WIL Weekly #49
Blue light worse than you think, Eggs prevent Alzheimers? and more...
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1. Dramatic benefits to mental illness with “preplanned fasting”
According to a 1977 paper titled Preplanned fasting in the treatment of mental disease survey of current soviet literature:
Since 1946 the treatment of certain mental disease by preplanned fasting has gained widespread, although not always enthusiastic, attention in the Soviet Union. Based on the use of strict fasting to treat a great variety of somatic diseases, Nikolajew (1969a) applied this concept for the first time to the treatment of idiopathic mental disease and posttraumatic mental symptomatology.
Further, it’s noted that in the case of
-“Hypochondrial” forms of mental disease: “Significant improvement was noted in 80 to 90 percent of fresh cases where the disease had lasted not more than 1 year”
- Paranoid Forms: 60% success rate in cases where disease lasted less than 2 years, 40% success rate in cases where disease lasted more than 5 years.
- Catatonic Forms: 30% success rate
- Schizoaffective Forms: 50% experienced “total disappearance of their symptoms during preplanned fasting.”
An American psychiatrist Dr. Allan Cott spent time with Professor Yuri Nikolaev who used this fasting treatment on over 6000 patients. In an article titled Controlled Fasting Treatment for Schizophrenia, he writes:
"A recent study of Prof. Nikolaev's statistics revealed that 70 percent of the 6,000 patients treated by controlled fasting achieved such significant improvement that they were restored to functioning. This represents an unparalleled achievement in the treatment of schizophrenia when one considers that these patients had an endless number of failures in all forms of therapy; they were all chronically ill and felt hopeless about their future. ..Forty-seven percent of patients followed for a period of six years maintained their improvement."
(Credit to Iain Campbell, Ph.D. for this)
2. Artificial light is wrecking our health?
More and more headlines are popping up suggesting artificial light is terrible for us. Shoutout to the maverick Dr. Jack Kruse for making me even more anti-blue light than before.
3. Climate Scare: Hurricanes aren’t going up?
I mentioned before Bjorn Lomborg’s July 2020 paper, Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies, before, but there’s another section worth highlighting.
The paper lays out that hurricanes hitting the US are slightly less frequent and climate disaster costs are declining.
4. Eggs protect against Alzheimer’s
May 2024 study: Association of Egg Intake With Alzheimer's Dementia Risk in Older Adults: The Rush Memory and Aging Project
These findings suggest that frequent egg consumption is associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's dementia and AD pathology, and the association with Alzheimer's dementia is partially mediated through dietary choline.
Translation: Eating merely more than one egg per week is associated with a significantly lower risk of Alzheimer's. They say that 39% of the total effect of egg intake on Alzheimer’s dementia was mediated through dietary choline. This means that a just taking a choline supplement won’t get you that other 61% benefit.
What is extra interesting is that they actually autopsied the brains of 578 people with Alzheimer’s who they had diet data on. They found that more than one egg per week was associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s pathology in the brain.
5. Not all heroes wear capes: anti-Fluoride man
As the 2022 headlines says: Town employee quietly lowered fluoride in water for years.
The article claims that this made the townspeople worried about their children’s dental health and the article goes on to say that fluoride is actually safe.
Though, a March 2023 systematic review on the health effects of fluoride in drinking water concluded that:
evidence was considered strong for reduction in IQ scores in children, moderate for thyroid dysfunction, weak for kidney dysfunction, and limited for sex hormone disruptions.
Flouride in water is kinda weird ngl.. Because if you eat a natural human diet you won't get cavities either way.. But if you eat carbage and sugar on sugar on sugar, ofc you will.. It's like putting statins into the water to protect from bad cholesterol people have because of the trash they eat, instead of just eating a proper human diet.
I feel like fluoride in drinking water only helps in some studies against cavities because some significant portion of the population will always have awful self care.
Joseph, have you ever looked into hydroxyapetite toothpaste? Or xylitol for the oral microbiome?