It certainly wasn’t a cake walk — thru-hikers climb the equivalent of Mt. Everest 16 times during the journey, and by his own count, Sanders fell 71 times along the way. But he stuck to his motto on the trail: “When it hurts, keep going. It’ll probably go away.”
Most of us probably won’t be record-breaking nonagenarians, but Sanders’ accomplishment is a good reminder that movement and goals don’t have an expiration date — and that getting older doesn’t mean we have to stop moving or give up the hobbies we love.
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Hormonal Health
Hormone Therapy Might Help Protect Your Brain
All Healthy Design Studio
Brain Bonus: Hormone therapy for menopause has spent decades under a black cloud of cancer risk, largely because of the fallout from a 2002 study that scared many women away from it. A new UK study, however, has added an important data point to that debate. Researchers followed over 180,000 postmenopausal women for an average of 13 years and found hormone therapy users developed dementia less often than nonusers.
The Study: Over 13 years, hormone therapy use for a year or more was linked to a 10% lower risk of dementia and a 16% lower risk of Alzheimer’s. Surgical menopause (where the ovaries were removed rather than menopause happening naturally) cut risk by 26%. Carriers of the APOE4 gene (the most well-known gene linked to Alzheimer’s) also benefited, with the strongest results in women starting hormone therapy before 56.
The Takeaway: Hormone therapy isn’t just about hot flashes and night sweats. It may also affect how the brain ages, especially for women with less lifetime exposure to estrogen.
Keep in Mind: Doctors aren’t currently recommending hormone therapy solely to prevent Alzheimer’s, and earlier trials found mixed results, including one linking it to higher risk. What stands out is the study’s size and focus on who benefits most.
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Sponsored
What If Younger-Looking Skin Is About More Than Skincare?
Courtesy: Aramore
Most skincare is designed to improve how aging skin looks. But as skin gets older, something deeper changes: NAD+, a molecule skin cells depend on for repair and renewal, naturally declines.
That’s why Aramore takes a different approach. Developed by Harvard & MIT scientists, its formula is designed to help skin produce NAD+, supporting skin that looks stronger, firmer, and more resilient over time.
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Fitness
The Knees-Over-Toes Debate: What’s the Right Way to Squat?
Rachel Moore/Unsplash
You Should Know: Remember being told never to let your knees travel past your toes when jumping or squatting? Some fitness influencers are challenging that advice. The “knees over toes” approach popularized by influencers like Ben Patrick emphasizes training through deeper ranges of motion to build stronger, more resilient knees.
Going Deeper: There’s some science behind the hype, but it’s not quite as simple as: knees over toes = bulletproof knees. Some research has found that 10 weeks of full-depth squatting produced greater strength and functional improvements than partial squats, without increasing pain. A deeper squat isn’t automatically better for everyone, though. Allowing the knees to move farther forward can increase forces at the kneecap joint. That doesn’t make the movement dangerous, but it does mean that load, depth, training history, and individual anatomy preclude blanket recommendations, one way or the other.
Takeaway: As with all things in fitness, there’s no universally “perfect” squat. Anatomical differences and individual history make the “best” squat different for everyone.
Bottom Line: Your knees aren’t made of glass. Gradually training them through ranges of motion you can control builds strength and protects your joints.
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Beauty
Could Rice Water Help Your Hair Grow?
Rens D/Unsplash
The Trend: Rinsing your hair in rice water is a practice that dates back thousands of years, but it’s recently experienced a resurgence on social media. Fans of the technique claim it’s an inexpensive, all-natural DIY treatment to promote hair growth and make tresses stronger and shinier. It sounds great, but does it actually work?
What People Are Saying: Making rice water is straightforward: Soak a cup of rice in water for about two hours, and then strain and save the leftover liquid to use as a rinse after washing. Rice contains B vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and phenols — all good for the hair. The starch in rice water can also coat and smooth the hair cuticle and reflect light to make it look glossier. Some dermatologists caution that starch can also draw moisture from the hair, leaving it brittle and prone to breakage — especially if people do rice-water rinses too often.
What to Know: Any benefits are likely superficial, as there’s no scientific evidence validating that rice water can make hair grow.Eating nutrient-rich foods and seeing a dermatologist to address any hair issues are more surefire ways to get healthy locks.
This sweet potato pie proves you don’t need traditional butter, milk, or flour to get a seriously good holiday-worthy dessert. A silky filling of sweet potato, coconut sugar, maple syrup, oat milk, and warm spices gets poured into a flaky gluten-free crust made with vegan butter and a clever laminated technique that helps keep it light and tender. At 360 calories per slice, it’s a dairy-free, gluten-free take on the classic that doesn’t feel like much of a compromise.
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This, Not That
Make Movement Easy
THIS
NOT THAT
Casper Rae/Unsplash, Thomas Ho/Unsplash
This: Take the path of least resistance Not That: Turning every stroll into a logistical event
A walk does not need special gear, a perfect route, or a full hour. Put on shoes and go for five or 10 minutes. Around the block counts. To the mailbox counts. The goal is to make movement easy enough that you can’t talk yourself out of it.
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HEALTHY HABIT
End the Night With a “Done Enough” List
Before bed, write down one or two things you actually finished that day. Not the whole productivity inventory — just a small reminder that the day was not nothing. It can help shift your brain away from everything still open and toward the fact that you did, in fact, move a few things forward.
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Final Thought
Imagining anything is the first step toward creating it.”
