People - Health - Lukas Bergstrom's weblog

Good all-in-one guide to preparing for coronavirus

Your mindblowing thought for the day

"An old therapist of mine told me that we tend to re-enact our traumas in hopes of a happier ending."

Useful meta-reviews of health studies

Cochrane findings that will help you

Can't believe I didn't bookmark Cochrane studies here when I found out about them. Cochrane reviews are the antidote to pop-sci articles on health issues talking about a study that just came out with n=20 and results not yet replicated. Study shows Volvo drivers 10 times as likely to experience stress-related tinnitus, maybe.

Stuff that's interesting to me:

Acupuncture is pretty good
Antioxidants aren't that great and are maybe bad
Exercise is good
Bicycle helmets are good, so are motorcycle helmets
Melatonin is good for jet lag
Muscle relaxants are probably good for lower back pain
Unsaturated fat is probably better than saturated
Reducing salt seems good (however, my understanding is that the important thing is the salt/potassium balance, so increasing potassium might be just as good?)
Chinese herbal medicine might reduce cold symptoms (okay I am so down with visiting Chinatown when I feel a cold coming on, give me all the elixirs)

3/26/15
🔗

When stress looks like calm

Hidden stress

"When deeply stressed, I become even more serenely calm and unflappable than usual. It happens gradually. I’m a fairly laid back chap usually, so nobody (including me) notices the change. I shrug a few things off. I don’t let things get to me, but over time I can end up letting things slide that I have no business letting slide. Or absorbing bullshit that I should be challenging and confronting. Or, worse, failing to help other people when I should."

11/20/14
🔗

The Grant Study

The Grant Study is part of the Study of Adult Development at Harvard Medical School. It is a 75-year longitudinal study of 268 physically- and mentally-healthy Harvard college sophomores from the classes of 1939–1944.

Valliant's main conclusion is that "warmth of relationships throughout life have the greatest positive impact on 'life satisfaction'". Put differently, Valliant says the study shows: "Happiness is love. Full stop."

Wikipedia

4/15/10
2🔗

All foods ranked by goodness

So this ranked list of foods by nutritional density is thought-provoking but flawed.

I just don't believe that salsa (what kind, anyway?) is better than me for beets, and the reason I don't is sodium. But that's apparently not factored in.

Different ways of preparing food will impact the nutritional value.

Also, and I'm basing this off a couple hours of fascinating discussion with Dylan when we'd already had a few, different people have different gut flora which affect their ability to digest different kinds of food.

But I like the idea.

12/16/07
🔗

MeFi: how to talk to a friend with cancer

10/3/07
🔗

Longevity tips from a secret but well-informed source

Exercise
Antioxidants
Calcium supplements (for women and men)

A friend who moves in rarefied circles where knowledge is power and power is money says those are the keys to a long life. Also, apparently the baby boomers are going to live forever. Great, the most self-absorbed, self-satisfied, self-aggrandizing generation in history will never leave us. We'll be hearing stories about how magical the 60s were when we're in our old age.

5/25/07
🔗

Benefits of rising early and how to do it

I would also like to be able to fly by flapping my arms.

11/16/06
🔗

Serious methods for increasing flexibility one-on-one with a therapist

From yoga to Active Isolated Stretching to massage.

10/12/06
🔗

How quitting smoking affects your body right now

9/21/06
3🔗

ACS (anterior compartment syndrome)

One of the several conditions people refer to as shin splints. I think this is what I have? Doesn't hurt that much but it could stop me from running,

9/21/06
🔗