health – Sustainable Health

25 septembre 202325 septembre 2023

Understanding the need to increase protein intake: reasons and considerations

A year ago I published a post on Protein and ageing, where I quickly explained the many roles of proteins in human physiology. Several reasons may lead individuals to increase their protein intake, depending on their specific health goals, lifestyles, and circumstances. Here are some common examples:

Muscle building and strength training: People who engage in regular strength training or resistance exercises often require more protein to support muscle growth and repair. Athletes and bodybuilders may have higher protein needs.
Ageing: As people age, there can be a natural decline in muscle mass and protein metabolism. Older adults may benefit from increased protein intake to maintain muscle mass, strength, and overall health.
Weight management: Protein has a satiating effect and can help control appetite and reduce calorie intake. Including more protein in the diet can be beneficial for weight loss and weight management efforts.
Pregnancy and breastfeeding: Pregnant and lactating women require extra protein to support the growth and development of the fetus or infant. Protein is essential for the formation of tissues and organs in the baby.
Wound healing and surgery: After surgery or injury, the body needs additional protein to repair damaged tissues and promote wound healing. Healthcare providers may recommend increased protein intake during recovery.
Chronic Illnesses: Some medical conditions, such as diabetes, kidney disease, and certain gastrointestinal disorders, may increase protein requirements or alter protein metabolism. Healthcare professionals can provide guidance on individualised protein needs in such cases. Always consult your GP when you consider changing your diet and have a chronic condition.
Vegetarian and vegan diets: Individuals following vegetarian or vegan diets may need to pay closer attention to protein intake to ensure they are getting enough essential amino acids. Plant-based protein sources can be lower in certain amino acids, so variety is key.
Active lifestyles: People with physically demanding jobs or active lifestyles may need more protein to support their energy expenditure and overall health.
Recovery from illness or infection: During illness or infection, the body’s protein needs can increase due to immune system activation and tissue repair. Adequate protein intake can help with a faster recovery.
Malnutrition or undernutrition: Individuals who are malnourished or undernourished, whether due to poverty, food insecurity, or other factors, may need increased protein intake to address nutritional deficiencies.

It’s important to remember that individual protein requirements can vary widely based on age, gender, activity level, health status, and other factors. Consulting with a healthcare provider or a registered dietitian can help determine the appropriate protein intake for specific needs and goals, ensuring a balanced and healthy diet.

5 mai 20235 mai 2023

Building habits (part 3): essential rules

In the first article, I explained how habits rely on our brain autopilot and support our executive functions. Whatever is your goal, there are key rules when implementing your habits.

1 – Something is better than nothing

To form a new habit, you need to activate your neural networks. It means you need to stimulate them: doing something will, doing nothing won’t. Start small and build on.

2 – Consistency matters the most

When you start working on new habits, your executive brain is still activated and actions are very deliberate. As the new routine is implemented, the autopilot is activated. The more often you repeat the new action, no matter how small, the stronger and the more efficient the autopilot becomes. Eventually the autopilot takes over: the habit is formed.

This has to do with synaptic plasticity, which is as Wikipedia simply puts it « the ability of synapses to strengthen or weaken over time, in response to increases or decreases in their activity ». Repeated actions, over time, become habits. Random actions don’t.

3 – Repeated, « good enough » actions

When trying to form new habits, we sometimes set the bar too high, feel discouraged and can’t be consistent. Reduce your threshold of what is « good enough » to focus on small, achievable and sustainable actions that you can do consistently. This will activate the autopilot and embed the new habit.

In a few words, regular small steps will take you to your objective.

As I started a new job, one of my objectives is to build a routine around publishing articles here. I am aiming for one per week but need to find the right cues (time, place etc).

And you, are you trying to implement a new habit in your life?

20 avril 202320 avril 2023

Sugar and cancer risk

TL, DR: sugar is not a carcinogenic (cancer-causing) substance.

The idea that sugar fuels cancer cells is a fallacy that unfortunately thrives on the Internet. No studies in people have shown that reducing sugar intake prevents or treats cancer. No studies have shown that eating too much sugar causes cancer.

There is no direct link, and therefore no causality, between sugar and cancer.

