Watchman News

When you hear “PFAS,” you probably think of nonstick cookware, waterproof jackets, or contaminated drinking water. You probably don’t think of the prescription sitting in your medicine cabinet. Yet fluorinated compounds classified as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are built into a surprisingly wide range of approved pharmaceuticals, often not because they’re essential to how those medicines treat disease, but because they make the drug easier to formulate.

If fluorine serves the manufacturer’s design goals more than the patient’s therapeutic needs, then every PFAS-containing medicine that passes through your body and into the water supply deserves a harder look, particularly now that researchers have mapped out whether effective alternatives already exist. An analysis published in Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy took on exactly that question, and the answer should change how we think about drug design going forward.1

PFAS-Free Drug Alternatives Already Exist Across Nearly Every Medical Category

For the study, researchers investigated whether PFAS-containing medicines are truly necessary or whether practical alternatives already exist.2 They reviewed approved active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the part of a medicine that produces its therapeutic effect, and identified 111 PFAS-containing medicines used in humans and 28 used in veterinary medicine.3

The researchers found that 87% of the 111 human PFAS-containing medicines already have a non-PFAS alternative available, with alternatives in development for nearly all of the remainder — directly challenging the long-held belief that fluorinated medicines are medically indispensable.

According to the study’s lead researcher Dr. Michael Müller of the University of Freiburg, “The fact that PFAS-free alternatives already exist for almost all indications is a clear indication that, from a pharmacological point of view, per- or polyfluorination is not strictly necessary.”

• Fluorine usually improves drug performance rather than treating disease — The analysis found that fluorine is rarely responsible for a medicine’s therapeutic effect. Instead, drug developers often add fluorine because it helps medicines remain stable, resist breakdown, or move through the body differently. Those properties make medicines easier to design and formulate, but they’re separate from the drug’s intended medical action.

That distinction is important because it shows many medicines can achieve the same therapeutic result without relying on PFAS chemistry, creating opportunities to reduce persistent environmental contamination while maintaining effective treatment.

• Most PFAS-containing medicines eventually become another persistent environmental pollutant — Researchers found that 84% of the PFAS-containing medicines they examined have the ability to degrade into trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a highly persistent PFAS compound that remains in the environment instead of breaking down naturally.

The study explains that once medicines are excreted, they enter wastewater systems and eventually reach rivers, lakes and groundwater. The researchers also note that removing TFA from drinking water is extremely difficult. For that reason, the authors argue that preventing TFA formation at the source is far more effective than trying to remove it later.

• PFAS-containing medicines are used across almost every area of health care — The researchers mapped PFAS-containing medicines using a classification system that groups medicines according to the conditions they treat. They found these medicines are spread across numerous therapeutic categories rather than concentrated in one specialty.

That means replacing PFAS-containing medicines isn’t a challenge limited to one disease or one group of patients. Instead, it requires evaluating each medicine individually and comparing it with available non-PFAS alternatives that provide the same therapeutic benefit rather than assuming every fluorinated medicine is required.

• The researchers argued that environmental persistence deserves greater attention during drug development — Their concern focuses on what happens after these medicines leave the body and enter the environment.

Researchers argue that environmental persistence deserves consideration alongside conventional measures such as safety, quality, and effectiveness during drug development and regulatory decision-making, particularly when equally effective non-PFAS alternatives already exist.

• The findings point toward a future where effective medicines no longer rely on PFAS — Because non-PFAS alternatives already exist for nearly every PFAS-containing medicine identified in the analysis, the researchers conclude that reducing the pharmaceutical industry’s reliance on these persistent chemicals is achievable.

Rather than forcing a choice between effective treatment and environmental protection, the findings suggest both goals can move forward together as future medicines are designed with persistence in mind from the beginning.

Reduce Your Overall PFAS Exposure One Choice at a Time

PFAS deserve attention because your exposure adds up over a lifetime. These “forever chemicals” break down extremely slowly, allowing them to accumulate in drinking water, soil, food and, ultimately, your body. Research has linked higher PFAS exposure to reduced immune response,4 liver damage, thyroid disorders, and reproductive and developmental problems,5 and separate research has associated PFAS-contaminated drinking water with an increased incidence of certain cancers.6

Since you encounter PFAS from many different sources every day, reducing unnecessary exposure wherever practical, including when equally effective PFAS-free medicines are available, is one way to lower your cumulative burden over time.

The research suggests that reducing PFAS exposure isn’t about making one dramatic change. It’s about lowering your total lifetime exposure wherever practical. Medicines are only one source. Drinking water, food packaging, stain-resistant fabrics, and many everyday consumer products also contribute. Every unnecessary source you eliminate chips away at your cumulative PFAS burden, and over a lifetime, those reductions compound.

1. Only take prescription medicines that you truly need — While some medicines are necessary, many people remain on drugs long after the original reason for taking them has disappeared. If you take one or more long-term medications, regularly evaluate whether each one is still needed or whether another approach addresses the underlying problem instead of simply managing symptoms.

Bring a complete list of every medication you currently take to your next appointment and ask your doctor to walk through each one. For every prescription, the question is straightforward: “Is this still necessary, or has my situation changed enough that we can reassess?”

That single conversation, repeated at each annual visit, keeps your medication list current and prevents unnecessary long-term exposure to any drug, PFAS-containing or otherwise. Reducing unnecessary prescriptions lowers your exposure to PFAS-containing medicines while also reducing the release of these persistent chemicals into the environment through wastewater.

2. Choose PFAS-free medicines when an equivalent option exists — The researchers found that 87% of PFAS-containing active pharmaceutical ingredients identified for human medicine already have a non-PFAS alternative available, with alternatives in development for nearly all of the rest. If two medicines offer comparable therapeutic benefits, ask whether a PFAS-free option is available. That simple conversation supports both your long-term exposure goals and cleaner pharmaceutical design.

A simple way to start that conversation: “I’m trying to reduce my exposure to persistent fluorinated chemicals. Does this medication contain fluorine, and if so, is there an equally effective alternative that doesn’t?” Many doctors won’t have encountered the request before, but framing it as a preference keeps the conversation productive and gives your provider room to weigh the clinical tradeoffs with you.

One quick way to check whether a medication you already take may contain PFAS: look at the generic name on the label. If it includes “fluor-” or “flu-,” as in fluoxetine, fluticasone, or ciprofloxacin, the drug contains fluorine. That doesn’t automatically mean you should switch, but it tells you which prescriptions are worth discussing with your doctor at your next visit.

3. Reduce PFAS from other everyday sources — Because PFAS exposure is cumulative, medicines are only part of the picture. Replace nonstick cookware with stainless steel, limit food packaged in grease-resistant wrappers or containers, avoid stain-resistant carpets and furniture treatments when possible, and choose personal care products that don’t contain fluorinated ingredients. Lowering exposure across multiple areas often has a much greater effect than focusing on one source alone.

4. Filter your drinking water — PFAS have been detected in drinking water supplies throughout many regions because they persist in the environment for decades. A high-quality filtration system certified to remove PFAS reduces one of the most consistent sources of everyday exposure. Cleaner drinking water lowers your ongoing exposure every single day.

5. Think about cumulative exposure instead of isolated products — Think of PFAS exposure the way you’d think about secondhand smoke. One exposure isn’t the entire story. The total amount you accumulate over years matters most. Every informed decision, whether it involves a prescription, your cookware, your drinking water, or the products you bring into your home, helps lower that cumulative burden and gives you greater control over your long-term health.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.

FAQs About PFAS in Medications

Q: Why are PFAS used in some prescription medicines?
A: PFAS are often added during drug development because they help certain medicines remain stable, resist breakdown, or move through the body more efficiently. According to the research reviewed in this article, fluorine usually is not responsible for the medicine’s therapeutic effect. Instead, it mainly changes how the drug behaves, which means many medicines can achieve the same medical result without relying on PFAS.

Q: Should I stop taking a medicine if it contains PFAS?
A: No. The research doesn’t suggest that you should stop taking prescribed medications on your own. Instead, the findings encourage you to become an informed consumer by asking whether an equally effective PFAS-free alternative is available, particularly if you’re starting a new medication or reviewing long-term prescriptions.

Q: Why are PFAS called “forever chemicals”?
A: PFAS earned that nickname because they break down extremely slowly in the environment. After they’re released into water, soil or other parts of the environment, they remain there for many years. Some PFAS-containing medicines also degrade into TFA, another highly persistent compound that’s difficult to remove from water once it’s released.

Q: Besides medications, where else are PFAS commonly found?
A: Prescription drugs are only one source of exposure. PFAS are also found in nonstick cookware, grease-resistant food packaging, stain-resistant carpets and furniture, waterproof clothing, some cosmetics, and contaminated drinking water. Because exposure accumulates from multiple sources over time, reducing PFAS wherever practical lowers your overall lifetime burden.

Q: What are the most effective ways to reduce PFAS exposure?
A: Focus on the sources you can control. Review long-term medications to determine whether they’re still necessary, choose PFAS-free medicines when equivalent options exist, filter drinking water, replace nonstick cookware with safer alternatives such as stainless steel, and avoid consumer products marketed as stain-resistant or water-repellent whenever possible.

Small changes across several areas of your life often reduce total PFAS exposure more effectively than concentrating on just one source.

Test Your Knowledge with Today’s Quiz!
Take today’s quiz to see how much you’ve learned from yesterday’s Mercola.com article.

What happens to the ovaries after reproductive function ends?

They stop all biological activity
They disappear gradually over time
They remain biologically active
In mouse studies, ovaries continued changing at the molecular level after reproduction ended, rather than becoming completely inactive. Learn more.
They continue releasing mature eggs

Nearly 18 million people lose their lives to cardiovascular disease every year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO),1 making it the most common cause of death worldwide. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most prevalent form, marked by plaque buildup that narrows or blocks blood flow to the heart.

Coronary artery disease often begins with subtle symptoms — fatigue, chest tightness, or shortness of breath — but if left unchecked, it could lead to heart attacks or even sudden death. The good news is that CAD doesn’t develop overnight, and that gives you time to change the outcome.

One key driver that could help you turn the tide is your gut health. A review found that reseeding your gut microbiota with beneficial bacteria strains could support your heart health.

Review Provides Strong Evidence Linking Probiotics to Help Lower CAD Risk

Published literature review in Cureus examined how probiotics influence cardiovascular risk, particularly coronary artery disease. The review analyzed a range of clinical trials, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled studies to determine how various probiotic strains affect major heart disease risk factors.2

• The review encompassed a wide range of participants — They ranged from individuals diagnosed with CAD to adults managing Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, or hypertension — groups most at risk for future cardiac events.

• The researchers focused on 10 key human studies — These consisted of seven randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and three meta-analyses. Each of these studies involved human participants with CAD or its major risk factors.

• One of the standout strengths of the methodology is the diversity of the data used — Trials came from countries including the U.S., Iran, China, Thailand, Greece, and Japan. That means the findings are not tied to one ethnicity or geographic population — they represent a much wider pool of data, which makes the conclusions more likely to apply across different lifestyles and genetic backgrounds.

• The research consistently showed that probiotics were associated with measurable changes in heart disease triggers — These include blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, weight management, and inflammation.* According to the researchers:

“There are several risk factors for the development of CAD, which are hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia, hypertension, inflammation, and oxidative stress, which increase patients’ risk of atherosclerosis and, in turn, lead to CAD.

In recent years, growing evidence has established the beneficial effect of the gut microbiota in influencing these cardiovascular risk factors. This microbial ecosystem plays a significant role in metabolic regulation, immune function, and systemic inflammation, all of which are significant to the development and progression of CAD.”3

• The study highlighted bacteria strains that provide significant benefits — For example, they noted that Lactobacillus acidophilus has a more significant effect on cholesterol levels compared to other strains, while Bifidobacteria has protective effects against atherosclerosis, especially if partnered with a lipid-lowering treatment. Bacteroides vulgatus and Bacteroides dorei helped prevent formation of atherosclerotic plaque.*

Probiotics Help Improve Heart Health by Fixing Gut Imbalance at the Source

So how exactly do probiotics work at the cellular level to help protect your heart? The researchers highlighted several key biological pathways, demonstrated by the studies they reviewed.

• Helping reduce inflammation by supporting the gut barrier — The paper emphasized that dysbiosis harms your gut lining, allowing endotoxins like lipopolysaccharides (LPS) to escape into the bloodstream. This may trigger inflammation that contributes to endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis.

The trials found that the probiotic strain Lactobacillus rhamnosus reduced LPS levels and inflammatory cytokines like IL-1β, which may help lower cardiovascular strain.

• Shifting short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) balance toward heart-protective molecules — SCFAs are byproducts of bacterial fermentation, and they have a significant impact on your metabolic health. The study found that probiotics promote the production of propionate — a SCFA that has been linked to reduced vascular inflammation and less fat accumulation in the liver. At the same time, it limits acetate, which may contribute to fat storage and cholesterol synthesis in excessive amounts.

Acetate is generally beneficial, as it supports mucus production. But if there’s too much of it, it could cause adverse effects, which is why balance is key. This shift supports healthy blood lipid levels and lowers the burden on your cardiovascular system.

• Reducing trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) production from gut microbes — TMAO is a compound created when certain gut bacteria break down foods like red meat and eggs, and having high levels is associated with arterial plaque buildup and heart attacks.

The study found that certain probiotics like Lactobacillus plantarum modulate bile acid metabolism and suppress TMAO-producing bacteria, which may help lower this risk. A separate analysis4 found that having high blood levels of TMAO increased the risk of dying from any cause fourfold in the next five years.

• Balancing blood pressure via nitric oxide and ACE pathways — Specific strains like Lactobacillus helveticus may help regulate blood pressure by influencing nitric oxide (NO), a molecule that relaxes blood vessels, and inhibiting angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) activity, which raises blood pressure.

A meta-analysis included in the review found that probiotic doses of 10¹⁰ colony-forming units (CFU) or more reduced both systolic (the top number in a reading) and diastolic (the bottom number) blood pressure, especially in older adults with hypertension.

• Improving cholesterol metabolism — Certain probiotics influence how your body processes cholesterol. For example, Ruminococcus helps convert cholesterol into bile acids that are excreted, while other strains incorporate cholesterol into their own membranes or convert it into non-absorbable forms like coprostanol. These actions may help reduce circulating low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels and slow plaque formation.

• Supporting blood sugar and insulin sensitivity — Probiotics such as Bifidobacterium species may help increase GLP-1, a hormone that boosts insulin secretion and slows gastric emptying — both important for stable blood sugar. They may also help reduce oxidative stress and improve how cells respond to insulin, which may lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Each of these pathways reflects how a healthier gut microbiome — powered by the right probiotics — creates a ripple effect through your entire metabolic system. These findings not only demonstrate how probiotics influence gut health, but how those changes may help lower some of the biological triggers of coronary artery disease.

“Probiotics have shown effective mechanisms to control risk factors and lower CAD. Their effect is produced through many mechanisms, such as their anti-inflammatory and antioxidative role,” the researchers concluded.

“Other mechanisms were addressed mainly through the reduction or prevention of CAD risk factors, which are achieved by the anti-glycemic and antihypertensive effects of the probiotics and by reducing metabolic disorders. These further prevent obesity and hypercholesterolemia, which in turn signify the effective role of probiotics in preventing CAD.”

Consuming Probiotics May Help Normalize Blood Pressure

Previous studies have also provided evidence on how probiotics help reduce cardiovascular incidents by modulating risk factors like hypertension. For example, an analysis of nine studies looked at the link between blood pressure levels and consuming probiotic-rich foods or probiotic supplements, and found favorable results.5

• Those who regularly took probiotics have lower blood pressure levels compared to those who did not — On average, their systolic blood pressure was 3.6 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) lower, while their diastolic blood pressure was 2.4 mm Hg lower. The most significant benefit appeared to be among those whose blood pressure was higher than 130/85, and probiotics that contained a variety of bacteria lowered blood pressure to a greater degree than those containing just one type of bacteria.*

• Kefir demonstrated antihypertensive effects and more — In a 2018 study published in the FASEB journal6 researchers conducted an experiment on three groups of rats — one group had hypertension and was given kefir, the other had hypertension, but was not treated, and the third had normal blood pressure and was not treated. They found that rats fed kefir not only appeared to have lower blood pressure levels, but also had:*

◦ Improved balance of beneficial bacteria in the gut
◦ Improved intestinal structure with decreased intestinal permeability
◦ Lower levels of endotoxins
◦ Lower levels of inflammation in the central nervous system

“Our data suggest that kefir antihypertensive-associated mechanisms involve gut microbiota-brain axis communication during hypertension,” the researchers concluded.

• An earlier animal study found that probiotics help prevent hypertension from a high-salt diet — Published in the Nature journal, the researchers reported that the Lactobacillus Murinus bacteria was shown to help prevent salt-sensitive hypertension by modulating T helper 17 (TH17) cells in this animal model.* When the mice subjects were given this probiotic strain, it helped protect them from the adverse effects of excessive salt intake.

