Show Notes
After a decade in emergency medicine, Dr Alex noticed something odd. The age on the computer screen and the age on the trolley are often two completely different things. Some patients in their 80s felt decades younger than their notes suggested, while others much younger had become frail before their time. So what are the people who age well actually doing differently? In this episode Dr Alex shares four habits he has noticed again and again over years of shift work, none of which involve a supplement or a special diet. He talks through staying curious, processing setbacks instead of ruminating on them, thinking critically about health claims, and having a reason to stay well, a sense of purpose that pulls you through the day. He is upfront that these are his own clinical observations rather than a formal study, but he backs each point up with research where he can, including work on neuroplasticity, cortisol and chronic stress, and large studies linking a sense of purpose to heart health and memory in later life. The full list of research references is in the description of the YouTube version of this video. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #preventativehealth #healthyaging
More from The Long Game | Dr Alex
High cholesterol on a blood test and told to just cut back on fat and come back in six months? That advice misses almost everything that actually matters. In this episode I walk through the one number on your blood test that really counts, LDL cholesterol, and why a high HDL does not cancel it out. I also cover the portfolio diet, the combination of plant sterols, soluble fibre, plant protein and nuts that has been shown to bring LDL down by around 30 percent in research trials, plus the one simpler swap that does most of the work if that feels like too much all at once. We get into the egg question properly, why your liver makes far more cholesterol than you could ever eat, and what is really happening inside your liver when you swap saturated fat for polyunsaturated fat. I explain why going low fat often backfires when the fat gets replaced with refined carbs instead, and what a realistic two week plan looks like before you get retested. The full list of research references is in the description of the YouTube version. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #cholesterol #nhs
A lot of you sent me the same podcast clip recently, where a well known nutrition professor says the protein guideline is plenty and the whole obsession with eating more is overblown. He is right about quite a bit of it. Protein deficiency barely exists in Britain or America. Protein shakes and bars are mostly just marketing. You can get everything you need from whole food, plants included. Here is where I still disagree. The official number was built to stop an average, largely sedentary population from becoming deficient. It was never designed to be the amount you aim for if you actually want to stay strong as you get older. Your body has nowhere to store spare protein. Eat more than you use and your liver just strips it down and either burns it or turns it into fat. So protein only does its job when there is somewhere for it to go, and that somewhere is exercise. Strength work at least twice a week, carrying your own shopping, getting off the floor without help well into your eighties. That is the target worth building towards. If you are training regularly, somewhere around 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilo of body weight, coming from eggs, beans, fish, nuts and a sensible amount of meat, is a reasonable thing to aim for. If you are not moving much at all, sort that out first before worrying about the number. One caveat worth repeating here. If you have any degree of reduced kidney function, this is a conversation to have with your own doctor before changing anything, not something to do off the back of a podcast. The full list of research references for this episode is in the description of the YouTube version. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #protein #health
Three minutes a day, split into three short bursts, is all it takes to work the muscles that quietly hold you upright every time you stand up, carry the shopping or reach into a cupboard. A plank trains the deep muscles wrapping around your middle rather than the ones you see in the mirror, and that is exactly why it matters so much as you get older. In this video I go through what a plank actually does to your blood pressure, your balance and your chances of a fall, what it does for a lower back that keeps aching, and how to build up to it if you cannot hold one for more than a few seconds right now. I also show a simple variation at the end that turns this from a basic core hold into something much closer to a proper workout. The full list of research references for this video is in the description of the YouTube version. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #planking #corestrength
Eight hours is probably the most repeated number in sleep health, yet so many people hit it every night and still wake up exhausted. That number was never a personal target. It is simply the middle of a range, and it only ever measures how long you lie in bed, not how much actual sleep your brain gets. In this episode I break down what really determines sleep quality. Deep sleep is loaded into the first half of the night and handles physical repair, while REM sleep builds through the second half and processes emotion and memory. Losing time from either end costs you very different things, even if the hours lost look the same on paper. I also talk through sleep efficiency, why sleep apnoea so often goes unnoticed, why alcohol wrecks the second half of your night, and why a large UK Biobank study found that sleep regularity predicted risk of death more strongly than sleep duration did. I cover caffeine timing, morning light, restless legs, and why cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia is recommended ahead of sleeping tablets. This episode is sponsored by Somnipods, the earbuds I have been using myself to deal with noise disruption overnight. The full list of research references is in the description of the YouTube version of this video. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #sleephealth #nhsdoctor
Your leg muscles are often the first to weaken as you get older, usually because of years of sitting more and moving less. What you eat plays a direct role in how much of that muscle you keep. In this episode I go through seven foods that help protect your leg muscles as you age, including eggs, oily fish, dairy, lean red meat, beetroot and leafy greens, pulses, and extra virgin olive oil, and why the timing and quality of your protein matters just as much as the amount. The full list of research references for this episode is in the description of the YouTube version. Disclaimer: This is not personal medical advice and does not override what your doctor says. #dralex #muscle #nutrition