All cells, including cancer cells, require energy to survive and grow, this energy is glucose. When we eat sugary foods (simple carbohydrates), glucose gets absorbed straight into the bloodstream ready, for cells to use. When we eat starchy food (complex carbohydrates), like pasta, the digestion process breaks them down into glucose. When there are no carbohydrate in our diet, cells can turn fat and protein into glucose as a last resort, because they need glucose to survive. This means that replacing sugar with other energy sources won’t affect the growth of cancer cells.

Remember that a healthy diet includes carbohydrates, for the energy, fibre, minerals and vitamins that they contain. Avoiding healthy, nutritious foods is not a science-based method to prevent any disease. Avoiding sugar will not prevent cancer, as consuming sugar won’t cause cancer. « Cancer » is a group of different diseases triggered by a huge variety of genetic and lifestyle factors.

The only link between cancer and sugar is indirect: excessive sugar intake can lead to weight gain and increase the risk of obesity and diabetes, which may in turn increase the risk of cancer.

30 mars 202330 mars 2023

Building habits (part 2): key steps

In the first article I explained how habits support the executive functions of the brain. It is estimated that 40% of our actions rely on habits, this is why building habits that serve your goals is essential. Here are a few tips for that.

Tip 1: Identify the habit

The new habit or routine is the behaviour you want to start or change. This can be exercising, stop adding salt, walking more. I will take the example of my Saturday 8.30am yoga class.

Tip 2: Set reminders

One of the key aspects to forming a new habit is remembering everything you need to remember in order to follow through on your aspiration. Forgetting is easy, as our brains always take the easy way, the way of current habits 😉

In my case, I have 2 reminders for this yoga class: one to remember to book the class, and one popping on my phone 30mins before the class.

Tip 3: Start small

This means being specific, and to think of the when, where, how. My aim was not to go to yoga everyday, but to commit to this one, every Saturday. If you can’t proceed to your chosen habit (class cancelled, preferred food not available etc) , have an alternative so that your brain does not associate the reminder to nothing. My alternative to yoga is running. Anything is better than nothing.

Small actions are the seeds for the habit to grow, they activate your neuronal networks.

Tip 4: Reward yourself

We are wired to seek pleasure. Our brain releases « happiness » chemicals during reward, which help the remodelling of neuronal circuits and new habits to stick. We usually think of extrinsic rewards (money, food, objects) but intrinsic rewards work just as well: this feeling once you finish your run, the calm after yoga, learning a new skill, being more energised etc. Remember that the reward comes from the smallest action towards your goal, so the smallest step towards changing or building a habit is rewarding.

After my yoga class, I feel both relaxed and energised, I am (usually!) satisfied with the progress made, and seeing my teacher is a pleasure in itself.

Tip 5: Repetition

As you repeat an action, the new neuronal circuits reinforce and it starts to require less effort. With time, the action is transferred from executive brain, that requires a lot of mental energy, to the autopilot brain and it becomes easier and almost automatic.

And you, what habit would you like to build to achieve your goals?

My current challenge is to eat less salted butter to decrease my overall salt consumption 🙂

15 mars 202316 mars 2023

Building habits (part 1) : why habits matter

Today’s post will be the first of a series about habits (and change). The objective is to give you an explanation of why we have habits, and how we can change them to make them literally work for us. Why do I write about habits here? Because a lot of our lifestyle choices (diet, exercise, alcohol consumption, smoking…) consist in habits, and if we want to make a lifestyle change last, having some basic knowledge in psychology and neuroscience can help. Let’s start by having a look at our brain.

As human we have a uniquely large executive brain that support executive functions such as working memory, flexible thinking, impulse control, self monitoring, motivation, emotional control, willpower, planning, prioritisation and task management. These functions are future-oriented and enable us to make decisions according to our objectives.

Executive functions require a lot of mental energy, which can be drained by the demands of our busy, modern lives, leaving us feeling low.

This is where the autopilot, that sits deep within our brain, comes handy. The autopilot does not interact with motivation, it is made of habits. Habits are stimulus-response behavioural task, they are automatic. Brushing your teeth, going to the gym every Monday lunchtime, eating porridge at breakfast, adding salt to your food….

If our habits support our goals, we rely on autopilot more and have more mental energy available for our executive brain. We are more motivated, we perform better. When our habits don’t align with our objectives, our executive brain uses extra mental energy to suppress them, eventually we risk feel drained. The problem is that we cannot always replenish our mental energy enough, or reduce the demands of our executive brain.

Therefore, to cope with the demands of our busy lives, we can build habits that support our goals, while changing the habits that go in their way.