“Our results connect high salt intake to the gut-immune axis and highlight the gut microbiome as a potential therapeutic target to counteract salt-sensitive conditions,” the researchers concluded.7

Combining Probiotics with Plant Nutrients Could Make Them More Efficient

While probiotics alone are beneficial, there are ways to supercharge their effects. One way is to combine them with bioactive plant compounds. A review published in Food Chemistry Advances analyzed how probiotics and plant compounds impact your gut microbiota and may help reduce inflammation. The researchers reviewed evidence on the synergistic role of these compounds in managing metabolic diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.8

• Those who have metabolic disorders and chronic inflammation may have seen some of the greatest benefits — In individuals with obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular issues, or inflammatory bowel conditions, gut dysbiosis is a common denominator. Combining targeted probiotics and plant-derived bioactives helped reduce systemic inflammation, strengthen gut barrier function, and rebalance microbial diversity.

• Specific strains showed unique effects — For example, Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Lactobacillus plantarum boosted production of mucin, a slippery protein that forms protective mucus, helping make the gut lining stronger. Meanwhile, Bifidobacterium longum and Bifidobacterium breve work efficiently in breaking down fiber into SCFAs.

• Certain plant compounds improved probiotic performance — Polyphenols found in tea, berries, and cocoa supported the growth of beneficial bacteria while slowing the spread of harmful ones.

Plant compounds and probiotics may also work together to help keep inflammation in check — in part by activating immune cells that release calming signals, which help tell your immune system to relax. At the same time, they help lower levels of chemicals that cause inflammation, which is often high in people with metabolic issues. For more information on this topic, read “The Science of Probiotics — How Beneficial Bacteria Support Health.”

How to Boost Your Gut Health to Help Avoid Heart Disease

Your gut is home to trillions of microbes that influence everything from how well you digest food to how effectively your immune system and metabolism function. But when these microbial populations get out of balance, your health starts to unravel at every level.

But getting your gut health back on track is not just about taking probiotics. There are a few important considerations to help your gut microbiome thrive. I recommend following these strategies:

1. Fix your gut microbiome before feeding it — Although fiber is essential for gut health, consuming too much if your gut health is imbalanced will only end up feeding the unhealthy microbes, triggering gas, bloating and toxic byproducts like endotoxins. This is called the fiber paradox — The very substance that promotes a healthy microbiome in the long term worsens symptoms in the short term if introduced too early.

If you’re dealing with inflammation or bacterial overgrowth, start by healing your gut. Remove ultraprocessed foods and focus on easy-to-digest carbohydrates like fruit and white rice until your symptoms stabilize. Afterward, you can add in small amounts of more fibrous carbs like root veggies.

Once your gut health is healed, expand your diet by adding non-starchy vegetables, starchy options (sweet potato or squash), beans, legumes, and eventually whole grains with minimal processing.

2. Prioritize bacteria that produce butyrate — Butyrate is an SCFA and is one of the most powerful healing compounds your body makes. It fuels the cells lining your gut, calms immune overactivation, and reduces whole-body inflammation.

Specific gut microbes are needed to produce butyrate, particularly Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Roseburia, and Eubacterium. They thrive on fermentable fibers found in foods like cooked-and-cooled potatoes, green bananas, lentils, Jerusalem artichokes, and oats. Once your gut lining begins to heal, feeding these bacteria becomes a top priority.

3. Feed Akkermansia correctly — While not a butyrate producer itself, Akkermansia plays a supportive role by maintaining and thickening your gut’s mucus layer, creating an ideal environment for butyrate-producing microbes to thrive.

Having higher levels of Akkermansia is strongly associated with improved blood sugar control, lower inflammation, stronger gut barrier function, and even reduced body fat. Think of it as a gatekeeper that improves the terrain, while Faecalibacterium and others generate the fuel. Together, they create a microbiome that’s stable, anti-inflammatory and metabolically protective.

Polyphenol-rich foods like pomegranate, red grapes, cranberries, and green tea may help promote Akkermansia growth. So do inulin-containing plants like garlic, leeks, chicory root, and asparagus. Start with small amounts and build as tolerated.

Once your gut symptoms have stabilized — minimal bloating, consistent stool form for at least a week, and improving fiber tolerance — consider starting with a pasteurized Akkermansia postbiotic formula that uses enteric coating or microencapsulation, which helps more of it survive stomach acid and reach your colon. Live Akkermansia may be introduced later, once that tolerance is firmly established.

4. Support gut health at the cellular level — Beyond just adding fiber, you need to remove factors that actively damage your gut environment. One major culprit is excessive linoleic acid (LA) from vegetable oils, which disrupt your mitochondrial function, decreasing your cellular energy production and wrecking your gut environment. Switch to healthier fats like butter, ghee, or tallow instead.

Also, minimize exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals and electromagnetic fields (EMFs), as these further impair cellular energy and negatively impact the oxygen-free gut environment that beneficial bacteria like Akkermansia need to thrive.

5. Rebuild daily habits that reinforce microbial balance — Eating at regular times, getting early morning sunlight, sleeping deeply, getting enough daily exercise, and managing stress all shape your gut flora and contribute to your overall health.

*These findings are from laboratory or animal research and may not directly apply to human health.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Probiotics and Heart Health

Q: How do probiotics influence heart health?
A: Probiotics may help balance the gut microbiome, which has been associated with lower inflammation and improved metabolic function — including reduced cholesterol levels, better blood sugar control, and less vascular damage, all factors linked to coronary artery disease.

Q: Which probiotic strains are most effective for cardiovascular health?
A: Strains like Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium lactis, Lactobacillus plantarum, and Lactobacillus helveticus have been associated with reduced LDL (bad) cholesterol, improved insulin sensitivity, lower inflammatory markers, and better blood pressure regulation in the reviewed studies. Each strain works in different ways.

Q: What does gut health have to do with heart health?
A: Your gut and heart are deeply connected through what researchers call the “gut-heart axis.” When your gut microbiota is out of balance, it can produce inflammatory toxins that enter your bloodstream, damage blood vessels, and trigger atherosclerosis. A healthy gut lining and diverse microbiome may help protect against these effects and support lower cardiovascular risk.

Q: Which gut-derived compounds were linked to heart disease in the review?
A: The review highlighted acetate (in excessive amounts) and trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) as compounds that increase heart disease risk, while short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) like propionate and butyrate were linked to reduced inflammation and improved cardiovascular outcomes.

Q: What types of people were included in the reviewed studies?
A: The research involved adults with coronary artery disease and those managing related conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure — groups at higher risk for cardiovascular complications.

1 Which pesticide has been linked to a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease?

Chlorpyrifos
Long-term chlorpyrifos exposure was associated with more than a 2.5-fold higher risk of Parkinson’s disease in agricultural communities. Learn more.
Atrazine
Permethrin
Malathion

2 What can happen when you take a larger supplement dose than your body can readily absorb?

Absorption always increases proportionally
The nutrient stays stored indefinitely
More of the dose may be excreted
Absorption does not always rise in proportion to the dose. For magnesium, the percentage absorbed can decrease as the amount taken increases. Learn more.
The nutrient becomes easier to absorb

3 How many extra calories per day did people eat on an ultraprocessed diet?

100 calories
250 calories
350 calories
500 calories
Twenty adults stayed at the NIH Clinical Center for four weeks and ate about 500 more calories per day on the ultraprocessed diet. Learn more.

4 What do you call someone who naturally prefers later bedtimes and wake times?

Morning chronotype
Evening chronotype
An evening chronotype describes people who naturally prefer later sleep and wake times. This group showed some of the strongest associations with brighter daytime light. Learn more.
Irregular sleeper
Short sleeper and an insomniac

5 Which muscles were linked to better future heart health?

Chest, back, and rib muscles
Healthier muscles in the chest, back, and between the ribs were associated with a lower likelihood of heart attack. Learn more.
Arm, shoulder, and hand muscles
Hip, thigh, and calf muscles
Neck, jaw, and facial muscles

6 Which antioxidant has been studied for supporting ovarian cell health in women with Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS)?

Lycopene
Lutein
Astaxanthin
Astaxanthin has been studied for its effects on oxidative stress, inflammation, insulin sensitivity, and the environment surrounding developing eggs. Learn more.
Beta-carotene

7 As the ovaries age, which type of activity becomes more prominent?

Digestive activity
Immune-related activity
Aging mouse ovaries showed greater activity in immune-related genes and accumulated more immune cells as reproductive functions declined. Learn more.
Bone-forming activity
Respiratory activity

Test Your Knowledge with
The Master Level Quiz

1 Which everyday task may become harder as Parkinson’s disease progresses?

Reading
Hearing
Tasting
Walking
Parkinson’s disease affects the brain circuits that control smooth movement, so walking, balance, and coordination may become more difficult over time. Learn more.

2 Which of these medications is not prescribed to induce sleep?

Zolpidem
Zopiclone
Loperamide
Zolpidem, zopiclone, and benzodiazepines are used as sleep aids, but they may disrupt brain rhythms involved in memory and waste clearance. Loperamide is not a sleep medication. Learn more.
Benzodiazepines

3 What is one way to reduce pesticide exposure from produce?

Buy more packaged foods
Grow your own produce at home
Growing your own fruits and vegetables gives you more control over pesticide use and can help reduce repeated exposure. Learn more.
Store produce at room temperature
Peel every fruit before eating

4 What can affect how much magnesium your body absorbs from a supplement?

The form and dose
A systematic review published in Nutrition found that magnesium absorption varies by form and dose, with organic forms generally better absorbed. Learn more.
The capsule size
The capsule color
The serving time

5 About how much magnesium do most adults need each day?

At least 400 mg
Magnesium needs vary by person, but the guidance given is at least 400 milligrams daily for most adults. Learn more.
About 200 mg
At least 600 mg
About 800 mg

6 What term is commonly used for the electric shock-like sensations some people report during SSRI withdrawal?

Muscle tremors
Sensory flashes
Nerve spasms
Brain zaps
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) withdrawal can include “brain zaps,” along with symptoms such as dizziness, sleep problems, anxiety, and mood changes. Learn more.

7 What is a practical first step for cutting back on ultraprocessed foods?

Count every calorie you eat
Avoid all packaged foods until you detox completely
Replace them with minimally processed foods
Replacing highly processed products with foods that have simpler ingredient lists can reduce ultraprocessed food intake without requiring a complete diet overhaul. Learn more.
Remove carbohydrates from meals

8 Which creative activity was linked to the largest difference in biological brain age?

Visual art
Tango dancing
In research published in Nature Communications, tango dancers showed the largest difference, with brains appearing more than seven years younger than their actual age. Learn more.
Strategy gaming
Playing music

9 Which essential amino acid helps signal muscle growth?

Glycine
Leucine
Leucine acts as both a building block for muscle and a metabolic signal that helps activate muscle protein synthesis and mitochondrial energy production. Learn more.
Taurine
Glutamine

10 What system helps regulate your sleep-wake cycle, hormone release, and daily alertness?

Circadian rest-activity rhythms
Circadian rest-activity rhythms help organize daily patterns of sleep, activity, hormones, and alertness across the 24-hour cycle. Learn more.
Autonomic reflex pathways
Metabolic feedback loops
Sensory processing rhythms

11 Which foods can help maintain beneficial bacteria in the gut?

High-fiber whole grains
Fermented vegetables without live cultures
Probiotic-rich foods
Probiotic-rich foods such as yogurt, kimchi, and kefir provide beneficial microbes that can help support a more balanced gut microbiome. Learn more.
Protein “fortified” cereals

12 Which pancreatic cells are responsible for producing insulin?

Beta cells
Beta cells in the pancreas produce insulin, which helps regulate blood sugar. In the adolescent mouse study, prolonged fasting was linked to fewer mature beta cells and lower insulin production. Learn more.
Alpha cells
Sigma cells
Delta cells

13 Besides exercise, what can help support healthier muscles?

Eating more protein each day
Avoiding carbohydrates after workouts
Training harder with minimal rest days
Protein, healthy carbohydrates, and recovery
Protein and carbohydrates provide nutrients and energy for muscle repair, while adequate recovery gives muscles time to adapt and strengthen. Learn more.

14 Which factor was much more important for obesity than daily energy expenditure?

Resting metabolic rate
Physical activity level
Immune system activity
Calorie intake
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), calorie intake was about 10 times more important for obesity than daily energy expenditure. Learn more.

15 What is the medical term for involuntary teeth grinding or clenching that often occurs during sleep?

Temporomandibular joint disorder
Sleep apnea
Bruxism
Bruxism affects about 8.6% of adults and can place substantial pressure on the teeth and jaw during sleep. Learn more.
Trigeminal neuralgia

16 Granulosa cells depend heavily on mitochondria for what purpose?

Storing reproductive hormones
Fueling egg cell development
Mitochondria provide the energy granulosa cells need to nourish and support developing eggs throughout the months-long maturation process. Learn more.
Producing follicular fluid
Controlling menstrual timing

17 Which of these habits may decrease butyrate production?

Eating too little dietary fiber
Gut bacteria make butyrate by fermenting fiber, so a low-fiber diet gives these bacteria less material to produce this short-chain fatty acid. Learn more.
Including resistant starches regularly
Staying sedentary most of the time
Eating fermented foods with probiotics

18 What kind of carbohydrate can provide dogs with a moderate source of glucose?

White rice
White rice provides carbohydrates that supply glucose, which dogs use for functions such as brain and red blood cell energy. Learn more.
Sweet potatoes
Rolled oats
Brown rice

19 When can changes associated with ovarian aging begin?

Only after age 70
Once all follicles are gone
Immediately after menopause
Years before menopause
Changes in cell communication, follicle development, and tissue remodeling began before reproductive cycles stopped. Learn more.

20 Which cells have stopped dividing but remain metabolically active in the body?

Stem cells
Immune cells
Senescent cells
Senescent cells no longer divide, but they remain active. Their buildup over time is associated with aging and age-related disease. Learn more.
Red blood cells

21 Which of these fish is a rich natural source of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)?

Wild-caught Alaskan salmon
Cold-water fatty fish such as wild-caught Alaskan salmon, mackerel, herring, and sardines are among the best natural sources of omega-3 fats. Learn more.
Farm-raised tilapia
Atlantic cod
Yellowfin tuna

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published June 30, 2024.

I interviewed Dr. Ahvie Herskowitz, former clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and founder of Anatara Medicine, a multidisciplinary integrative center in San Francisco.1 Herskowitz, an internist, has a deep foundational knowledge and science background that’s ideal for treating complicated health care cases.

We may be collaborating on a project in the future, but in the meantime at his center, they’re using advanced techniques to help people restore their health, including strategies for longevity and treatments for very ill patients, including those with autoimmunity, gut problems, cancer, and more.

Microbiome Issues, Leaky Gut Linked to Failure to Thrive

Herskowitz treats illness by looking at the foundational causes of disease. We discussed that a leading cause of death is, in my view, endotoxemia resulting in septic shock. This occurs when you secrete endotoxin from facultative anaerobes, otherwise called oxygen-tolerant bacteria, which shouldn’t be in your gut.

These pathogenic bacteria secrete a very virulent form of endotoxin, also known as lipopolysaccharides (LPS), which cause inflammation if they translocate across the compromised gut barrier into the systemic circulation. Leaky gut, or a disturbed microbiome, is considered by Herskowitz to be one of the foundational contributors to chronic disease.

Herskowitz explains, “I think that everyone that’s doing poorly and failing to thrive has a biome issue and a leaky gut issue, almost 100% … And in the standard allopathic intensive care units, it’s not considered a foundational issue.” When Herskowitz treats cancer patients, he says, they’re often in a state of failure to thrive.

“They’ve gotten so burdened by so many different layers of toxicity, that their system cannot keep up anymore enough,” he says. “And … that’s eventually due to mitochondrial failure throughout the body.”

Patients Overwhelmed by Toxicity and Nutritionally Depleted

Chronic diseases often result from a buildup of toxicities and a lack of nutrition and healing in the body to compensate for them. “All these toxicities affect every cell of the body simultaneously,” Herskowitz says.

“So, we all have relative strengths and weaknesses. And that comes up as to what organ is going to be the most involved. But we all have to almost decide whether we’re going to release these toxins on a day-to-day basis, otherwise our concept of longevity is going to be badly estimated.”

Herskowitz estimates that 80% to 90% of the U.S. population has metabolic syndrome, which increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes. Obesity is another epidemic. Both are due to several factors, including toxicity that started more than 50 years ago as the food supply became increasingly processed. Herskowitz explains:

“This is where you get to the concept of an infinite number of toxicities, feeding a system that only has a finite way of cellular responses … it’s the seed oils [containing] linoleic acid, it’s the ultraprocessed foods and snacks. So, when you go to a general store today …

The overwhelming majority of the food that’s sold there is not to be for human consumption … and then the concept of our farming system has evolved toward efficiency … listen, industry is not our friend. It’s not our partner … their job is to sell more stuff, and to do so in an efficient way.

