We know exercise is good for the brain, but the kind of exercise you do and how often can determine its mental health benefit. Hint: More is not necessarily better.

A study that tracked more than one million people over three years found parallels between certain types and frequencies of exercise and mood benefits.

The most important thing the study showed is that any type of exercise is better than none when it comes to helping you feel and function better.

Regular exercise, even just walking or housework, reduced the number of “poor mental health” days in a month by more than 40 percent. However, some forms netted bigger gains than others.

The best ways to exercise to improve your mood

Here is what the study found in terms of types and frequency of exercise for the most improvement in your mental health:

• The forms that have the most impact on mental health include team sports, cycling, and aerobic exercises.
• Yoga, walking, and household chores provide more benefit than doing nothing.
• Running does not show the most benefit to mental health compared to other exercises.
• Team sports […]
  

If you shy away from fats for fear of heart disease, you aren’t alone, you may be surprised to learn that carbohydrates, not fats, are the culprits in heart disease.

For decades scientists and doctors have blamed dietary fats — especially saturated fat — for heart disease. We’ve been advised to stick to a low-fat, high-carb diet based on grains to keep our hearts healthy.

We now know this advice was based on outdated observational studies. As it turns out, none of the studies truly linked high-fat diets to heart disease, and numerous recent studies have debunked the theory.

In fact, the low-fat, high-carb diet promoted for decades by organizations such as the American Heart Association, the National Cholesterol Education Program, National Institutes of Health, and by the U.S. Department of Agriculture may have actually played a strong — yet unintended — role in today’s epidemics of obesity, type II diabetes, lipid abnormalities,  and metabolic syndromes.

Limit carbs, not fat, for heart health

For most people, it’s carbohydrates, not fats, that are the true cause of heart disease.

Since 2002, low-carb diets have been studied extensively […]

Most everyone has heard of SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, when winter brings on chronic blues. But if you feel better in winter than summer, you may have summer SAD, also called reverse SAD. While the jury is still out on the causes of summer SAD, there are ways to get through the season with more energy, better sleep, and improved mood.

Although both winter and summer SAD and summer SAD share symptoms of sadness and anxiety, they diverge in potential causes and remedies.

Winter SAD commonly involves sadness and anxiety, sluggishness, weight gain, oversleeping, cravings for high-carb foods, social withdrawal, and a loss of interest in typically enjoyable activities.

While summer SAD also causes sadness and anxiety, it differs from winter SAD by causing the following:

• Agitation and irritability
• Weight loss
• Insomnia
• Feeling overheated at night
• Loss of appetite
• Increased suicidal ideation
• Increased sex drive

While five percent of the population suffers from winter SAD, researchers estimate roughly one percent suffer from the summer version, and women with summer SAD outnumber men two to one.

Both are considered major depression with seasonal patterns.

Spring and summer depression can be especially […]

If you have a chronic health problem or an autoimmune condition, you may be familiar with restricted diets such as the autoimmune protocol (AIP), GAPs, or FODMAPs. These diets can significantly reduce inflammation, help you determine food sensitivities, and address root causes of mysterious symptoms. However, some people experience little to no improvement and may even get new food sensitivities. The culprit could be loss of oral tolerance.

The good news is you can start improving your oral tolerance now so you react to fewer foods.

There are different types of tolerance:

• Chemical tolerance is the ability to appropriately tolerate chemicals in the environment without an immune reaction, such as reacting to perfumes.
• Self-tolerance is your immune system’s ability to recognize and respond appropriately to your own body. Loss of self-tolerance leads to autoimmune disease.
• Oral tolerance is the immune system’s ability to properly recognize and tolerate food proteins.

Any of these forms of tolerance can be lost when the immune system is out of balance. When you lose one you are more likely to lose the others since they are based on similar underlying factors.

If you experience […]

You’ve heard antioxidant foods and supplements can help fight inflammation and protect you from toxins, but the most important antioxidant is one we make in our own bodies: glutathione.

Unlike common antioxidant sources — vitamins C and E, beta carotene, turmeric, resveratrol, and foods such as blueberries, tomatoes, and red wine — you can’t take plain glutathione as it’s too hard to absorb. However, you can take glutathione precursors or special forms of glutathione that can be absorbed by the body.

Glutathione: the “master antioxidant”

Antioxidants are molecules that inhibit other molecules from going through oxidation, a chemical reaction that produces toxins called free radicals.

Free radicals are unstable molecules created as a result of natural biochemical processes. We can also ingest them via toxins in food, air, water, and even medication. Left unchecked, free radicals damage cells and contribute to the development of serious health problems.

While we need plenty of dietary antioxidants from varied and plentiful fresh fruits and vegetables, our most powerful antioxidant source is the glutathione our bodies produce.

In fact, glutathione is so powerful it’s referred to as the “master antioxidant.”

Two vital duties of […]

Conventional medicine is slowly admitting that instead of fat, sugar and refined carbohydrates are the biggest sources of high cholesterol and heart disease. Excess sugars and carbs drive good cholesterol down and triglycerides up, leading to the small, dangerous particles that encourage plaque buildup in the arteries. This contributes to heart disease and insulin resistance, or pre-diabetes.

High blood sugar and insulin levels also drive chronic systemic inflammation, playing a large role in heart disease and most other chronic illnesses. Systemic inflammation arises not only from poor diet, but also from an inactive lifestyle, chronic stress, food sensitivities, chronic viral and bacterial infections, and more.

Recently busted cholesterol myths include:

• Statins: Recent research shows that statin benefits are likely due to their ability to lower inflammation, not cholesterol.
• Heart attack: 75 percent of those who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol levels.
• Age: In older patients, those with higher cholesterol have a lower risk of death than those with lower levels of cholesterol.
• Harvard research has shown that a high level of systemic inflammation ranks higher than high cholesterol for putting subjects at risk for heart disease.

Consume plenty of fats from healthy sources

Conventional medicine […]