Here’s what’s on the healthspan menu today:
- McDonald’s Fries in the USA Versus the UK
- Metformin Blunts Hypertrophy in Older Adults
- Running For Mental Benefits But Not Losing Weight
McDonald’s Fries in the USA Versus the UK
With packaged foods, less is usually better. This means fewer preservatives and other non-essential ingredients
A good example of this is Mcdonald’s fries which have 14 ingredients while their UK counterparts have 4.
Below is the ingredient list of McDonald’s fries in the US versus the UK.
While the UK fries are careful to add only essential ingredients, the US fries have a lot of items that most of us wouldn’t recognize.
A few notable ingredients from the US list is Dimethylpolysiloxane, an anti-foaming agent that’s also an ingredient used to make silly putty.
Hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk are also used in the US version. These are known as excitotoxins, they overstimulate neuron receptors that can eventually weaken and kill neurons.
Here we have the same company, but different ingredients because of different health standards and what is allowed by the United State’s FDA versus the UK’s FDA equivalent.
Some may love or hate “In & Out burgers” fries, but they only have 2 ingredients, potatoes, and sunflower oil.
Metformin Blunts Hypertrophy in Older Adults
Metformin has safely been used as a diabetes medication for years and because of this has most recently been hailed as a longevity drug.
But in a recent randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study, the gold standard of studies, Metformin was also shown to blunt the effects of resistance training in older adults. The study was done on over 100 elderly men and women.
Those who took 1700mg of metformin alongside their training did not show increases in lean mass while those that took the placebo not only showed increases in lean mass but also showed a decreased fasting glucose level.
This shows that we shouldn’t immediately hop on the latest longevity drug bandwagon without more information and research.
This also doesn’t mean that metformin doesn’t have many benefits for people under the right context and usage.
Running For Mental Benefits But Not Losing Weight
Running works wonders for stress management, improving your cardiovascular system, and can make you feel instantly better afterward.
There’s evidence that running slows cognitive decline, and makes you more creative and mentally sharper.
If you couple running with running outdoors with people then you get even more benefits by connecting with others while getting some vitamin D.
Is it best for losing weight if you are obese or overweight?
It can work in the short term, but trying to outrun a poor diet rarely works in the long term.
Even if you can lose weight due to running, eventually your metabolism catches up to you and your body needs to work harder to burn more fat.
This is not what aerobic sessions are best for.
To consistently burn more fat and build a better physique, you should couple aerobic exercise with regular resistance training.
