Weekly Blog

Feb 2

In an effort to get the most from my professional knowledge/skills and give back when possible, I coach youth sports, primarily competitive high schoolers. It is one of those perfect challenges - frustrating enough of the time to hold teachers who do it 8 hours per day in very high regard (as I question if it's worth the effort) and yet amazingly rewarding when the kind of breakthrough which radically changes the trajectory of someone's life occurs. Sometimes the breakthrough is in the sport but most of the time it's due to lessons where sport mimics life. "Consistency beats Intensity" and "work smarter, not harder" have been two particularly grueling lessons over the years. The idea that the climb from a current level to a desired future level (i.e. "change") is something that is most often achieved with patience and a process similar to painstakingly adding coats of varnish to wood or clear coat to a custom paint job like that which was said to be used by Da Vinci when creating The Mona Lisa is not a particular favorite at a time of life (or a time of the world) when just about everything is available instantly, on-demand. You can imagine how much of a boost it can be therefore when we find situations that don't necessarily behave that way, when change happens quickly.

Last week we talked about one such scenario - the "warm-up" effect - and how powerful it can be for those willing to invest a few minutes in readying their physiology for action. Of course, this isn't just for adult bodies - we know that a similar pattern of priming for young athletes can reduce the incidence of serious injuries like ACL tears (example 1, example 2) in those who complete it, something I've seen first-hand both positively with low injury rates in those who take it seriously and negatively with serious, yet preventable injuries in those who do not. However, changing the MOVE inputs to get better or safer outputs is not the only domain that responds quickly. How our bodies respond to changes in FUEL inputs does too. Some great new preliminary research out this week showed that from an immune system perspective, significant change can happen in as little as 2 weeks with different outputs resulting from changes to inputs.

Specifically, the research team showed that across an age range of 18 years to 50 years in a tightly controlled setting, there was a consistent change in how the immune system responded to differing diets. When participants were given a low-fat vegan diet for 2 weeks, their "first line of defense" (innate immunity) ramped up, while when they ate a high-fat/low-carb ketogenic diet for 2 weeks their "next line of defense" (adaptive immunity) ramped up; this is both impressive and fast. On the other hand, many studies have shown that those who apply the "layered", slow, and steady approach can also have great benefits. One of the most recent showed across a sample of more than 100,000 individuals, a healthy diet tracked closely with better metabolic health which was not super surprising, especially in light of this one which reviewed a bunch of the "how" and "why".

When we boil it all down one of the big takeaways is something we all inherently know and use every day to survive and (hopefully) thrive: change is fast...slow...and always. We constantly react to subtle changes in our environment (homeostatic) and, since certain things have to be very fast to keep us alive we even "predict" and anticipate when it benefits us (allostasis). Those systems can definitely get off track if we don't provide them the right support. Still, perhaps one of the reasons we have examples of humans thriving in nearly every imaginable environment (and some that seem unimaginable) is because, not unlike the way our "dual process brain" was described by a Nobel prize winner in 2011, our entire system is uniquely purposed for the demands of a "both and' world. If we take care of it, it works well.

This is the time of year when an immune system "boost" could be very valuable. Start today and you'll be hitting the winter homestretch STRONG.

Have a great weekend,

Mike E.