… I watched it over 45 years, I mean, ‘70s, ‘80s, 90s, this stuff is getting worse. Now the most difficult group to get an appointment with in the hospital is not the cardiology department, because it’s usually the largest department, but it’s endocrine and rheumatology, neurology.”

In other words, exposure to ultraprocessed foods and other toxicities is wreaking havoc in the body, leading to widespread chronic disease. “It causes havoc within the communications network, so that hormones go awry, inflammation goes awry and the detoxification system is overwhelmed,” Herskowitz explains.

“This leads to all the different disorders … it’s a straightforward thing … you have this nutrient depletion, which obviously … you’re more susceptible to everything. And then each of us is reaching our limit, so to speak.”

Why You Should Pay Attention to ‘Nuisance Symptoms’

Herskowitz often sees patients when they’re very ill — but they don’t start out this way. He often looks back into their medical records over 25 years to see their past medical history. People who end up with serious diseases like Alzheimer’s disease often have far more “nuisance symptoms” over the years. This includes symptoms such as toenail fungus, indigestion, occasional diarrhea, hyperactivity or even high blood pressure.

In Herskowitz’s experience, his Alzheimer’s patients had 2.5 times more nuisance symptoms compared to a control group that didn’t have Alzheimer’s. This reflects Herskowitz’s own clinical observations from his practice, not a peer-reviewed published study. “It’s consistent with this toxicity type of concept,” he says. “When you’re toxic, you have all these little things going on, and you don’t pay attention to them, because they’re not severe.”

However, they’re clues that something is off balance in your body, which can likely be addressed in the early stages. Unfortunately, most physicians aren’t looking for these types of systemic problems.

Tests to Measure How Old You Really Are

One of the challenges facing longevity medicine is figuring out what to measure in order to get an idea of how old you really are — meaning your biological age, which is how well your body is functioning compared to your chronological age, the actual number of years you’ve been alive. Biological age can be younger or older than your chronological age depending on your lifestyle, environmental factors, and genetics.

Herskowitz believes oxidative stress is one useful measure to show where you are in a given moment in time over time. At his center, they use a urine test called 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) as a biomarker for oxidative damage and they use the lipid peroxides as a marker. He also uses tests to measure chronic immune function, mitochondrial function, and senescent cells.

Senescent cells are cells that have stopped dividing and entered a state of permanent growth arrest without undergoing cell death. These cells can no longer replicate, but they remain metabolically active.

Senescence is a natural part of the cellular lifecycle and serves as a mechanism to prevent the proliferation of damaged cells, which leads to cancer. However, the accumulation of senescent cells over time contributes to aging and various age-related diseases. According to Herskowitz:

“[We look for] concepts of the subtlety of how the immune system is being suppressed. And it’s not the current CBC [complete blood count]. It’s more on the chronic side. So how does it deal with biological toxins? And that’s more a journey into the complement immune cascade, which deals with chronic infection, chronic biological toxins and how to deal with it.

So, measures of complement cascades for autoimmunity as well. And then probably the biggest one, other than mitochondrial function and oxidative stress, to me is if we can measure the number of senescent cells we have in our body at any time. The higher it is, the worse you’re doing.”

Herskowitz also uses markers of metabolic pathways that measure glucose metabolism. “It’s not as simple as glucose,” he says. “It’s more inflammatory/metabolic/hormonal,” or the fact that patients are so nutrient deficient that their system isn’t generating sufficient energy. Further, on a day-to-day basis, Herskowitz uses serum ferritin level as an important marker of health.

I have also long stated that serum ferritin, which measures stored iron, is one of the most important tests that everyone should have done on a regular basis as part of a preventive, proactive health screen.

Innovative Test for Cancer Treatment

Meanwhile, Herskowitz described an innovative test for tumors that helps improve treatment decisions. Many people with cancer capitulate to taking chemotherapy, either because of fear, their own choice, or direction from loved ones or their oncologist.

Many alternative practitioners treating cancer patients say their biggest challenge is the fact that virtually no one comes to see them before they take chemotherapy, which they believe can compromise their body’s healing abilities.

Herskowitz, who uses antioxidants, nutrition, photobiomodulation, intravenous therapies, and other strategies for cancer, details a test he believes may change the way chemotherapy is given in the U.S.:

“There’s a new innovation you should be aware of. And that’s taking a slice of the tumor itself on the biopsy side, articulating the various genomic mutations, and looking for the same genomic mutations in the peripheral blood. Now, it’s not a new generation of circulating tumor cell counts, and this is all different generation. So, the goal here is, say, I’m on chemo.

I don’t want to be on it, unless it’s working. Whether it’s high-dose chemo, or even low-dose chemo, I want it to be working on my behalf. And unless these markers are going down, I’m going to switch. I can tell my oncologist to switch because the genomic data are universally accepted by any oncologist in any university setting.

And I think that’s going to change the way chemotherapy is given in the United States over time. These are approved tests for advanced cancers, and now they’re moving to get approvals for all cancers of any kind.”

Cellular Function Is Becoming Less Efficient

In his decades of clinical experience, Herskowitz says he’s seen our overall capacity for cellular function becoming less efficient. “Practicing now is just different,” he says. For instance, less than 2% of the population used to have autoimmunity, but now he believes it’s somewhere between 10% and 20% — and we could be reaching a tipping point.

“I don’t know where we’re going to be in 10 years … people are still functioning, which is remarkable … [but] I think that we’ve lost most of our reserves. Our reserve function is relatively gone. So, maybe more than 50% of our reserve function has now gone over the last four decades,” he says, referring to not only biological resiliency but also metabolic and mitochondrial function. Fortunately, there’s still hope to turn health around.

“Mitochondrial biogenesis is possible, at some point, so I think we still have a lot of hope that right now we can reverse by going clean. And the cleaner you go, the better you’ll feel anyway,” Herskowitz explains. The fact is, your body has unbelievable resiliency provided you identify what’s causing your problems and address it, including by eliminating ultraprocessed foods from your diet and reducing your exposure to other toxicities.

You can find out more about Herskowitz’s strategies for longevity and chronic disease at his website Anataramedicine.com. As mentioned, we’re going to be working together in the future so Herskowitz can further direct his knowledge and insights into correcting the faults in the system. He adds:

“I can tell you one thing. I’ll end it like this. There’s a lot of secrets going on, there’s a lot of mystery. There’s a lot of things we don’t know very much about. And the worst thing a doctor can do is have an arrogant attitude. They understand everything. And I think that as long as we remain open and honest now, and remain lifelong learners, we will all be in better shape.”

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.

In the video above, Dr. Jen Gunter walks through the basics of what menopause is, how the hormonal transition unfolds, and what you can do about common symptoms. It’s a useful primer, but it reflects the conventional understanding that the story essentially ends once the transition is complete. The research below picks up exactly where that thinking stops.

Menopause is officially defined as the point 12 consecutive months after your last period, but the dramatic symptoms most women associate with it — hot flashes, night sweats, sleep disruption, mood changes, vaginal dryness, and accelerated bone loss — actually belong to the transition leading up to that milestone, when the ovaries are actively winding down hormone production.

That’s where one of the biggest misconceptions takes hold: the assumption that by the time a woman reaches postmenopause, the ovaries have simply stopped working.

For a long time, the scientific consensus supported that view. Once the ovary’s supply of follicles ran out, researchers treated the organ as little more than inactive scar tissue, a structure that had finished its job and could be safely ignored. That assumption shaped decades of medical thinking and helped justify the routine removal of ovaries during unrelated surgeries.

Yet millions of women now spend decades in postmenopause, which raises a question science has only recently begun taking seriously: what are the ovaries actually doing during all those years? Now two studies are challenging the old view from complementary directions. One investigated how the ovary’s molecular and cellular identity transforms after reproduction ends and discovered an organ that, far from going quiet, appears to take on an entirely new biological role.1

The other built extraordinarily detailed spatial maps of the aging ovary and found that decline begins not with a sudden shutdown but with a gradual loss of the precise coordination among cell types that keeps the organ functioning.2 Together, they suggest the postmenopausal ovary deserves far more scientific attention than it has received, and that understanding what changes inside this organ is the first step toward understanding how it influences healthy aging throughout the rest of your body.

The Ovary Kept Changing Long After Reproduction Ended

A study published in Molecular Human Reproduction investigated what actually happens to the ovary after reproduction ends, a stage that scientists have historically viewed as biologically quiet. Instead of assuming the postmenopausal ovary simply remains in place without an important purpose, the researchers compared ovaries from reproductively young, reproductively old, and post-reproductive mice to determine how the organ continues to change after its reproductive years end.3

Because human postmenopausal ovarian tissue is difficult to study, the researchers used mice, whose ovarian aging follows many of the same biological patterns seen in women. The three groups were 2-month-old (reproductively young), 18-month-old (reproductively old), and 24-month-old (post-reproductive) mice, with three to four animals per group. The authors note that mice do not menstruate, but argue the model remains useful for identifying conserved mechanisms of ovarian aging.

Rather than focusing only on hormone production or egg loss, the team combined detailed tissue analysis with gene activity measurements to examine the ovary from multiple angles. This allowed them to identify structural changes, shifts in cellular behavior, and differences in which genes were switched on or off at each stage of aging. Their goal was to determine whether the post-reproductive ovary remains biologically active instead of becoming an inactive organ.

• Researchers found that ovarian aging continued after fertility ended — Most people assume menopause represents the final chapter of ovarian biology. According to the researchers, that assumption doesn’t match what they observed. Although the ovaries had already exhausted their supply of follicles, the organ continued changing at the molecular level long afterward.

Instead of reaching a stable endpoint, the ovaries developed an entirely different pattern of activity. The researchers wrote that “the ovary continues to undergo molecular changes after reproductive senescence,” meaning the transition didn’t stop once reproduction ended. That finding suggests your ovaries continue participating in important biological processes long after fertility disappears.

• The ovary gradually lost its reproductive identity and adopted a completely different one — Genes associated with normal ovarian function steadily became less active while an entirely different collection of genes became much more active. Genes work like instruction manuals that tell cells which jobs to perform. When different genes switch on, cells begin behaving differently.

Instead of producing instructions related to reproduction, the post-reproductive ovary increasingly expressed genes involved in immune activity and inflammation. The researchers described this as a shift “from reproductive functionality to an immune-dominant signature.” Rather than functioning primarily as a reproductive organ, the ovary appeared to take on responsibilities more commonly associated with the immune system.

• Immune cells steadily moved into the aging ovary — The genetic findings matched what researchers observed under the microscope. As the ovaries aged, increasing numbers of immune cells entered the tissue. These included T cells, which help coordinate immune responses, macrophages, which remove damaged cells and debris, and multinucleated giant cells, large immune cells that often appear during long-lasting tissue remodeling or inflammation.

Think of macrophages as the body’s cleanup crew. They remove worn-out material and help organize tissue repair. T cells serve as coordinators that direct other immune cells where to respond. Finding substantially more of these cells inside the post-reproductive ovary tells scientists the organ remains biologically busy rather than dormant.

The authors read this shift as ovarian “inflammaging” and propose that “targeting the inflammatory milieu of the ovary may be the foundation for a non-hormonal, non-fertility therapeutic to maintain healthspan for women in the post-reproductive period.” In other words, the immune identity is presented as something to counteract, not as a second job the ovary has usefully taken on.

• Scar-like tissue remained elevated after follicles disappeared — The researchers examined collagen, the structural protein that helps support tissues throughout your body. Excess collagen creates fibrosis, meaning normal tissue becomes stiffer and more scar-like. Picrosirius Red staining, which detects collagen I and III, showed an increasing trend with age that remained elevated in the post-reproductive ovary. The authors report this as a trend rather than a statistically significant increase.

Total follicle numbers were significantly reduced at both 18 and 24 months compared with 2 months, with no further decline between 18 and 24 months, indicating follicle depletion was complete by 18 months.

The continued transformation after follicle depletion occurred mainly at the molecular level. Although the ovary’s physical fibrosis had reached a plateau, 230 genes were still differentially expressed between the reproductively old and post-reproductive stages. This distinction shows that the organ remained biologically dynamic even when its major structural changes had stabilized.

• The aging ovary appeared capable of communicating with the rest of the body — One of the study’s most intriguing discoveries involved proteins that aging ovaries appear capable of releasing into circulation. Researchers identified numerous genes whose protein products are predicted to be secreted outside the ovary. Secreted proteins act like biological messages because they travel to other tissues and influence how those tissues behave.

This finding raises an important possibility. Instead of remaining isolated after menopause, the ovary could continue influencing organs throughout the body by releasing inflammatory signaling molecules.

The authors concluded that the post-reproductive ovary “could be a source of pro-inflammatory signaling mediators with the potential to modulate extra-ovarian tissues.” This remains a computational prediction. The authors state that future studies are needed to validate whether the genes they identified actually produce secreted proteins, and whether those products can be detected in the blood.

None of that undercuts the study’s central finding, though. Instead of seeing the ovaries only as organs involved in fertility, this research suggests they remain active participants in whole-body aging. Scientists still need additional research, particularly in humans, but this work provides evidence that the post-reproductive ovary continues playing a meaningful biological role rather than quietly fading into inactivity.

Ovarian Cells Lost Their Perfect Timing Before Fertility Ended

That first study revealed what the ovary becomes after reproduction ends — an immune-active organ still participating in whole-body biology. But it left open the question of how the ovary gets there. A second study, published in Nature Aging, tackled that question by investigating how thousands of different ovarian cells coordinate their activities as the organ ages.4

The researchers built an exceptionally detailed spatial map of the aging mouse ovary using an advanced genetic mapping technique that captures which cells are active and exactly where they sit within the tissue. The study analyzed 22 mouse ovaries, generating 69 spatial maps that captured more than 610,000 individual measurement points across different stages of the reproductive cycle.

The investigators also developed new computer tools to identify and track 358 oocytes (immature eggs), 668 follicles, and 236 corpora lutea, the temporary structures that form after ovulation. By comparing young, middle-aged, and older mice that were still cycling, they discovered that important biological changes appeared long before reproduction stopped. The three age groups were 10 to 12 weeks, 36 to 40 weeks, and 52 to 54 weeks.

Instead of a sudden collapse at menopause, ovarian aging reflected a gradual breakdown in the precise timing and organization that normally keeps the ovary functioning efficiently.

• The ovary began losing its internal rhythm years before reproduction stopped — Ovarian aging started disrupting the timing of normal biological events while the animals were still reproductively active. Healthy ovaries carefully synchronize hormone signals, egg development, and tissue remodeling throughout every reproductive cycle. According to the researchers, that coordination steadily weakened with age instead of disappearing all at once.

Think of a symphony orchestra. Every musician still knows how to play, but if they gradually stop following the conductor’s cues, the music drifts out of sync long before anyone stops playing entirely. The researchers concluded that ovarian aging reflects “a progressive breakdown of tissue-level coordination,” meaning the individual cells still existed but no longer worked together with the same precision.

That finding matters because many women notice changes in menstrual cycles, hormone balance, and fertility years before menopause. This research suggests those changes begin when the ovary’s internal timing system starts drifting out of sync rather than when eggs suddenly run out.

• Egg development became less organized as neighboring cells stopped communicating efficiently — The study found that aging disrupted folliculogenesis, the carefully controlled process through which immature follicles grow and mature before ovulation. Instead of progressing through clearly defined stages, older ovaries lost much of the orderly communication that guides healthy follicle development.

Follicles don’t develop in isolation. Each one constantly exchanges chemical signals with surrounding support cells that deliver nutrients, hormones, and growth instructions. Researchers found that this coordinated conversation became increasingly disorganized with age, making follicle development less synchronized with the normal reproductive cycle.

The investigators also found that hormone-sensing patterns became uncoupled from cycle stage. In other words, ovarian cells no longer responded to hormonal signals with the same precision seen in younger ovaries, even before reproductive cycles had completely stopped.

• The ovary struggled to clean up after ovulation — Every ovulation creates a temporary structure called the corpus luteum, which produces progesterone before naturally breaking down to make way for the next cycle. The study found that this cleanup process became less efficient as ovaries aged.

Researchers observed an accumulation of late-stage, regressing corpora lutea that normally would have cleared. The authors identify these structures by their transcriptional signature rather than by age — they note the method cannot determine how old a corpus luteum is and describe the finding as failed timely clearance, suggesting that normal tissue turnover slowed with age.

Because proper removal of these structures helps prepare the ovary for the next reproductive cycle, delayed clearance disrupted the normal sequence of events.

This discovery gives scientists another explanation for why reproductive cycles often become irregular before menopause. It isn’t simply hormone production that changes. The ovary also becomes less efficient at resetting itself between cycles.

