13 Comments

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, this newsletter is like Christmas morning with all its goodies. Thanks Joseph for mining that Genghis Kahn gem. It shows the powerful impact of the true ancestral diet (carnivore). The piece on red/NIR: interesting that these two light types are lumped together in the study because red light has no heat (most red light devices are consistently cool LED products), while Infrared is inherently heat-emitting). Let's hear it for photobiomodulation! The great thing is, unlike UV, infrared can penetrate several inches (including through a winter coat), so just being outdoors is a win (especially 3 hrs after dawn or 3 hrs before dusk). . . Btw I always questioned the caloric restriction idea, as fruit fly and worm research can't be automatically extrapolated to complex humans. Besides, long term CR can reduce muscle mass, a marker of longevity! Thanks for the dopamine piece; when I saw that, I dimmed my screen a few notches and vowed to not stare at my screen excessively (even if in search of health information-haha).

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I can't even pick an article, I love them all!

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MY COMMENT EXACTLY!! I could not vote on which one was my favorite, so I just skipped voting. Joseph just keeps on outdoing himself!

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Thanks for the interesting newsletter! Could you share what model of blue-light blocking glasses are you using?

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I went on a lighting deep-dive about a year and a half ago now and changed every light in my house to high-CRI (https://www.us.lumistrips.com/lumistrips-blog/cri-explained/ is a good explainer, though I don't use this brand in particular) bulbs that I've set (via Home Assistant) to change color temperature and brightness throughout the day to mimic the sun as if the days were always relatively long.

It has made a huge difference in my sleep schedule, even drastically reducing my jet lag (with a tiny, ~0.25 mg dose of melatonin for three days) to basically 0, even when coming back from Europe or Asia.

Here's one good study on the effects on melatonin and circadian responses: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07420528.2018.1527773

If anyone wants specific lighting advice, I'm happy to share more (non-affiliate product links etc). There are some extremely high-R9 (the most important and most difficult) CRI led strips and some very good bulbs.

A side benefit to all of this is that everything just looks way better and feels way more pleasant indoors than it used to. It's hard to describe but there's a subtle eye strain I now notice when I'm in a location with low-quality lighting.

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How did they apply the red light and for how long?

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Also how intense was the light?

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Interesting piece there on the Mongols. Blue light blocking glasses are great . Wish I could get my son to wear them.

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Heh: the mountaineer or Mongol/Hun diet might still be sustainable for all blood type Bs. Myself I feel SO much better when I get real fresh goat liver than anything else.

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Interesting point about blue light. Guess I should grab that offer for free blue light blocking glasses at work after all. Thanks!

I like to put it as; Testosterone induces aggressive behaviour.

Estrogen, or lack of testosterone, induces violent behaviour.

As aggressive means to be driving, willful, intense, with intent, assertive. It's a creative driving force.

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CR seems to work wonders for mice : https://youtu.be/bW0GlMmR6S0?si=7KdyPpGWH3yE22qQ

Does it translate to humans at all or partially ?

Any more insight from your research ?

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It sounds like the ad libitum group used as the 0-value had free access to gorge as they felt like.

If so, the calorie restricted groups would likely be more similar to what they would eat in their natural environments, so perhaps more similar to humans on an everyday diet rather than a calorie restricted one.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08026-3/figures/6

It also looks like the 40% group had a 2 day fast at the end. Or am I reading that graph wrong?

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