https://www.ratemds.com/blog/time-restricted-eating-vs-intermittent-fasting/

Fasting is an ancient practice gaining modern-day popularity for its somewhat well-supported benefits for body composition, weight maintenance, and improving indices of cardiometabolic health in healthy and unhealthy adult populations.

Less data are available on how fasting — in particular a kind of fasting known as time-restricted eating, or TRE — affects health and performance in athletes. TRE involves eating all of your daily calories within a specific “eating window”. Some common iterations include 16:8 TRE and 20:4 TRE, where one eats their food for 8/4 hours during the day and fasts for the remaining 16/20 hours.

TRE is…

I’ve written extensively on the relationship between sleep and cardiovascular health, and specifically how insufficient sleep leads to reduced endothelial function — an area of research I am extremely interested in.

There are several mechanisms that might be responsible for the negative effects of poor sleep on cardiovascular (CV) health and function, but one in particular has to do with our internal biological rhythms: a.k.a. circadian rhythms. …

Once thought to be a “passive” barrier, the endothelium is now recognized as a dynamic and active transducer of cellular signals within the vascular system, thanks to landmark experiments by Furchgott and colleagues demonstrating the obligatory role of an intact endothelium to elicit acetylcholine-induced vasodilation of vascular smooth muscle(1) and subsequent discovery of a diffusible substance released by the endothelium now recognized as nitric oxide (NO).

A healthy, functional endothelium senses and responds to mechanical and chemical signals by synthesizing and releasing vasoactive molecules, primarily (but not exclusively) NO, which diffuse into adjacent vascular smooth muscle to elicit their effects…

There’s probably no more trendy topic in health and nutrition right now than fasting. Intermittent fasting (IF), while an ancient practice, has gained newfound popularity for the supposed benefits it could have for weight loss, metabolic health, and even longevity.

An area where fasting has also gained attention is in relation to exercise. Many health gurus and performance “experts” advocate fasted exercise. This means undergoing your (typically morning) workout after fasting overnight. In my opinion, fasted exercise can have a place in most training regimens, if used strategically.

When you’re fasting, blood glucose, glycogen, and insulin decrease, and our body…

I want to begin by first extending a major thank you to listeners of the Science & Chill podcast. If you listened to even ONE episode — heck, even just 10 minutes of one episode — I am extremely grateful that you lent your ears. I hope that you took something away from your listening experience, whether it be new knowledge on a particular topic, exposure to a guest whose research or work you now follow, or a tiny bit of information that changed your health or mindset for the better. That’s the goal of the podcast, after all.

An…

Vascular impairments are the cause of many modern-day ailments. Heart disease, atherosclerosis, cognitive decline, stroke — all can be tied in some way to a reduced ability of blood vessels to carry blood and oxygen throughout the body. In general, this is referred to as endothelial dysfunction (the endothelium is the inner layer of our blood vessels that regulates the ability to relax, or vasodilate).

Another vascular disease where endothelial dysfunction is prominent is called peripheral artery disease, or PAD. PAD is characterized by the buildup of plaque in leg arteries and a narrowing of the blood vessels, which reduces…

If you’ve explored previous posts on my blog, perhaps you’ve stumbled upon parts I and II of “No, Endurance Exercise Won’t Kill You”, in which I make the argument (supported by evidence) that high-level endurance activity isn’t as harmful as some people like to think.

Read part I here.

Read part II here.

Those in the “anti-endurance” crowd base their claims on a handful of studies showing that people who engage in strenuous (some refer to it as excessive) endurance exercise throughout life have certain indicators of a increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk— coronary artery calcium, fibrosis (stiffening) of the…

“We must make haste then, not only because we are daily nearer to death, but also because the conception of things and the understanding of them cease first.”

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

If someone gave you a pill to live forever — would you take it?

Perhaps not. Many people scoff at the concept of physical (or even metaphysical) immorality; citing either biological implausibility or a fear of “growing bored with living” as reasons they’d like to someday shed their mortal coil.

Regardless of one’s stance on eternal existence, most people, if given the option, would at least take the…