• The physical layout of the ovary became increasingly disorganized — Healthy follicles normally develop in carefully arranged neighborhoods inside the ovary. The researchers found that this spatial organization gradually disappeared with aging. Preantral and atretic follicles, which cluster tightly in young ovaries, became more scattered in aged ones, reducing the close communication that supports normal development.

Antral follicles behaved differently — they sit as relatively isolated “islands” in both young and old ovaries. Imagine trying to complete a team project after everyone has been moved into separate buildings. Communication slows, coordination suffers, and mistakes become more common. Researchers reached a similar conclusion about ovarian tissue. Loss of this spatial organization reduced the ability of neighboring follicles to influence one another through short-range signaling.

The study also found changes in the extracellular matrix (ECM), the supportive framework that surrounds cells — specifically reduced expression of matrix genes alongside increased matrix-degrading enzymes, which the authors describe as aberrant remodeling. They propose in their concluding model that loss of follicle clustering “may, in part, reflect increased ECM rigidity,” citing earlier work; this study did not measure tissue stiffness directly.

• Inflammation, tissue remodeling, and structural breakdown occurred as interconnected layers rather than separate processes — Rather than identifying one single cause of ovarian aging, the researchers found several biological processes working together. Increased inflammatory signaling, changes in the extracellular matrix, altered immune activity, and declining tissue organization reinforce one another.

The authors describe a propagating sequence rather than simultaneous onset: disrupted clearance of corpora lutea generates persistent inflammatory niches that “may initiate” broader immune remodeling, and local defects then “propagate across niches” to produce organ-level disorganization.

The authors described these changes as “interconnected layers of ovarian aging,” meaning each problem reinforced the others instead of occurring independently. As tissue organization weakened, immune remodeling increased. As inflammation increased, communication between cells deteriorated further. Together, these changes accelerated the decline in normal ovarian function.

Healthy organs depend on millions of cells working together in the right place at the right time. According to this research, ovarian aging isn’t defined by one damaged cell type or one failing hormone. It reflects the gradual loss of the remarkable coordination that normally keeps every part of the ovary working as a unified system.

That gradual unraveling is exactly what millions of women experience firsthand during perimenopause — the irregular cycles, the unpredictable symptoms, the sense that something has shifted before any test confirms it — and this research now offers a biological explanation for why the decline feels like a slow drift rather than a clean stop.

The authors draw the same parallel to human perimenopause, while stating that “validation in human tissue will be necessary for translating these findings into clinical applications.”

Note: The findings from both featured studies are from laboratory or animal research and may not directly apply to human health.

Support Healthy Ovarian Aging by Protecting the Tissue That Remains

The research shows that the ovary continues changing long after menopause instead of simply shutting down, which means the environment you create inside your body still matters. If the postmenopausal ovary is indeed releasing inflammatory signals that influence tissues throughout the body — and the early evidence points in that direction — then the internal environment surrounding that organ matters even more than previously understood.

Chronic inflammation, poor metabolic health, and reduced cellular energy place extra strain on tissues that are already adapting to a new biological role. Focus on creating an environment that supports healthy tissue function instead of accepting that everything after menopause is simply decline.

The studies also suggest that your goal after menopause is not simply replacing hormones. Instead, it’s supporting the metabolic and cellular environment that allows the tissues you still have to function as well as possible. Many of the same habits that protect your mitochondria, lower inflammation, and improve metabolic health also support healthier hormone balance throughout the rest of your body.

1. Reduce the inflammation that places extra stress on aging tissues — Chronic, low-grade inflammation became a defining feature of the aging ovaries in the research. To reduce this, build most meals around minimally processed whole foods while eliminating seed oils and ultraprocessed foods.

Seed oils, like soybean, canola, sunflower, or safflower oil, are rich in linoleic acid (LA), which contributes to inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction. Keeping LA intake below 5 grams per day while replacing those oils with traditional fats such as grass fed butter, ghee, or tallow helps create a healthier environment for aging tissues.

2. Lower your exposure to estrogen-like chemicals in your environment — Even after menopause, your body continues responding to hormone signals from outside sources. Everyday plastics, personal care products, food packaging, and household products often contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals that behave like estrogen inside the body.

I recommend storing food in glass or stainless steel instead of plastic, avoiding heating food in plastic containers, choosing products without parabens or phthalates whenever possible, filtering your drinking water, and reducing unnecessary plastic use throughout your home.

3. Build a strong metabolic foundation instead of restricting your body — Healthy tissues require energy to repair themselves, and a postmenopausal ovary that remains biologically active needs that energy just as much as any other organ. I recommend eating enough healthy carbohydrates — about 250 grams daily for most adults, adjusted for activity level — along with adequate protein from bioavailable sources.

Aim for 0.6 to 0.8 grams per pound of ideal body weight (1.32 to 1.76 grams per kilogram), with one-third coming from collagen-rich sources like slow-cooked meats or bone broth.

Nutrients found in foods such as liver, pasture-raised eggs, and properly raised animal foods provide vitamin A, vitamin B6, and other compounds that are involved in normal hormone production and cellular energy metabolism. Daily sunlight, resistance exercise, regular walking, and restorative sleep further strengthen the metabolic foundation that every organ depends on.

4. Look beyond blood estrogen alone when evaluating hormone balance — Even after menopause, blood estrogen levels tell only part of the story because estrogen stored inside tissues doesn’t always match what appears in a blood test. One marker that I believe provides additional insight is prolactin, a hormone whose production rises in response to estrogen activity.

Elevated prolactin, particularly alongside reduced thyroid function, suggests increased estrogen signaling even when blood estrogen appears low. Looking at the broader hormonal picture provides a more complete understanding of what’s happening inside your body. Talk to your health care provider about whether this testing is appropriate for you.

5. Focus on restoring balance instead of replacing estrogen — If you’re considering hormone support, carefully weigh the total estrogen burden from medications and environmental exposures.

For many postmenopausal women, bioidentical progesterone, not synthetic progestins, offers a different strategy because progesterone opposes many estrogen effects. Where progesterone is used, I recommend transmucosal delivery of pharmaceutical-grade bioidentical progesterone mixed with natural vitamin E, rather than a transdermal cream.

The goal is creating an internal environment where the tissues that continue serving you after menopause remain as healthy and resilient as possible.

FAQs About the Ovaries After Menopause

Q: Do the ovaries become inactive after menopause?
A: No. The research reviewed in this article found that although the ovaries stop releasing eggs and lose their reproductive function, they remain biologically active. Both studies were conducted in mice, so this is not yet established in women. Instead of simply becoming inactive tissue, they continue changing at the molecular level and take on many characteristics associated with the immune system, suggesting they still influence your health long after menopause.

Q: What changes inside the ovaries as they age?
A: Scientists found that the aging mouse ovary gradually loses its reproductive identity while genes involved in immune activity become more active. The ovaries also accumulate immune cells, maintain elevated fibrosis after reproductive aging, and continue changing at the molecular level even after follicle depletion is complete.

Q: Does ovarian aging begin only after menopause?
A: No. The second study found that important changes begin years before menopause. Communication between ovarian cells becomes less coordinated, follicle development becomes less organized, tissue remodeling changes, and the ovary gradually loses the precise timing that keeps the reproductive cycle functioning normally.

Q: Why does this research matter if I’m already postmenopausal?
A: These findings suggest your ovaries continue participating in whole-body biology after reproduction ends. Rather than viewing menopause as the end of ovarian function, the research indicates that the postmenopausal ovary remains an active organ whose biological changes could influence healthy aging throughout the rest of your body. Both research teams state that validation in human tissue is still needed.

Q: What lifestyle habits support healthy ovarian aging after menopause?
A: Focus on the factors that influence cellular health rather than simply replacing hormones. That includes eating a minimally processed diet while avoiding seed oils, reducing exposure to estrogen-like chemicals from plastics and personal care products, maintaining healthy metabolism with adequate carbohydrates and protein, looking beyond blood estrogen alone when evaluating hormone balance, and considering whether bioidentical progesterone is appropriate instead of adding more estrogen.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified health care provider before making changes to your health regimen.

Test Your Knowledge with Today’s Quiz!
Take today’s quiz to see how much you’ve learned from yesterday’s Mercola.com article.

What is the updated name for the condition formerly called polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)?

Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS)
The name PCOS was changed to PMOS in 2026 to better reflect the condition’s multiple hormonal and metabolic features, not just ovarian changes. Learn more.
Polycystic metabolic ovarian disorder (PMOD)
Primary endocrine ovarian syndrome (PEOS)
Polymetabolic ovarian dysfunction (PMOD)

Owning a pet is one of the best things you can do to enrich your life. Be it a cat, a fish, or a bird, the friendship and love offered by a pet will be precious as you journey through life.

I, myself, have two beloved dogs, Joy and Grace. Their presence adds immense amounts of pleasure and satisfaction to my daily solar noon walks on the beach. They’ve also become parents themselves, giving birth to a litter of puppies back in March 2025.

My dogs also serve as my humble reminder of our connection to nature, as well as the importance of constantly moving forward, both literally and metaphorically speaking.

That said, I believe our pets deserve the same amount of attention when it comes to their diet. That’s why I’ve prepared this affordable, yet healthy meal plan for would-be pet parents in the hope of giving their dogs a great head start on life.

If you already have a dog, I still recommend following this nutrition plan — it contains everything your dog needs to live long and healthy.

The Staple Ingredients for Your Pup’s Homemade Meal

Raising a healthy, happy puppy doesn’t have to mean breaking the bank. With a bit of strategic shopping and a focus on nutritious basics, you can build a wholesome diet for your pup that’s both cost-effective and packed with essential nutrients. The table below outlines a set of affordable staple foods that serve as the foundation for a balanced homemade puppy diet.

These ingredients are rich in protein, fats, and important micronutrients. More importantly, they’re also readily available at budget-friendly prices if you know where to look. This list includes how much you need to buy, rough price estimates, and tips for sourcing them as cheaply as possible, including clever ways to ask your local butcher or shop bulk deals.

Item
How much?
Where and how to get it dirt-cheap

White rice
20-pound “Great Value” sack
Walmart sells it at $1 to $1.10 per pound. One bag is around $22.

Ground beef 70% lean/30% fat
Buy weekly family packs
Look at the club store or supermarket overstock.

Fattier blends are usually the loss-leader, which usually costs $2.50 to $3.00 per pound when on sale.

Beef neck bones
One per week
Helps keep their teeth clean and jaw strong.

Beef liver
Two to three pounds per month
Ask the butcher for frozen bulk liver.

You can also check Hispanic/Asian markets where it’s typically sold at $1.50 to $2.00 per pound.

Beef fat/suet (for tallow)
Five pounds raw renders around four pounds of tallow, which can last for months
Ask the butcher, “Do you have beef trimmings/suet you’d toss?” Many counters hand it over free or around $1 per pound.

Wholesale renderers list inedible-grade tallow at around $0.54 per pound.

Eggs
Five-dozen tray
Warehouse club or local farm (around $2.50/dozen)

• Dogs need protein — Dogs are scavenging carnivores by nature, which means most of their diet comes from the prey they consume, particularly protein. In one study, researchers noted that getting enough protein is important to help increase lean body mass in dogs, and they need more of it as they age.1

Aside from helping build muscle, protein is required by animals for important biological processes, such as synthesizing hormones and enzymes.2

• Fats are also important — Dietary fats play a crucial role in pet nutrition in different ways:

◦ It’s a concentrated energy source

◦ It makes up part of the membrane of cells and helps transport nutrients and other substances across the cell membrane

◦ It produces metabolites that help control inflammation

◦ It contributes to the formation of certain hormones, such as estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone, as well as the formation of bile acids that aid in digestion and absorption of nutrients

◦ It acts as a mechanical barrier, insulating the body against heat loss, protecting internal organs, and preventing excess water loss

• What about carbs? — Dogs typically don’t have a nutritional requirement for carbohydrates. Compounding the issue is that most kibble sold is carb-heavy (between 46% and 74%), leading to issues such as canine diabetes. However, dogs still need glucose. As noted in a study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association:3

“Dogs do not have a dietary requirement for carbohydrate, except during pregnancy and lactation. However, dogs have a metabolic requirement for glucose. Similar to other species, certain tissues and cells (e.g., brain and RBCs) rely on glucose for energy needs.”

• Seed oil reset note — If your dog has been eating conventional kibble loaded with industrial seed oils, keep the menu locked on the white rice base for roughly six months; the simple starch gives tissues time to clear stored omega-6 fats. Brand new puppies raised on fresh, species-appropriate food from day one can transition sooner.

After the seed oil reset — or immediately for pups with no seed oil history — swap in up to half of the white rice portion with organic oat groats or bran. Oats bring ~10 g of mixed insoluble and soluble fiber per cooked cup, which will feed hindgut microbes and firm stools better than rice.

• This meal plan will minimize your vet bills — I believe that this recipe covers everything your puppy will need to grow into a healthy, strong dog. The other benefit here is that you’ll be minimizing your veterinary bills, which have been exponentially increasing.4

Don’t Throw Away Eggshells

Eggs are one of the most affordable superfoods for both you and your pet. They contain protein, healthy fats, and essential nutrients to support optimal health. Interestingly, eggshells, which most people never eat, also help meet important nutritional needs, namely calcium intake.

• Role of calcium in canine health — Like humans, dogs also need calcium for various reasons. In an article from Veterinary Clinics: Small Animal Practice, a calcium deficiency during growth increases the risk of limb deformities and fractures, making it essential to a growing pup.5

Calcium is important for other processes as well, such as muscle contraction, neurotransmitter communication, and blood clotting.6

• Eggshells membranes are nutritious — In the earliest days of dogs, they scavenged eggs from birds’ nests they were able to find, eating them all (even the shell). As it turns out, the membranes found in these shells are beneficial for joint health.7

• How to choose the best eggs — I recommend looking for organically raised, free-range, pastured eggs. This means that chickens roam and forage outside rather than being fed a grain diet high in linoleic acid (LA).

This ensures that the eggs you and your dog eat have lower polyunsaturated fat (PUF) levels compared to conventionally harvested eggs. To find pastured eggs, make the trip to your local farmers market or health food stores. For in-depth tips on finding the best eggs, read “How to Decode Egg Carton Codes.”

Now, how do you make eggshell powder? The process is quite simple — simply follow the recipe below:

Save shells, rinse, and dry.
Bake at 250 degrees Fahrenheit (121 degrees Celsius) for 10 minutes.
Grind shells to a powder. One teaspoon provides 2 grams of calcium.

Making Lightning-Easy Tallow in a Pressure Cooker

Tallow is fat derived from animals, mainly beef or lamb. If you haven’t cooked with it, I recommend giving it a try. It’s great for high-heat cooking because it has a high smoke point, as well as being rich in stable unsaturated fats. That said, here’s how to make your own tallow at home:

Load up to 5 pounds diced beef fat into the pressure cooker.
No water needed (the sealed steam prevents scorching).
Cook on high pressure for 60 minutes, then set to natural release for 15 minutes.
Pour the tallow through a strainer into jars, then allow it to harden. This helps the fat to last six months in the fridge, or one year in the freezer.

How to Cook the Puppy Power Meal

Once you have all the base ingredients, it’s time to create your very own Puppy Power Meal. Follow the recipe below.

Puppy Power Meal
Ingredients

4 pounds white rice
Up to 2 pounds organic oat groats/bran (optional; see Seed Oil Reset Note above)
3 pounds ground beef, 70% lean/30% fat
10 ounces homemade tallow
8 ounces beef liver
10 egg yolks
10 teaspoons eggshell powder
10 to 20 mg elemental zinc (chelated zinc or zinc gluconate; scale dose by body weight); supports skin, immune, and reproductive health
Pinch of iodized salt
1 fish-oil capsule per 20 pounds of puppy weight

Procedure

Cook the rice first, then allow it to cool. If using oat groats or bran, fold it into the cooked rice before cooling.
Add the ground beef raw.
Stir the tallow into the meat.
Dice/purée the liver and quick-sauté for two minutes.
Stir the raw egg yolks into the warm mixture.
Stir the eggshell powder, salt, fish oil, and zinc into the finished meal.

• Mix everything together — Once you’ve prepared all the ingredients, let everything cool, then create separate portions for your pup. Lastly, freeze the food to lock in the freshness.

• Additional nutrition boosters — Don’t forget to mix in the eggshells for calcium, the zinc, as well as salt and fish oil for additional trace minerals and omega-3 fats.

• Important feeding reminder — Serve 1 cup of Puppy Power Meal per 10 pounds of body weight. Add or reduce the portions as needed if ribs poke out or if your pup becomes pudgy. Done correctly, you should be able to cook an estimated 10-pound batch, which feeds a 10-pound pup for 10 to 12 days.

Those two micro-investments cost less than $1 a week yet address the two problems vets see most in adult dogs — dental disease and oxidative inflammation.

Checking the Cost of the Ingredients

Depending on where you get your ingredients, the total running cost of this Puppy Power Meal runs at around $1.60 to $1.90 per pound once cooked. This is more economical (not to mention healthier) compared to the mass-produced options below:

• Popular dry kibble — Around $1.84 to $2.10 per pound (Purina ONE Lamb and Rice Formula or Beneful 40-pound bags).

