your healthy lifestyle and for many, extra stress. Up to 45% of people go on an exercise break during the holidays and 90% report some holiday related stress. It's also a time of year we see more people having heart attacks. In this episode, we discuss ways to enjoy the holidays while keeping up with healthy eating and activity, as well as how to handle any extra stress that may come your way. We finish with discussing why heart attacks rise during the holidays and how you can help yourself or a loved one prevent this from occurring.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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).