Here’s what’s on the healthspan menu today:
- Human to Mice Gut Bacteria Transplant for Obesity
- Simple Ways to Avoid Posture-Related Problems
- A Story About Narrowing Focus
Human to Mice Gut Bacteria Transplant for Obesity
What happens when you take an obese human’s gut bacteria and transfer it into a lean mouse?
Your gut bacteria help you digest food, make vitamins, and potentially may determine if you are fat or thin.
In a 2013 study, obesity researcher, Dr. Flier came up with a very interesting experiment. He found pairs of human twins where one was obese and one was lean.
He then extracted those individuals’ gut bacteria, transplanted them into lean mice, and observed what happened.
Amazingly, the mice with bacteria from the fat twins grew fat while the mice with lean twin bacteria stayed lean!
They also experimented to see if diet had any effect on the mouse’s gut microbiome.
“The investigators discovered that given a chance, and in the presence of a low-fat diet, bacteria from a lean twin will take over the gut of a mouse that already had bacteria from a fat twin. The fat mouse then loses weight.”
But the opposite effect did not happen.
These results are exciting, as it suggests that gut bacteria play a big role in obesity in humans.
Simple Ways to Avoid Posture-Related Problems
Here are a few simple ways you can improve your posture even when working all day at a desk
- Keeping your ears above your shoulders, and shoulders above your hips when you sit
- If you have a standing desk, rotate between sitting and standing every 30 minutes or so.
- Take a break from your desk to do some mobility exercises, stretch, meditate, or walk.
Taking a step back to take care of your body can improve long-term productivity.
And since walking can spur creativity, you can kill 2 birds with one by solving or thinking through problems on your walks.
Neck posture is also important. Did you know every inch of “Forward Head Posture” adds 10 pounds of weight to the spine?
This problem has been growing steadily with the use of smartphones.
So while you’re TikToking your life away, remember to tuck your chin every once in a while to strengthen that neck and to prevent “Forward Head Posture”
A Story About Narrowing Focus
Bilbo Johnson the mechanic was in a foot race with Shawn McNugget the bus driver
While Shawn was running, he was listening to music and looking around him naturally at the trees the entire time.
Bilbo kept his eyes on the prize. At every block, he would focus specifically on one of the buildings in the distance.
When he reached the building he would pick another apex or building and would focus on it until he reached it.
Bilbo barely won the race but he was overheard saying it didn’t take much effort for him while Shawn was exhausted and felt burnt out.
This is just an anecdote of 1 race but it turns out Bilbo was onto something.
A study by Dr. Emily Balcetis showed that those who narrowed their attention to a specific point walked 23 percent faster than those in the natural attention group.
Those in the physical exertion group also reported less physical exertion.
The specific mechanics of this is unknown, but one theory was that when focusing on the near-term goal, the tasks seemed more achievable.