• Premium/vet formulas — The prices on these products climb up to $3 to $4 per pound. Meanwhile, boutique fresh-frozen subscriptions command higher premiums, which is around $4 to $10 per pound.

Quick Questions Answered for New Pup Owners

Being a new pet parent is a daunting task — you want to make sure you’re doing the best you can. To help you with your journey, here are some questions that you may have already asked while reading through this article:

• What are all the ingredients for? The ingredients cover a wide range of nutritional requirements. For example, liver plus yolks cover vitamins A, B, and K. Meanwhile rice supplies carbs/glucose, and the fish oil adds omega-3 fats.

• Do pups need veggies? Dogs don’t need veggies that much because their gut functions differently from humans. However, they still need some amounts to help promote digestive health and a balanced gut microbiome.

• What if the beef I got is leaner (80/20)? I recommend adding an extra spoon of rendered tallow per meal to bump up the fat portions again.

• Fresh versus frozen portions? Keep three days’ worth in the fridge for immediate feeding. Freeze the rest in silicone cubes or glass containers.

• Calcium for nursing moms? If you have a nursing dog, double the eggshell powder during lactation.

I recommend you share this article with other puppy parents. Gather the ingredients and invite them for one pressure cooker session. The food you make will help nourish their dogs for less than the price of “bargain” kibble.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Raising a Puppy on a Budget

Q: What are the essential ingredients for a healthy and budget-friendly homemade dog diet?

A: The core ingredients include white rice, ground beef with a 70/30 fat-to-lean ratio, beef liver, beef fat, or suet rendered into tallow, whole eggs, and eggshell powder. Additionally, a pinch of iodized salt and a fish oil capsule (per 20 pounds of body weight) are recommended for essential trace minerals and omega-3 fatty acids.

These ingredients collectively provide protein, fats, vitamins, calcium, and the small amount of carbohydrates needed for energy. When sourced strategically, such as through bulk purchases, local butchers, or warehouse clubs, they remain highly affordable.

Q: Why is protein and fat important for my dog’s health?

A: Protein is vital because dogs are scavenging carnivores by nature, and it helps build lean muscle, supports various bodily functions, and plays a role in synthesizing hormones and enzymes. As dogs age, their need for protein actually increases.

Fats, on the other hand, serve as a dense energy source and contribute to several biological functions. They help with nutrient transport across cell membranes, play a role in reducing inflammation, and are involved in the production of important hormones and bile acids. Fat also acts as a physical barrier to prevent heat loss, protect internal organs, and minimize water loss.

Q: Do dogs really need carbohydrates like rice in their diet?

A: While dogs do not have a strict dietary requirement for carbohydrates, they do require glucose for certain metabolic functions, particularly for brain and red blood cell energy needs. White rice is included in the diet to fulfill this need in a moderate and controlled way.

Unlike most commercial kibbles, which can be excessively high in carbohydrates, this homemade approach includes enough rice to meet the dog’s glucose requirement without risking weight gain or metabolic diseases like canine diabetes.

Q: How do I store Dr. Mercola’s homemade Puppy Power Meal?

A: For storage, keep about three days’ worth of food in the refrigerator and freeze the rest in containers to preserve freshness. When feeding, provide 1 cup of this meal per 10 pounds of your dog’s body weight and adjust as needed based on your pet’s physique and appetite.

Q: How does the Puppy Power Meal compare to store-bought kibble in cost and nutrition?

A: The recipe costs around $1.60 to $1.90 per pound once cooked. This makes it more affordable than many dry kibble options, which typically range from $1.84 to $2.10 per pound, and significantly cheaper than premium or veterinary formulas, which can cost between $3 and $4 per pound.

Boutique fresh-frozen subscriptions are even more expensive, often reaching $10 per pound. Beyond the cost advantage, homemade food provides superior nutrition by relying on whole, fresh ingredients rather than heavily processed fillers and additives.

Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) — formerly known as polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS — is one of the most common hormone and metabolic disorders in women of reproductive age, affecting about 10% of women during their childbearing years.1 You might notice irregular menstrual cycles, acne, unwanted facial or body hair, weight gain, or difficulty becoming pregnant. If left untreated, the risk for Type 2 diabetes, abnormal cholesterol levels, and cardiovascular disease also rises.

The condition was renamed in a policy paper published in The Lancet on May 12, 2026, backed by 56 medical organizations, patient advocacy groups, and clinical experts who collected 14,360 survey responses from patients and health professionals worldwide. Researchers found the old name “obscured diverse endocrine and metabolic features” and delayed diagnosis and care — 86% of patients and 71% of health professionals supported the change.2

The word “cyst” was dropped because many women with the condition don’t develop pathological ovarian cysts; ultrasounds typically show immature follicles instead. The new name instead flags that multiple hormone systems (polyendocrine) and metabolic processes like insulin resistance, not just the ovaries, are involved.

Unlike many conditions with a single cause, PMOS develops through several interconnected problems, and that complexity helps explain why standard treatments don’t work equally well for everyone. Drug-related side effects remain an ongoing concern, and lifestyle changes alone sometimes fall short.

That reality has increased interest in natural compounds that address several biological pathways at once instead of focusing on only one symptom. One compound drawing serious research attention is astaxanthin, a carotenoid pigment produced by microalgae and concentrated in the seafood that feeds on them. Research suggests it reaches beyond a single mechanism, influencing the metabolic, hormonal, and cellular environments that keep PMOS going.

Researchers Mapped the Many Ways Astaxanthin Supports Ovarian Health

A systematic review published in Frontiers in Reproductive Health evaluated research on astaxanthin as a treatment strategy for PMOS. Researchers searched for human and mammalian animal studies published between January 2020 and March 2026.

They examined changes in metabolism, hormone regulation, inflammation, oxidative damage, ovulation, and fertility outcomes to determine where astaxanthin consistently produced benefits. Instead of targeting one symptom, the evidence suggested astaxanthin influences several interconnected systems involved in PMOS.

• The body’s natural antioxidant defenses became stronger — The review found that astaxanthin activated the Nrf2 pathway, one of your body’s primary defense systems against oxidative damage. This increased production of protective antioxidant enzymes. Studies also reported higher total antioxidant capacity together with lower levels of damaging reactive oxygen species inside ovarian tissue.

Rather than simply neutralizing harmful molecules itself, astaxanthin helped cells strengthen their long-term defense system.

• Inflammation fell while communication between the brain and ovaries improved — Researchers reported that astaxanthin lowered inflammatory messengers by suppressing the NF-κB inflammatory pathway.

The review also described evidence that astaxanthin crosses the blood-brain barrier and was linked in animal research to healthier communication within the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis, the hormone signaling network connecting your brain and ovaries — a finding that hasn’t yet been confirmed in human studies. By calming inflammation throughout these systems, astaxanthin may help create conditions that better support normal ovarian function.

• Insulin sensitivity and hormone balance improved together — Several studies included in the review found that astaxanthin improved glucose handling by increasing GLUT4 activity, allowing cells to move more glucose out of the bloodstream and use it for energy. GLUT4 is a transporter that acts like a door on the surface of muscle and fat cells.

Animal research summarized in the review also found that astaxanthin activated AMPK, often called cells’ energy sensor because it regulates how efficiently energy is produced.

Clinical research summarized in the review found reductions in fasting insulin, HOMA-IR, body mass index, luteinizing hormone, testosterone, and anti-Müllerian hormone after three months of supplementation. Those improvements show that metabolic health and hormone balance often improve together instead of separately.

• Healthier ovarian cells supported better egg development — The review found that astaxanthin protected granulosa cells, the specialized cells that surround and nourish developing eggs. Researchers observed less oxidative damage, fewer cells undergoing programmed death, healthier mitochondria, and improved production of the steroid hormones these cells are designed to make.

Mitochondria are the energy-producing structures inside every cell, and granulosa cells depend heavily on them to fuel the months-long process of egg development. Studies also reported improvements in egg maturation, embryo development, and embryo quality together with higher antioxidant capacity inside follicular fluid, creating a healthier environment for reproduction. (These cellular and mitochondrial findings are drawn primarily from animal and cell-culture research.)

• The greatest promise came from combining astaxanthin with broader metabolic support — The review discussed animal research in which astaxanthin was combined with omega-3 fatty acids and metformin in a PMOS rat model, showing additional improvements — including better endometrial receptivity and lower oxidative damage — compared to conventional treatment alone.

At the same time, the authors emphasized that larger, longer-term clinical trials are still needed because many existing studies involved relatively small groups of participants. They also noted that improving astaxanthin’s stability and absorption remains an important goal for future research.

Note: Several mechanistic findings described in this article — including effects on the Nrf2 and NF-κB pathways, blood-brain barrier penetration, GLUT4/AMPK activation, and the combination-therapy findings — were observed in animal or cell-culture research and may not directly translate to human outcomes. The human clinical findings discussed come from a limited number of relatively small, short-term studies; results may not apply to all individuals.

Astaxanthin Improved Egg Quality Before Pregnancy Outcomes Changed

A study published in Scientific Reports investigated whether astaxanthin could reduce endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in women with PMOS undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF).3 Endoplasmic reticulum stress occurs when a cell’s protein-building system becomes overloaded and starts malfunctioning.

The researchers enrolled 58 women with PMOS, randomly assigning them to receive either 12 milligrams (mg) of astaxanthin or a placebo daily for 60 days. They collected granulosa cells along with follicular fluid to determine whether astaxanthin improved the environment surrounding each egg before fertilization.

• The greatest improvements occurred inside the egg’s support system — Women receiving astaxanthin showed significant improvements in several laboratory markers linked to healthier cell function. Those biological changes occurred before noticeable differences appeared in pregnancy outcomes, suggesting that stronger ovarian cells develop before larger reproductive improvements become visible.

• Egg quality improved even though pregnancy rates did not — After 60 days of supplementation, women taking astaxanthin produced significantly more mature oocytes, higher-quality oocytes, and higher-quality embryos than those receiving the placebo. Oocytes are immature egg cells that need to fully mature before fertilization.

However, the total number of eggs retrieved, fertilization rates, and pregnancy-related outcomes didn’t differ significantly between the two groups during the study period. These findings show that astaxanthin improved the quality of developing eggs rather than simply increasing the number of eggs produced.

• The protective environment surrounding each egg became healthier — Researchers also found significantly higher total antioxidant capacity inside follicular fluid, the nutrient-rich liquid surrounding each developing egg. Because eggs remain inside the ovary for months before ovulation, they depend on this fluid for nutrients and protection throughout their development.

Improving the antioxidant environment helps shield these delicate cells from ongoing damage, creating healthier conditions long before fertilization occurs. Rather than changing the egg directly, astaxanthin strengthened the environment supporting its development.

• Several cellular stress signals became quieter while protective responses remained active — The researchers measured multiple markers involved in the unfolded protein response, the emergency system cells activate when damaged proteins begin accumulating.

Women taking astaxanthin had much lower levels of several biological markers that indicate cells are under stress, showing their ovarian cells were healthier than those in the placebo group. Notably, results suggest astaxanthin didn’t simply shut every stress pathway down. Instead, it reduced harmful stress while preserving the protective responses healthy cells still need.

• Healthier protein production offered another explanation for stronger egg development — Every cell constantly builds proteins that perform thousands of essential jobs. The endoplasmic reticulum serves as the cell’s manufacturing and quality-control center, ensuring those proteins are assembled correctly before they are released. When that system becomes overloaded, damaged proteins accumulate and interfere with normal cell function.

Women taking astaxanthin had lower levels of several markers of this cellular stress, allowing granulosa cells to spend less energy responding to damage and more energy supporting healthy egg development. Although the study found improvements in egg maturity and embryo quality, pregnancy rates did not significantly increase during the 60-day trial.

A more recent review reached the same conclusion, noting that astaxanthin consistently improves biological markers and early reproductive outcomes, but larger, longer studies are still needed to determine whether those improvements ultimately lead to higher pregnancy and live birth rates.4

• One of astaxanthin’s biggest strengths is improving cell health — A review published in Discover Medicine evaluated eight studies (four clinical trials and four animal studies) investigating astaxanthin for PMOS.5 The researchers concluded that astaxanthin consistently improved ovarian structure, follicle development, oxidative stress, inflammation, and markers of dyslipidemia such as cholesterol balance, but found little evidence that it promotes meaningful weight loss.

They also cautioned that the current evidence remains limited because most of the human studies came from the same research group, some reused the same participants and larger independent clinical trials are still needed to establish the optimal dose and confirm the findings in broader populations.

Taken together, these studies suggest astaxanthin may support a healthier cellular environment inside the ovaries — including markers of oxidative stress, inflammation, mitochondrial function, and egg quality — but those improvements haven’t yet translated into consistently higher pregnancy or live birth rates. That gap doesn’t necessarily mean astaxanthin has no effect on those outcomes; it may simply mean current studies aren’t yet designed to detect one.

It likely means that ovarian cell health is one piece of a larger metabolic puzzle, and astaxanthin alone can’t solve every piece at once. The practical steps below target the same biological systems the research identified — insulin signaling, mitochondrial energy production, chronic inflammation, and hormone disruption — so that astaxanthin has healthier terrain to work with.

Reduce the Stress That Keeps PMOS Going

The studies in this article showed that healthier ovarian cells begin with healthier metabolism, lower inflammation, and stronger cellular defenses. Nutrients like astaxanthin may help support a healthier environment inside your cells, but they work best when you also address the metabolic and lifestyle factors that keep hormone imbalance going. Every positive change builds on the last, making it easier for your body to restore healthier communication between your gut, metabolism, and reproductive hormones.

1. Build your meals around antioxidant-rich whole foods — I recommend getting antioxidants from food first because nature packages them with hundreds of other protective compounds that work together.

Colorful seafood such as wild salmon and shellfish naturally contain astaxanthin, while brightly colored fruits and vegetables supply additional antioxidants that help reduce the ongoing cellular stress described in the research. Make it a daily challenge to include at least three different naturally colorful foods on your plate each day.

2. Choose the same form of astaxanthin used in human research — If you decide to supplement, I recommend selecting a product derived from the microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis, the natural source used in most human studies. Avoid products made from synthetic petrochemical processes or genetically engineered yeast, since those differ from the form found naturally in foods and used in clinical research.

Most studies reporting health benefits have used between 4 and 12 mg daily, with 8 to 12 mg appearing to provide the greatest benefit for most adults.

Because astaxanthin is fat-soluble, research suggests it may be better absorbed when taken with a meal that contains healthy fat. Better yet, include natural food sources regularly, such as wild salmon, sardines, and krill oil. Krill oil also supplies naturally occurring astaxanthin together with omega-3 fats, and the astaxanthin may help protect those fragile fats from oxidation before your body uses them.

3. Rebuild your metabolism instead of chasing individual symptoms — PMOS involves far more than the ovaries, with underlying hormonal and metabolic dysfunction contributing to many of the condition’s symptoms and health effects.

Progress is usually seen once you begin to improve insulin sensitivity, lower chronic inflammation, and restore healthier communication between your gut, metabolism, and reproductive hormones. As those systems begin working together again, symptoms often stop moving in multiple unhealthy directions at once.

Your diet becomes one of your strongest tools. Build your meals around whole, minimally processed foods that support steady energy production instead of ultraprocessed convenience foods. If your digestion feels compromised with frequent bloating or irregular bowel movements, start with easier-to-digest carbohydrates such as fruit and white rice while your digestive system recovers.

At the same time, eliminate foods that keep inflammation active, especially restaurant meals and products made with soybean, corn, canola, sunflower, and cottonseed oils. These seed oils contain large amounts of linoleic acid (LA), which accumulates in your tissues and interferes with your mitochondria. When your mitochondria struggle to produce energy efficiently, hormone signaling, blood sugar regulation, and inflammation all become harder to control.

I recommend replacing seed oils with traditional fats such as grass fed butter, ghee, or tallow. This directly supports what the research found inside ovarian cells — when mitochondria produce energy more efficiently, the same improvements in hormone signaling and inflammation that astaxanthin promoted at the cellular level begin happening throughout your entire body.

4. Use daily movement and stress recovery to reset hormone signaling — Your muscles become one of your most powerful metabolic tools once you start using them consistently. Every walk and every strength-training session helps your muscles absorb more glucose directly from your bloodstream, lowering the amount of insulin your pancreas needs to release. Lower insulin levels help reduce one of the major drivers behind excess androgen production and ovarian dysfunction.

The research showed that astaxanthin improved insulin sensitivity by increasing GLUT4 activity and activating AMPK inside cells. Regular movement triggers those same pathways throughout your muscle tissue, amplifying the metabolic shift astaxanthin supports at the ovarian level. If your energy feels low, keep your routine simple instead of pushing harder.

