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Daily Edition • Friday, Sept 18
SPONSORED BY
Daily Edition • Friday, Sept 18
SPONSORED BY
Kombucha, probiotics, fibermaxxing … gut health is all the rage right now. According to a new study, the number of people over age 20 taking a probiotic supplement increased from 1.8% in 2009 to nearly 7% in 2023. But while more people are turning to gut-health supplements, diet-related changes didn’t see the same boost. And when it comes to your gut, simple habits — eating more fiber, moving regularly, prioritizing sleep — can go a long way. So if you’re feeling like you need a gut reset but want to skip the supplements, check out our science-backed tips for getting your gut back on track.
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Health Tech
Scientists Create an AI-Generated Drug That Could Slow the Aging Process
All Healthy Design Studio
A Real Longevity Drug?: AI in medicine is nothing new. Its abilities to speed up diagnostics, triage, and more have led to widespread adoption in healthcare. Now, it could play a role in developing medications directly. An experimental drug called rentosertib was created by developers at Insilico Medicine using artificial intelligence. Early data from its clinical trials show that it could slow down the process of aging.
The Study: A study published in Nature Biotechnology looked at whether rentosertib, an AI-assisted drug originally developed to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, might also affect biological aging. Researchers analyzed blood samples from 42 people over age 40 who had taken part in a 12-week trial. Using six different protein-based “aging clocks,” they found that all six showed reductions in predicted biological age among participants receiving rentosertib.
Takeaway: The use of AI in medicine continues growing, with implications in direct drug development for respiratory health and aging.
Keep in Mind: The prospect of a real “longevity drug” is intriguing. But experts caution everyone to temper their excitement. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and the author of the book Super Agerstells The New York Times that the drug “looks encouraging, but we do not yet have a definitive trial to make the final judgment.”
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Sponsored
Your Cycle Is Not “TMI” Data, It Is A Health Signal
Courtesy: Whoop
Cramps, cravings, energy dips, great workout days that seem to come out of nowhere, it is easy to treat your cycle as background noise and power through. But those patterns are actually rich health signals about hormones, recovery, and long‑term wellbeing.
When you start looking at your cycle alongside sleep, strain, and stress, it gets easier to see why some days feel harder than others and to plan around them instead of guessing.
WHOOP’s new integration with Natural Cycles° pulls in your overnight skin temperature so the NC° app can provide a daily fertility status and hormone‑free birth control guidance, while WHOOP continues to track round‑the‑clock recovery, fitness, and healthspan in one place.
Thank you for supporting our sponsors! They help us keep All Healthy free.
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Supplements
Psychobiotics Promise to Fix Your Mood Through Your Gut
Mathilde Langevin/Unsplash
The Trend: We’ve all heard of antibiotics; now enter psychobiotics, which are supplements containing live bacteria that claim to improve your mood by changing what’s happening in your gut. The premise rests on the gut-brain axis, the established link between digestive and nervous systems.
What People Are Saying: Brands frame these supplements as different from botanicals like ashwagandha or other established ingredients like magnesium, since psychobiotics are designed to work with your own microbiome. With that in mind, supplement industry insiders say interest in psychobiotics is climbing because people want a more natural-sounding support that eases stress and helps with sleep or focus all at the same time (one company in the space says 65% of people now rank mental wellness as their top wellness priority).
What to Know: The research is more mixed than the marketing for psychobiotics would have you believe. A recent review of human trials found the effects largely depend on the bacteria strain and who’s taking it. One strain improved sleep during exam stress, and a multi-strain formula decreased anxiety symptoms in college students at higher doses, but other strains showed no difference. So experts suggest taking a closer look at your sleep, eating, and exercise habits before reaching for psychobiotics.
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Cognitive Health
This Healthy Lifestyle Program Improved Brain Function by 55%
Aurela Redenica/Unsplash
Stay Sharp: A new study funded by the Alzheimer’s Association may have identified a clearer way to keep our brains sharp as we age through four lifestyle interventions: diet, exercise, cognitive training, and social engagement.
Researchers studied 1,065 older adults at greater risk of dementia at 12 sites across Latin America for two years. The participants were randomly placed in either a group that received a structured and monitored intervention program or a more flexible program of general lifestyle education and recommendations. The adults in the structured group experienced a 55% greater improvement overall cognition than those in the flexible group.
How to Do It: Support, accountability, and the incorporation of culturally specific lifestyle components were central to the program. Participants followed a modified MIND diet (a combination of the Mediterranean and DASH diets) with local foods. Exercise included group activities, like outdoor workouts and tango or salsa dancing. Computerized cognitive training was translated, with added assistance for less tech-savvy users. They attended group meetings to foster social connection and accountability.
The Benefits: Living in a way that keeps your brain sharp doesn’t have to be complicated — the key may be finding practical ways to incorporate these lifestyle habits into your everyday life.
This homemade granola is all about the crunch. Oats, cashews, flax, and sesame seeds get tossed with maple syrup and turmeric, then pressed into a slab and baked until golden. Tart raspberries and cocoa nibs add a little sweetness and bite, while optional date syrup helps everything hold together in big, chunky clusters. It takes just 20 minutes in the oven and delivers around 250 calories and 5 grams of protein per half-cup serving.
By clicking, you are agreeing to receive a daily recipe from Better Plates.
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This, Not That
Stop Saving Movement for the Gym
THIS
NOT THAT
Vitaly Gariev/Unsplash, Frederick Shaw/Unsplash
This: Sneak in one “incidental” walk Not That: Counting the day as sedentary if you missed a workout
A missed workout does not mean movement is off the table. Walk to get coffee, take the long route to your car, pace during a call, or do a lap after dinner. It all counts more than sitting still and waiting for the perfect exercise window.
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Sponsored
What Your Overnight Temperature Says About Your Fertility
Here is something you may not know: your body’s temperature pattern across the month typically rises after ovulation, which is why basal temperature tracking has been used for decades in fertility awareness methods. The catch has always been measuring it, at the same time, every morning.
By capturing skin temperature while you sleep, WHOOP can send that data automatically to the Natural Cycles° app, which is FDA‑cleared as a hormonefree birth control option and turns those nightly readings into an easy, color‑coded fertility status you can actually use.
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HEALTHY HABIT
Put Recovery on the Calendar
If you train hard, work hard, or generally live like your nervous system has a deadline, build in an easier day. Walk instead of run, stretch instead of lift, go lighter, or do nothing on purpose. Rest works better when it’s planned instead of treated like a collapse.
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Final Thought
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