Aim for about 60 minutes of walking each day, add strength training two or three times each week and avoid sitting for long uninterrupted periods. Give your nervous system daily recovery time as well. Chronic stress keeps cortisol elevated, which disrupts communication between your brain and ovaries, worsens insulin resistance, increases cravings and interferes with restorative sleep.

Morning sunlight helps regulate your circadian rhythm and supports healthy mitochondrial energy production, while meditation, mindfulness, emotional processing, and limiting screen exposure before bed all help restore healthier hormone rhythms.

5. Protect yourself from everyday hormone disruptors — Food is only part of the equation. Many women overlook environmental chemicals that behave like hormones inside the body. These compounds, called xenoestrogens, mimic estrogen and interfere with your body’s normal signaling.

The studies reviewed in this article showed that astaxanthin helped restore healthier communication within the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis, the hormone network connecting your brain and ovaries. Xenoestrogens disrupt that same signaling network from the outside, which means reducing your chemical exposure protects the hormonal improvements you’re working to build from the inside. I recommend reducing those exposures wherever practical.

Store food in glass containers instead of plastic, avoid drinking from disposable plastic water bottles, avoid microwaving food in plastic, and choose natural-fiber clothing whenever possible. Personal care products and household cleaners without synthetic fragrances also reduce unnecessary chemical exposure. Every step that lowers inflammation and supports healthier hormone signaling gives your body a stronger foundation for long-term improvement.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.

FAQs About Astaxanthin for PMOS

Q: Can astaxanthin cure PMOS?
A: No. Current research doesn’t show that astaxanthin cures PMOS. Instead, it appears to support several biological processes involved in the condition, including reducing oxidative stress, calming inflammation, improving insulin sensitivity, and protecting the cells that help eggs mature. It works best as part of a broader strategy that includes improving metabolism, nutrition and lifestyle habits.

Q: How does astaxanthin improve fertility if pregnancy rates don’t always increase?
A: The research suggests that astaxanthin first improves the health of the ovarian environment. Women taking it produced more mature eggs and higher-quality embryos, but these improvements didn’t immediately translate into higher pregnancy rates during the short study period. Better egg quality may be an important first step, but larger and longer studies are needed to determine whether it ultimately improves live birth rates.

Q: What dose of astaxanthin has been studied for PMOS?
A: Human studies have generally used between 4 and 12 mg daily, with many reporting benefits at 8 to 12 mg. Because astaxanthin is fat-soluble, research suggests it may be absorbed more effectively when taken with a meal that contains healthy fat. Natural sources include wild Alaskan or sockeye salmon, sardines, shrimp, and krill.

Q: Will astaxanthin help me lose weight if I have PMOS?
A: Current evidence doesn’t suggest that astaxanthin is an effective weight-loss supplement. While studies have found improvements in insulin resistance, cholesterol balance, and other metabolic markers, they haven’t consistently shown meaningful reductions in body weight. Its primary benefits appear to come from supporting healthier cell function rather than directly affecting body fat.

Q: What lifestyle changes work best alongside astaxanthin?
A: The greatest benefits are likely to come from combining astaxanthin with habits that improve your overall metabolic health. Eating whole, minimally processed foods, avoiding seed oils, staying physically active, managing stress, supporting healthy sleep, and reducing exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals all help address the underlying processes that contribute to PMOS, creating a healthier environment for normal hormone signaling and ovarian function.

Test Your Knowledge with Today’s Quiz!
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What matters more than muscle size for long-term heart health?

Muscle flexibility
Muscle quality
According to a study published in Radiology, leaner chest and back muscles were linked to a lower risk of heart attack. Learn more.
Muscle symmetry
Muscle soreness

Gut health is a cornerstone for optimal wellness, and one aspect of it that deserves more attention is butyrate. In a presentation titled “Butyrate: The Key to Optimal Health and Well-Being,”1 Indiana-based dietitian Dawn Boxell takes a deep dive into the importance of this crucial molecule, which is a topic I’m also passionate about.

I encourage you to watch the entire video above. It covers crucial topics, such as butyrate’s system-wide effect on your health and natural ways to boost its production.

The Lowdown on Butyrate

Essentially, butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) produced when beneficial bacteria in your gut ferment dietary fiber. This is what your colon uses to nourish itself, leading to better overall systemic health.

• Dietary fiber is the key to producing butyrate — According to Boxell, if you don’t meet your regular fiber requirements, your body switches to burning stored fat and protein as fuel sources, which causes byproducts that cause disease (more on these diseases later).

• Natural sources of butyrate — While dietary fiber is the ideal way of increasing your butyrate production, Boxell notes that certain foods already contain butyrate, such as butter. She stresses that it needs to come from grass fed cows, as conventionally raised cows lack the appropriate environment to create butyrate in their milk:

“So, there are some natural sources of butyrate, and this comes in butter and ghee. Butyrate is abundant in just grass fed butter. It’s not just from all butter, it is only going to come from grass fed cows. So, you would have to choose a butter that says from grass fed cows, and then ghee is just clarified butter.”

• Ghee also contains butyrate — Ghee, especially from grass fed cows, is great for people with lactose intolerance, but you still need to check if you’re affected. Boxell explains:

“It’s kind of trial and error when it comes to utilizing ghee, if you do have some dairy intolerances, but they do remove a lot of the proteins that people will react to.

So, that makes it a little bit more tolerable for some lactose-intolerant people. But this clarified butter has good … butyrate concentration and again, it would need to be from grass fed cows ….”

How Butyrate Creates a Stronger Gut Barrier

The colon is one of the most important parts of your gut. It’s home to the highest number of beneficial microbes such as Akkermansia muciniphila, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, and Roseburia intestinalis. These strains, along with others, release SCFAs.

• SCFAs energize your gut lining — As these beneficial bacteria digest fiber, they release SCFAs that your colon uses as nourishment. Boxell explains:

“Your gut is an ecosystem of its own. And when these beneficial gut bacteria produce butyrate, this provides energy to your colonic cells. Those are the cells within your colon, and this energy supply helps nourish and support your gut cells and also really does help with your gut integrity or that lining those tight junctions.”

• The role of your gut barrier — Your gut barrier protects you from disease-causing microbes while still allowing nutrient absorption. This natural permeability works properly only when a thick mucus layer filters and breaks down food into particles your body can use without triggering the immune system.

• When the gut barrier weakens — Without enough butyrate to maintain that protective mucus layer, permeability increases. Over time, this creates bigger gaps that allow poorly digested particles through, sparking immune reactions and health problems.

The Different Benefits of Butyrate on Your Overall Health

Now that you know what happens when your body doesn’t have enough butyrate, what happens when you increase it? There’s now a growing body of research showing that it helps manage chronic health issues, such as:

• Insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes — According to Boxell, boosting butyrate production has immense benefits on your metabolic health. She highlights a study published in the Frontiers in Nutrition2 that provides evidence on how butyrate promotes better blood sugar control by improving insulin sensitivity and glucose homeostasis.

• Blood sugar control and weight management — Boxell noted that once your insulin resistance has improved and your risk for Type 2 diabetes goes down, you’ll be able to manage your weight better. To do this, you need to consume fiber-rich carbohydrates. “There are more things that you can do, but really, that is the most impactful,” she says.

• Cancer — As noted earlier, your colon cells rely on butyrate for energy. One positive outcome from this positive feedback loop is a lower risk of colorectal cancer. Boxell explains:

“Butyrate has been extensively studied for its role in maintaining colorectal health and preventing colorectal cancer, and it provides nourishment to the cells, lining the colon and promotes their proper functioning.

So again, it’s putting yourself in a good place by consuming those fiber-filled carbohydrates. Butyrate also inhibits the growth of cancer cells and induces apoptosis, which is cell death of the cancer cells, and lowers the risk of colorectal cancers.”

• Heart disease — Cholesterol is a fatty, waxy substance found in every cell in your body. As noted in a previous article, having high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), commonly known as the bad cholesterol, your risk for heart disease increases because of a specific protein called Apolipoprotein B (ApoB) within it. That said, butyrate helps lower LDL and promote high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the good cholesterol:

“Research suggests that butyrate decreases LDL cholesterol, which is your bad cholesterol, and increases your HDL cholesterol, which is considered your good cholesterol … So that’s a side benefit I think that all of us can appreciate. Butyrate modulates the lipid metabolism and reduces inflammation, which may contribute to a healthier cardiovascular system,” Boxell said.

Butyrate Impacts Your Overall Brain Health

Your gut and brain are inextricably linked via a complex system called the gut-brain axis. Butyrate is able to cross the blood-brain barrier and travel up your nervous system, influencing neurotransmitter communication in positive ways.

• Butyrate helps lower the risk of neurodegenerative diseases — Once butyrate production is optimized, your brain also benefits from it:

“[B]utyrate may protect against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. So, to me, that’s pretty powerful.

So, one, if you focus on just optimizing your gut health, part of that piece is going to be butyrate production or, overall … short-chain fatty acid production, because there’s a benefit from other short-chain fatty acids as well. They … play different roles, but butyrate has some significant roles.”

• An imbalanced gut microbiome affects your mental health — When butyrate levels are low, you’re opening the door for cognitive issues, as well as digestive problems:

“If you have gut dysbiosis, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), if you have H. pylori (that’s in the stomach), if you have any other type of, even if you want to go as deep as celiac [disease], Crohn’s colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, IBD [inflammatory bowel disease], all of these things, they all do impact your mood, your mental health, your depression, anxiety.

And when you go even further to dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, those brain diseases that they are just really saying that your brain is inflamed.”

• Restore your mental fortitude via your diet — Boxell explains that your diet plays a large role in your overall mood. Specifically, unhealthy food makes you more susceptible to mental issues, and that supporting your gut with healthy food will bring back positive mood:

“Really, if you attack your health in a way of ‘How can I stay more anti-inflammatory in my choices that I can benefit?’ that comes with fiber. So, you can think of your plants as kind of like a fire extinguisher and that really dampens that heat or that flame, if you want to think of it that way …

Again, there are ways that you can prevent the decline in your mental health and mood by making different choices with what you put on your fork.”

• Butyrate keeps your gut barrier durable — When your gut barrier leaks, antibodies mistake your tissues as threats. This “mistaken identity” fuels autoimmune disease flareups. Now, the barrier is responsible for keeping pathogens from entering your bloodstream. How do you keep it strong and healthy? Butyrate. As noted by Boxell:

“Research does indicate that butyrate regulates immune responses, suppresses inflammation and restores immune balance. And these properties hold promise for conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis where immune dysregulation is a key factor.”

8 Practical Strategies to Boost Your Butyrate Production

As hinted earlier, dietary fiber is one guaranteed way to boost butyrate production. However, it’s not as simple as filling your stomach with leafy vegetables. You need to approach your optimization efforts in a holistic manner because fiber will only get you so far. Having said that, Boxell offers a plethora of strategies to get your gut back in top shape:

• Eat 30 grams of dietary fiber every day — Again, dietary fiber is important for boosting butyrate production because it’s what your gut bacteria use as food. Boxell recommends an average of 30 grams per day for both men and women, but these figures will slightly vary:

“Your gut bacteria primarily produce butyrate by fermenting fibers. And so, [make] sure that you consume a fiber-rich diet. For females, it’s supposed to be 28 grams of fiber per day, and for males it should be 34 grams of fiber per day. I kind of just base it in the middle and I just say at least try for 30 grams of fiber every day. And then we just build on that if needed.”

While I agree that sufficient dietary fiber intake is important, don’t dive into it right away if your gut health is currently poor. If you have an imbalanced microbiome, bad bacteria will ferment the fiber you eat (instead of the good bacteria), causing them to produce endotoxins that affect your cellular function.

For your body to use dietary fiber properly, you need to heal your gut first. To do that, make sure you’re supplying it with healthy saturated fats (and not linoleic acid-rich vegetable oils) and 200 to 250 grams of carbohydrates a day from healthy, unprocessed sources.

The best examples include whole fruits, such as apples, berries and bananas, well-cooked white rice, and sweet potatoes. For an in-depth understanding of this approach, read “Butyrate — The Metabolic Powerhouse Fueling the Gut and Beyond.”

• Add resistant starch into your rotation — Boxell recommends eating resistant starch to aid your gut bacteria. This is something I also recommend, as it’s quite beneficial but only if your gut is in an optimal state. She provides food options below:

“[R]esistant starch acts as a fuel source for butyrate-producing bacteria because it resists digestion … in your small intestines. Some of the foods that are rich in resistant starch are green bananas, cooked and cooled potatoes and rice, beans and lentils.”

• Consume fermented foods — These are rich in probiotics that repopulate your gut. Boxell recommends you eat them daily. Try making your own yogurt at home, as well as fermenting your own vegetables. This gives you a steady supply of healthy food without needing to spend money at the grocery store regularly.

• Take a probiotic supplement — If you’re pressed for time, consider taking a probiotic supplement. However, don’t just take any product you see — check if your gut is compatible with the indicated strains. Boxell explains:

“It’s important to work with someone like myself who can help choose the right type of probiotic supplement for your personal needs, because I utilize different strains for different things.

So, I may not want someone to utilize a Lactobacillus species because I might have this inclination that I think they might have small intestinal bacteria overgrowth or SIBO, and that those Lactobacillus species really aggravate and make the symptoms worse for the patient.”

• Consider prebiotics — These are foods that contain unique carbohydrates that nourish your gut bacteria. However, supplements work as well. Boxell explains the available alternatives below:

“Again, picking the right prebiotic is good to work with someone on, because some products that are out there you may find work a little bit better for different conditions. But prebiotic in food, these are things like garlic, onion, leek, and asparagus. Even milk has prebiotic properties.

Basically, anything that is considered a fructooligosaccharide or a galactooligosaccharide. So those oligosaccharides are the ones that can help neurosis bacteria and support the growth.”

• Avoid ultraprocessed foods — These products are filled with gut-damaging linoleic acid, as well as other toxins that do not benefit your health:

“You want to avoid those refined carbohydrates, and you want foods that are going to be more in the whole grain and that are unrefined. [Eating] sugary drinks and foods, if you do it in excess, that can kind of create an increase in intestinal permeability and damage that intestinal barrier … Truly evaluate what you are consuming because it will impact the health of your gut.”

• Control your stress levels — When you’re under stress, your body produces cortisol, which affects your health in numerous ways over time. As such, you’ll want to keep it down by getting enough sleep and regular exercise:

“If you want to have a healthy gut microbiome, then [incorporate] stress management techniques such as regular exercise or just moving your body, mindfulness practices, mindful eating, a mindful walk or more of like a meditative walk. Any of those things can be considered mindful practices. And then getting enough sleep and then also having fun.”

• Minimize your antibiotic use — Antibiotic overuse is a persistent public health threat across the globe, causing thousands of deaths annually. Moreover, it has lasting effects on your gut health, even when taken short-term. If you do need to take antibiotics for a medical emergency, take probiotics to counteract its effects:

“Avoid overuse of antibiotics and antibiotics can cause gut bacteria including butyrate producers to become unbalanced. Here’s the thing: If you need antibiotics, you take the antibiotics. But when you take the antibiotics, I would encourage you to take a probiotic that is intended for the use with antibiotics.”

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About the Health Benefits of Butyrate

Q: What is butyrate and why is it important for gut health?

A: Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) made when gut bacteria ferment dietary fiber. It fuels the cells lining your colon, helping to maintain a strong gut barrier, which is vital for preventing harmful substances from entering the bloodstream. Without enough butyrate, the gut lining weakens, increasing inflammation and disease risk.

Q: How can I naturally increase my butyrate levels?

A: To boost butyrate, eat about 30 grams of fiber daily from fruits and vegetables. Include resistant starches like cooked potatoes and bananas, as well fermented foods for probiotics. Grass fed butter and ghee also contain butyrate. Probiotic and prebiotic supplements can also help based on your gut needs.

Q: What are the health benefits of butyrate beyond gut health?

A: Butyrate improves insulin sensitivity, supports blood sugar control, and helps with weight management. It protects colon cells, reducing the risk of colorectal cancer. It also lowers bad cholesterol, raises good cholesterol, and reduces inflammation, benefiting heart health. In the brain, it protects against Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s by reducing inflammation and supporting neurotransmitters.

Q: What factors can reduce butyrate production or damage gut health?

A: Low fiber intake, ultraprocessed foods, and excess sugar reduce butyrate production. Overusing antibiotics harms beneficial gut bacteria. Chronic stress, poor sleep, and lack of exercise also disrupt gut health and reduce butyrate levels.

Q: What is the gut-brain connection and how does butyrate play a role?

A: Butyrate supports brain health by crossing the blood-brain barrier, lowering inflammation, and helping regulate mood. Low butyrate levels are linked to depression, anxiety, and neurodegenerative diseases. Supporting gut health through diet and lifestyle can improve mental clarity and reduce the risk of cognitive decline.

When doctors order a heart scan, they’re looking for blocked arteries. But what if those same images contained a clue about your future heart health that almost everyone has been ignoring? A team of researchers decided to look beyond the arteries and examine the muscles, bones, fat, and organs captured in routine chest scans, and what they found in the muscles of the chest and back surprised them.

Most conversations about heart disease focus on clogged arteries, cholesterol, or blood pressure. But a team of researchers wondered whether routine heart scans were capturing something important that almost everyone was overlooking. They used artificial intelligence to examine not just the arteries but the muscles, bones, fat, and organs visible in standard chest imaging, and one finding stood out above the rest.

The muscles of the chest and back turned out to be among the strongest predictors of who would go on to suffer a heart attack or die over the next decade, pointing to a strong relationship between healthier muscle tissue and long-term survival that conventional risk factors alone didn’t fully explain.

The study also challenges a common assumption about strength. The size of the muscles didn’t predict better outcomes; their internal composition did. It was the internal composition of the muscle — how much fat had infiltrated the fibers — that separated people with better outcomes from those with worse ones. That means you do not have to look like a bodybuilder to improve an important marker of cardiovascular health.

Strong Chest and Back Muscles Were Linked to Fewer Heart Attacks

For the study, published in Radiology, researchers analyzed coronary CT angiography scans — a detailed chest scan typically used to check for blocked arteries — from 1,722 adults to determine whether hidden body characteristics were linked to future heart attacks and death.1

Instead of focusing only on blocked coronary arteries, the researchers examined muscles, fat, bones, and organs throughout the upper body. Among everything they measured, the quality of the chest and back muscles emerged as one of the strongest predictors of who went on to suffer a heart attack or die during the next 10 years.

• People with healthier chest and back muscles were far less likely to experience a heart attack — Participants with denser skeletal muscle had a substantially lower risk of future cardiovascular events.

For every 10-unit increase in muscle density on the scan, the risk of a heart attack fell by 31%, while the risk of death during the following decade fell by 39%. In contrast, people whose muscle quality ranked below the median faced an 85% higher risk of dying and a 58% higher risk of having a heart attack than those with healthier muscles.

• Muscle quality mattered much more than muscle size — The researchers found that simply having larger muscles didn’t predict better heart health. Instead, the key factor was how healthy the muscle tissue was on the inside. Muscles with less fat mixed between the muscle fibers appeared denser on CT scans and were associated with better long-term outcomes.

Think of it like comparing a lean cut of steak with one heavily marbled with fat; both may weigh the same, but their internal composition is very different.

• Strong chest and back muscles remained important even after accounting for conventional heart risk factors — Researchers adjusted the results for age, sex, and coronary artery calcium, which measures hardened plaque inside the arteries. Even after those adjustments, skeletal muscle quality continued to predict future heart attacks, while several other body measurements lost their significance.That means your chest and back muscles provided important information about your heart health that conventional risk markers alone didn’t fully capture.

• Everyday exercise that strengthens your upper body could improve the muscles linked to heart health — The researchers explained that the protective finding wasn’t limited to weightlifting. Activities that strengthen your chest, back, and core muscles, such as resistance training, cycling, Pilates, and brisk walking, all have the potential to improve muscle quality.2

The goal isn’t to build the biggest muscles possible but to develop healthier, leaner muscle tissue with less fat inside it, which was the characteristic linked to a lower risk of heart attack.

• The findings suggest that your muscles reflect more than your strength — The researchers suggested that heart scans could eventually identify people whose poorer muscle quality places them at greater cardiovascular risk before a heart attack occurs.

While additional research is needed to determine exactly how improvements in muscle quality affect heart attack risk, this study suggests one point: Healthier chest and back muscles are closely linked to better long-term heart health and deserve the same attention as many conventional cardiovascular risk factors.

Taken together, these findings suggest a meaningful connection between the condition of your chest and back muscles and your cardiovascular future, though more research is needed to confirm exactly how the two are linked. The encouraging part is that unlike your age or family history, muscle quality is something you can actively influence.

While this study tracked outcomes rather than testing a specific exercise program, the researchers noted that physical activities known to strengthen these muscle groups are also associated with the kind of leaner, denser tissue linked to better results.

Build Better Muscle to Support Your Heart Health

The research points to a practical goal you can start working toward today: Improve the quality of your chest and back muscles. According to the study, healthier muscle, not simply bigger muscle, was linked to a lower risk of heart attack and early death. Think of these muscles as part of your heart-health toolkit, alongside healthy eating, regular movement, and the other factors you’re likely already working on. The good news is you don’t need a complicated workout plan to get started.

1. Strengthen your back with rowing movements — Upper back muscles were among the muscles linked to better long-term heart health in the study. A simple bent-over row is an excellent place to begin.3 Stand with your feet about hip-width apart and soften your knees slightly. Push your hips backward while keeping your back flat, allowing a pair of light dumbbells to hang below your shoulders.

Pull the weights toward your lower ribs while gently squeezing your shoulder blades together, then lower them slowly. If you’re just getting started, perform one or two sets of eight to 12 repetitions with a weight you control comfortably.

2. Train your chest with presses and wall pushups — Chest muscles also appeared in the heart scans analyzed by the researchers, making them another worthwhile target. If you have dumbbells, lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor, lower the weights until your elbows lightly touch the floor, then press them upward until your arms almost meet above your chest.

If dumbbells aren’t available, start with wall pushups. Place your hands on a wall at chest height, keep your body in a straight line from head to heels, lower your chest toward the wall, and press back.4 As you become stronger, progress to pushups against a sturdy bench or countertop before working toward floor pushups.

3. Target your back and shoulders from different angles — Single-arm rowing exercises improve your back while also challenging your balance and core. Step one foot behind you into a comfortable lunge, rest your front hand on your front thigh for support, and hold a dumbbell in your other hand. Pull the weight toward your lower ribs, pause briefly, and lower it under control before repeating. Finish one side before switching to the other.

Another valuable exercise is the reverse fly. Hinge forward at your hips with a light dumbbell in each hand, maintain a slight bend in your elbows, and raise your arms out to your sides until they reach shoulder height before lowering them slowly.5 Both exercises strengthen the muscles that stabilize your shoulders and upper back.

4. Make consistency your goal instead of intensity — You don’t need marathon workouts to improve muscle quality. I recommend two strength sessions each week, along with regular walking, cycling, or other activities you enjoy. Track your progress by adding one repetition, using a slightly heavier weight, or improving your technique every couple of weeks. Those small victories keep you motivated and build stronger muscle over time.

5. Fuel your muscles so they recover and grow stronger — Exercise is only part of the equation. Your muscles also need adequate nutrition to repair themselves after each workout. Distribute high-quality protein across your meals throughout the day rather than concentrating it in one sitting. Aim for about 0.8 grams per pound (or 1.76 grams per kilogram) of lean body mass, with one-third coming from collagen-rich sources like slow-cooked meats or bone broth.

Pair your meals with healthy carbohydrate sources such as whole fruit, root vegetables, and white rice to replenish muscle energy and support recovery. Stronger muscles develop through the combination of regular training, adequate recovery, and consistent nutrition, not from exercise alone.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.

FAQs About Chest and Back Muscles and Heart Attack Risk

Q: Does having bigger muscles reduce your risk of a heart attack?
A: No. The study found that muscle quality mattered much more than muscle size. People whose chest and back muscles contained less fat and appeared denser on heart scans had a lower risk of heart attack and death over the next 10 years.

Q: Which muscles were linked to better heart health?
A: Researchers found that the muscles in the chest, back, and between the ribs were strongly associated with future heart health. Healthier muscle in these areas was linked to a lower likelihood of experiencing a heart attack.

Q: What types of exercise help strengthen these muscles?
A: Exercises that target your chest, back, and core are good places to start. Bent-over rows, chest presses, wall pushups, reverse flies, Pilates, cycling, resistance training, and brisk walking all help improve the muscles highlighted in the study.

Q: Why does muscle quality matter more than muscle size?
A: Healthy muscle contains less fat within the muscle fibers. Even if two people have muscles that appear to be the same size, the person with leaner, denser muscle had better long-term heart outcomes in this study.

Q: Besides exercise, what else helps build healthier muscles?
A: Recovery is just as important as training. Eating enough high-quality protein, including collagen-rich foods, along with healthy carbohydrate sources such as whole fruit, root vegetables, and white rice helps supply your muscles with the nutrients and energy they need to recover and become stronger over time.

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Obesity has become one of the leading drivers of disease worldwide, claiming more than 4 million lives each year.1 In the U.S. alone, rates have climbed steadily over the past century, transforming a condition once rare into one of the most pressing public health threats. Excess body fat is not just about appearance. It’s tied to a cascade of serious health problems including Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, liver failure, and shortened lifespan.

Most people are told the same thing: if you want to lose weight, you need to eat less and move more. That message has dominated public health campaigns for decades, yet the crisis continues to worsen. The reason is simple — the advice is incomplete. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) analyzed energy expenditure in 4,213 adults across 34 populations on six continents.2

The findings shattered conventional wisdom, showing that people in wealthier nations actually burn more calories each day than traditional farming or hunter-gatherer groups. Despite this, they carry significantly more body fat. The implication is undeniable: what you eat matters far more than how many calories you burn.

Industrialized diets dominated by ultraprocessed foods disrupt natural satiety signals, alter metabolism, and make it easier for your body to absorb and store calories as fat. These foods are engineered for convenience and taste, but the trade-off is metabolic dysfunction and widespread obesity. Understanding why food, not lack of exercise, fuels obesity is the first step toward reclaiming your health.

Diet Explains Obesity More Than Lack of Movement

The goal of the PNAS study was to answer a long-debated question: is obesity driven more by eating too much or by moving too little? This study is one of the largest to use direct measurements of daily energy expenditure among different populations, ranging from hunter-gatherer groups to highly industrialized societies.

• Obesity was higher in industrialized populations despite higher energy burn — The participants from wealthier nations were heavier, with greater body fat percentages and higher body mass indexes (BMIs) compared to those in less developed regions.

Surprisingly, these groups also burned more calories overall. This finding directly contradicts the popular belief that sedentary lifestyles are the main cause of weight gain. The data showed that the rise in obesity was far more connected to food intake than to physical inactivity.

• Ultraprocessed foods were strongly linked to body fat — For the 25 populations with available dietary data, the percentage of ultraprocessed foods in the diet had a strong positive relationship with body fat.

These foods, which are industrial formulations with multiple additives, were not just convenient — they altered how calories were absorbed and stored. By contrast, traditional diets in farming and foraging groups, which included more whole foods and fewer additives, were associated with leaner body composition.

• Eating more explained most of the weight gain — Researchers found that taking in more calories was about 10 times more important for obesity than how much energy people burned each day. Even when people in developed countries weren’t gaining or losing weight during the testing period, they were still eating more overall. This showed that the type and quality of food played a bigger role in fat gain than activity levels.

• Processed foods changed how the body handled calories — The study noted that modern food processing makes calories easier for your body to absorb. Instead of passing some of those calories through digestion, more of them get stored as energy. On top of that, ultraprocessed foods confuse your body’s hunger signals, making it easy to overeat even when you’ve had enough.

• Men and women gained fat differently — When researchers compared men and women, the patterns didn’t look the same. For women, burning more energy didn’t mean having less body fat. For men, those who burned more had only slightly less fat, and the effect was small. Overall, living in a wealthier, more industrialized country had a much bigger impact on fat gain than differences in daily calorie burn.

Food, Not Activity, Was the Strongest Predictor of Obesity

The take-home message of the study is clear: while daily physical activity is important for cardiovascular health, mental health, and longevity, it does not explain the obesity epidemic. Instead, the types of food available, especially ultraprocessed items loaded with additives and polyunsaturated fats like linoleic acid (LA), drive body fat accumulation.

• Body fat percentage told the real story — The study showed that measuring body fat gave a clearer picture of obesity than using BMI alone. BMI often went up in developed countries because people had more muscle or bone mass, not just fat. But body fat percentage rose regardless, making it a better measure of health risks linked to obesity.

• Lower infection rates changed energy use — Another finding was that people in wealthier countries burned slightly fewer calories at rest. The researchers suggested this could be because their immune systems weren’t working as hard. In traditional societies where parasites and infections were common, the immune system needed more energy, which raised calorie burn even without extra activity.

• Modern diets influenced metabolism — The researchers discussed how modern diets further lower basal metabolic rates. This could be another hidden way food drives obesity: by reducing resting energy needs while simultaneously increasing calorie absorption. Unlike in traditional diets where fiber and whole foods limited fat storage, modern diets shifted the balance toward energy accumulation in fat cells.

How to Take Back Control of Your Weight by Fixing the Root Cause

If you’re struggling with weight gain, cravings, or fatigue, it’s not because you’re lazy or lacking willpower. Your body is working against you because your cells are not making energy the way they should. The research is clear: the main driver of obesity is not lack of exercise but the foods you eat and how they change your metabolism.

When your mitochondria — the tiny powerhouses inside your cells — are poisoned by modern food and environmental toxins, your body shifts into fat storage mode instead of energy-burning mode. The good news is you can reverse this by removing the stressors that block energy production. Here are five steps you can take to restore your metabolism and finally feel in control of your weight again:

1. Eliminate vegetable oils to reduce LA buildup — Start by cutting out vegetable oils like canola, soybean, sunflower, safflower, corn, and grapeseed. These oils are hidden in almost all restaurant meals and packaged foods. If you eat out often, this one change could be life-altering. Replace them with grass fed butter, ghee, or tallow.

Avoid chicken and pork, since they are loaded with LA, and focus on grass fed beef or lamb. Every time you swap out a vegetable-oil-heavy meal for a healthy fat source, you give your mitochondria room to breathe again.

You live in a world engineered to make you overeat ultraprocessed foods. These products are designed to override your natural hunger cues and push you into fat storage. If you’re serious about fixing your metabolism, cook at home whenever possible, where you control the ingredients. Always read labels, even on “organic” or “healthy” foods, since many are loaded with hidden vegetable oils and additives.

2. Eat enough healthy carbs to heal your gut and fuel your cells — Carbs aren’t the enemy — your body runs best on glucose, and glucose comes from carbs. The real problem is eating the wrong kinds when your gut isn’t ready.

Your gut is like the command center for metabolism. If it’s inflamed, it floods your body with endotoxins — harmful bacterial byproducts that choke off mitochondrial function. If you notice bloating, loose stools, or fatigue after meals, your gut is likely overproducing endotoxins.

Avoid high-fiber foods until your gut heals, because fiber feeds harmful bacteria in a damaged microbiome. In that case, stick with gentle, easy-to-digest carbs like fruit and white rice until your digestion steadies. Once things are stable, slowly reintroduce root vegetables, then legumes, and eventually whole grains.

Aim for 250 grams of healthy carbs a day to fuel your metabolism and thyroid. Cut ultraprocessed carbs completely, since they inflame your gut and drain energy. Over time, the right carbs help beneficial gut bacteria thrive, producing butyrate — a compound that heals your gut lining, reduces inflammation, and keeps cravings in check.

3. Lower your exposure to estrogen and endocrine disruptors — Excess estrogen throws your metabolism into chaos, affecting both men and women. If you’re storing fat around your waist or struggling with low energy, estrogen dominance could be playing a role. Ditch plastic containers — a common source of endocrine-disrupting chemicals — stop heating food in plastic, and switch to glass or stainless steel.

Reduce exposure to receipts and toxic personal care products. If you’re on estrogen replacement therapy or birth control, understand that these are powerful endocrine disruptors that add to the problem. Supporting your progesterone levels with natural progesterone helps balance estrogen and boosts your thyroid and metabolism.

4. Reduce electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure to protect cellular energy — If you sleep next to your phone or keep your Wi-Fi on overnight, your mitochondria are under constant stress. EMFs raise calcium levels inside cells, slowing down energy production. To fix this, put your phone on airplane mode when you sleep — or better yet in a Faraday bag — turn off Wi-Fi at night, and keep devices out of your bedroom.

If you spend hours on Bluetooth earbuds, know that they constantly beam EMFs directly into your brain. Switching to wired headphones and using wired internet when possible takes an enormous burden off your energy system.

5. Take back control of your food environment — Each time you choose a whole, unprocessed food over a packaged product, you support your energy and your long-term health. Your path forward is not about starving yourself or spending endless hours at the gym.

It’s about clearing out the modern toxins that poison your energy system and replacing them with foods and habits that let your body work the way it was designed. Once you do that, your metabolism begins to run smoothly again, and weight loss becomes a natural byproduct of a body that is finally working for you, not against you.

FAQs About the Main Drivers of Obesity

Q: Is lack of exercise the main reason for obesity?
A: No. Research published in PNAS showed that people in developed nations actually burn more calories than traditional farming or hunter-gatherer groups, yet still have higher rates of obesity. The main driver is food intake and the way modern diets alter metabolism, not reduced activity.

Q: Why are ultraprocessed foods so harmful?
A: Ultraprocessed foods are designed for convenience and taste but are packed with additives, vegetable oils, and refined ingredients that disrupt hunger cues and make calories easier to absorb. This leads to overeating and pushes your body to store fat instead of burning it efficiently.

Q: What is more accurate, BMI or body fat percentage?
A: The study found that body fat percentage is a far better indicator of obesity than BMI. BMI often rises due to more muscle or bone mass, but body fat percentage reflects true fat gain and health risks.

Q: How do modern environments affect metabolism?
A: People in wealthier countries burned slightly fewer calories at rest because their immune systems weren’t working as hard. Lower infection rates, combined with ultraprocessed diets, shifted the body’s energy balance toward fat storage.

Q: What steps can I take to restore my metabolism?
A: You can fix the root causes by eliminating vegetable oils, eating enough healthy carbs to support gut health, reducing exposure to estrogen-like chemicals, limiting EMF exposure, and taking back control of your food environment. These steps allow your cells to produce energy efficiently again, making weight loss a natural outcome of restored health.

Did you know that while you’re sleeping at night, your jaw can exert up to 250 pounds of force?1 You may be unaware of it, but there’s a chance you’re unconsciously grinding your teeth as you slumber. Called bruxism, this is when a person involuntarily clenches their jaw and grinds and gnashes their teeth. According to a large population survey of more than 6,000 adults, about 8.6% report experiencing this problem regularly,2 and it could also occur during childhood.3

There are many factors that trigger bruxism, and if you think it doesn’t have any consequences, you’ll be surprised — headaches, jaw soreness, facial pain, and tooth damage could all arise if you constantly gnash your teeth. The good news is, there are ways to safely stop teeth grinding, without the need for expensive medications or invasive treatments.

Basic Facts About Bruxism

Bruxism happens in two forms — awake bruxism, which is often linked to stress or concentration, and sleep bruxism, which is often more difficult to manage because you’re unaware it’s happening.4 Sleep bruxism is the more serious of the two and is classified as a sleep-related movement disorder.

• Most people don’t even realize they have bruxism until the symptoms manifest — Mild teeth grinding or clenching is usually harmless. However, if it occurs frequently or becomes severe, it leads to jaw pain, tightness, fatigue, or recurring headaches. Over time, this can also contribute to cracked, loosened, or, in severe cases, lost teeth. Eventually, these symptoms become too severe to ignore.5

• There are many factors that can trigger this condition — In most cases, nighttime bruxism is related to sleep disorders like sleep apnea, sleep paralysis, and restless leg syndrome. However, there are other triggers, such as:6,7

◦Stress, anxiety, and nervousness
◦Substance use such as smoking, caffeine, and alcohol, which stimulate your jaw muscles
◦Medications like stimulants and antidepressants
◦Genetics

• Teeth grinding is common in children as well — In fact, research says that the condition is more common in childhood than adulthood, with around 5.9% to 49.6% of children having nighttime bruxism.8 It’s believed to be related to the process of tooth development.9

Ignoring bruxism doesn’t make it go away — it usually makes things worse. Over time, your teeth become so damaged that they’ll need to be professionally repaired. You could also develop temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders, which cause chronic jaw pain and even limit your ability to open your mouth.

And let’s not forget the ripple effect — poor sleep, chronic stress, and facial tension could all stem from long-term bruxism. That’s why it’s important to fix this condition right away.

Start with These Dietary Changes

You’ll be surprised to know that what you eat has a direct impact on whether you grind your teeth at night. In fact, some practitioners believe diet may play a supporting role alongside the neurological and stress-related factors behind bruxism — if your body lacks key minerals or is overstimulated by certain foods and drinks, you may be more prone to clenching and grinding.10,11,12

• Avoiding eating hard and sticky foods — Nuts, hard candies, popcorn, and even tough cuts of meat put additional strain on your jaw. When your muscles are already overworked from nighttime grinding, adding more mechanical stress during the day only compounds the issue. Sticky foods like peanut butter, nut butters, or certain candies like caramel create a similar problem — they prolong chewing and increase tension in the jaw.

• Stay hydrated — Dehydration causes dry mouth, which triggers teeth grinding, especially during sleep. Use thirst as a guide to how much water you need or check the color of your urine as a guide; if it is a deep, dark yellow then you likely are not drinking enough water, while a pale straw color or light yellow typically means you’re sufficiently hydrated.

• Cut the stimulants — Caffeinated drinks and alcohol interrupt your sleep cycles and overexcite your nervous system. Consuming them — even several hours before bed — may increase nighttime jaw muscle activity in some people. Instead of having a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, opt for herbal teas like chamomile or lavender, which are known to calm the nervous system and prepare your body for deep sleep.

• Another option is golden milk — While raw, grass fed milk is a great alternative for coffee or hot chocolate, consider taking it a notch higher by transforming it into golden milk. Essentially, this is plain milk enhanced with turmeric and other spices, like black pepper or cinnamon.

This combination works on two levels — the tryptophan in milk calms the nervous system, while turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties because of curcumin. Together, they ease your body into rest and may help support the kind of relaxation that can precede a calmer night’s sleep.

• Consume anti-inflammatory, antioxidant-rich foods — Jaw inflammation from chronic stress and grinding is less likely to improve if your diet is high in processed foods and seed oils. Instead, opt for foods like berries and other fruits, cooked green vegetables, and wild-caught fish like salmon to support systemic healing. These ingredients may help reduce oxidative stress and support your nervous system into a calmer, less reactive state.

Optimizing Your Magnesium Levels Helps Ease Tension

Magnesium is a nutrient that’s often overlooked, yet it is actually essential in more than 600 different chemical reactions in your body. It is well known for its role in muscle relaxation — when your magnesium levels drop too low, some of the initial signs include tight muscles, leg cramps, and restless sleep, all of which are associated with nighttime bruxism.

• Magnesium helps relax the jaw — It also improves sleep quality and lowers your body’s stress response. There are also studies that associate vitamin D and calcium status, and separately, magnesium status, with an increased risk of teeth grinding.13,14

• There are healthy magnesium-rich foods you can add to your diet — Some foods to consider include leafy green vegetables like kale, spinach, and broccoli, whole grains, and legumes.

• However, these foods alone are not enough to correct the deficiency — Modern farming practices strip minerals from the soil, meaning even magnesium-rich foods like leafy greens have significantly lower levels than they did 50 years ago. What’s more, magnesium-rich foods like nuts and seeds, which many consume to boost their intake of this nutrient, are loaded with linoleic acid (LA), which research increasingly links to metabolic and inflammatory harm.

• Consider supplementation — However, there are different types of magnesium supplements on the market, and they all work differently. My preferences are magnesium glycinate and magnesium malate because they’re well-absorbed and easy on your digestive system.

• If you’re dealing with stress, anxiety, or sleep problems, consider magnesium glycinate — This form is bound to glycine, an amino acid that promotes relaxation. Magnesium glycinate is ideal for anyone who tends to be sensitive to supplements or who needs help unwinding and recovering at night. For more information on the different types of magnesium supplements, read “6 Types of Magnesium and How They Improve Your Health.”

Natural Remedies That Can Help with Bruxism

There are simple yet powerful remedies that will help resolve bruxism, as they help target the underlying causes. Since many cases of teeth grinding appear to be related to nervous system dysregulation, stress, or tension stored in the jaw, addressing those may help ease your symptoms.15

• Stretch and reset your jaw muscles — Jaw stretching exercises are one of the simplest and most overlooked tools, as they help retrain your jaw to stay relaxed rather than clenched. Try this method:16

Place the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth, against the back of your upper front teeth.
Slowly open your mouth as wide as possible, keeping your tongue in place. Hold for five seconds.
Closing your jaw while keeping the tongue in place. Hold for five seconds.
Repeat the movement 10 to 15 times per session.

• Apply a hot compress — Heat helps relax your muscles, including your jaw. A hot towel compress, applied for 15 minutes on each side of your face, increases circulation and relaxes the facial muscles that tend to overfire during bruxism episodes. Do this before bedtime or during stressful moments throughout the day.

• Use essential oils — The healing, calming, and stress-relieving effects of herbal oils have long been known in the field of alternative health. Different essential oils offer varying benefits, however, for muscle tension and stress relief, consider using lavender oil. Chamomile, cedarwood, peppermint, and bergamot oils also offer excellent calming properties. Consider diffusing them in the air or applying them directly on your pressure points (make sure to dilute them in a safe carrier oil).

• Rewire your nervous system with acupuncture — For those who need a deeper intervention, this is a standout natural remedy. This ancient practice rooted in Chinese medicine works by stimulating points along the body that help rebalance your internal energy — particularly the parasympathetic nervous system. It targets areas that influence relaxation, helping ease the underlying tension.

Some people report that regular acupuncture sessions help lower stress, ease grinding episodes, and improve sleep quality, although rigorous research specific to bruxism is still limited.

Consider Yoga and Meditation to Help Solve Teeth Grinding

Bruxism is more than just a physical habit — it’s also a sign that you’re struggling with mental unrest. That’s why mind-body techniques may play a valuable role in longer-term relief.17,18

• Mindfulness meditation helps interrupt the stress pathway — It helps nurture your state of awareness and relaxation, so you’ll be able to identify what’s triggering your stress — and help you release it. Meditation also helps regulate your autonomic nervous system, which controls your involuntary habits, including grinding your teeth.

• Practicing meditation doesn’t need to be complicated — Simply sit in a quiet space and focus on your breath or a simple phrase. When your mind wanders, gently return your attention. Some research suggests that even short, consistent sessions may help slow your heart rate, reduce cortisol levels, and support better sleep quality.

• One highly effective variation is sound-based meditation — Playing ocean waves, rainfall, or white noise while meditating helps calm your internal rhythms. These soothing tones support your transition into deeper states of relaxation before bed, making it harder for your body to slip into subconscious grinding patterns once you fall asleep.

• Try deep breathing — Taking slow, deep breaths shifts you out of fight-or-flight mode and into rest-and-digest mode. That’s exactly what you need if your jaw feels tight or locked up from the day. Try this technique — inhale through your nose for four seconds, hold for four, then exhale through your mouth for six to eight seconds. Repeat this for five minutes before bed.

• Yoga for physical and emotional release — Certain poses like Child’s Pose, Corpse Pose, and Downward-Facing Dog gently stretch your neck, jaw, and facial muscles — all of which tighten under stress. This kind of targeted stretching may help release stored tension that can contribute to bruxism.

• Build a mindfulness routine that works — If you’re serious about stopping bruxism, mindfulness needs to be part of your daily rhythm. That might look like 10 minutes of breath-focused meditation in the morning, followed by a short yoga sequence in the evening. Or it might be as simple as a two-minute breathing reset before bed and a quick body scan when you wake up.

Maintain Optimal Oral Health

If you’ve dealt with teeth grinding for some time before you decide to take action, it’s possible that there are already minor damages to your teeth. To prevent these from worsening, I recommend practicing good oral hygiene at home.

• Practice healthy dental habits — Regular brushing (using a nonfluoridated toothpaste), flossing and tongue scraping, along with getting regular cleanings with a mercury-free biological dentist, will go a long way toward keeping your teeth and gums healthy.

• Consider oil pulling as well — This is the practice of swishing oil around your mouth to “pull” and eliminate bacteria from your teeth and gums. This ancient technique is a valuable strategy to strengthen your oral health and help reduce the risk of tooth decay, bad breath, and bleeding gums.

• Invest in a bite guard — This oral device provides a barrier between your upper teeth and lower teeth. It helps cushion your mouth from the damage caused by bruxism.

Finally, seek help from a specialist if your teeth grinding has become severe. Consult with a mercury-free, biological dentist or a TMJ specialist who will guide you through other treatment options, so you can have more peaceful sleep at night.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Teeth Grinding (Bruxism)

Q: What is bruxism and how do I know if I have it?
A: Bruxism is the involuntary grinding, clenching, or gnashing of teeth — often during sleep. You may not be aware it’s happening until symptoms like jaw soreness, headaches, facial pain, or cracked teeth appear. Sleep bruxism is more damaging because it happens unconsciously and can exert up to 250 pounds of force during the night.

Q: What are the main causes of nighttime teeth grinding?
A: Bruxism can be triggered by stress, anxiety, sleep disorders (like sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome), substance use (such as alcohol, caffeine, or nicotine), certain medications, and even genetics. Over time, these triggers create tension in the jaw and nervous system, leading to habitual clenching or grinding.

Q: How can diet help reduce or eliminate bruxism?
A: Nutritional factors play a role. Magnesium-rich foods like leafy greens support muscle relaxation. Avoiding hard, sticky, or inflammatory foods, staying hydrated, and reducing stimulants like caffeine and alcohol can all help calm the nervous system and ease nighttime grinding. Anti-inflammatory options like berries, green veggies, and wild-caught fish also support recovery.

Q: Are there natural remedies that work to treat bruxism?
A: Techniques like jaw stretches, hot towel compresses, acupuncture, and essential oils (especially lavender and chamomile) may help reduce muscle tension and stress. These methods may help support a calmer, more relaxed nervous system.

Q: Can meditation and yoga really help with teeth grinding?
A: Possibly. Mindfulness meditation, deep breathing, and yoga are associated with a calmer autonomic nervous system, reduced stress hormones, and physical release of tension in the jaw, neck, and face. Regular practice may help shift the body toward a more restorative, relaxed state, which some people find helpful in reducing episodes of teeth grinding.

Antibiotic abuse is a pervasive public health concern around the world. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2.8 million cases of antibiotic-resistant infections are diagnosed yearly, and 35,000 people die from it.1 But how do bacteria evade antibiotics, exactly? As it turns out, bacteria are hardy microorganisms that adapt to antibiotics in different ways:2

• Intrinsic resistance — A change in structure or components through evolution eventually creates resistance.

• Acquired resistance — Bacteria begin to resist antibiotics through genetic mutations by “borrowing” DNA from bacteria already resistant.

• Genetic change — Bacteria are able to change protein production, which creates components that antibiotics cannot recognize and eventually eliminate.

• DNA transfer — Crosstalk occurs between different bacteria, allowing them to share resistant DNA through gene transference.

That said, taking antibiotics is one of the worst things you can do for your health. According to research, even using it for a short while already creates lasting changes in your gut microbiome, making recovery hard.

Brief Antibiotic Use Triggers Lasting Resistance in Your Gut

In a study published in Nature, researchers set out to pinpoint if short-term antibiotic use changes gut bacteria, specifically by creating antibiotic-resistant strains, and whether these have lasting effects afterward.3

• Antibiotics create resistant strains right away — The study involved 60 healthy adult participants who were given 500 milligrams of ciprofloxacin, a widely prescribed antibiotic, twice a day for five days. After analyzing stool samples over a 20-week period, the researchers had an alarming revelation — within just a few days, previously susceptible bacteria evolved into resistant strains capable of surviving the antibiotic treatment.

About 10% of gut bacteria populations rapidly developed resistance through a mutation in a gene known as gyrA. This mutation specifically altered an enzyme (DNA gyrase), rendering ciprofloxacin ineffective against these bacteria.

• The impact of gyrA — According to the study, out of 2.3 million genetic variants identified by reconstructing 5,665 genomes, 513 of those underwent sweeping changes in the gyrA gene. Moreover, a Medical Xpress report covering the featured study noted:

“Once established, gyrA sweeps persisted beyond 10 weeks and were predicted to remain detectable for up to a year. Additional resistance-associated mutations occurred in other genes, though these events were less common and appeared in fewer species.”4

• Resistant bacteria have distinguished abnormalities — Usually, bacteria that develop resistance suffer some loss of fitness — the ability of bacteria to adapt and survive.5

However, the gyrA mutation observed in the featured study virtually had no negative impact on bacterial function. In other words, these resistant bacteria didn’t pay a biological “price” for resistance, making their long-term persistence extremely likely.

• Drug-resistant bacteria multiply with speed and ease — The team observed that during the experiment, multiple unrelated bacterial species independently developed the same gyrA mutation. This indicates that bacteria quickly adapt and protect themselves from antibiotics.

The long-lasting nature of this resistance was equally concerning. Even 10 weeks after antibiotic treatment ended, resistant bacteria remained dominant in the participants’ guts. Using predictive models, the researchers projected that these strains would persist for approximately a year without any further antibiotic exposure.

• Beneficial strains are forced out — The researchers noted an important factor influencing resistance development — the population of the bacteria in your gut. Strains that started off with larger populations experienced more dramatic reductions in numbers during antibiotic treatment, followed by a rapid rise in resistant strains afterward.

• Bacterial traits that create resistance remain in your gut — You’re not in the clear yet even after stopping antibiotics and the microbiome has stabilized. According to the researchers, the bacteria living in your gut have been permanently altered by antibiotics, causing new bacteria that enter your body to gain resistance as well:

“Commensal populations may therefore act as reservoirs for resistance traits that could transfer to pathogenic bacteria through horizontal gene transfer beyond the interaction with antibiotics.”6

The key takeaway here is that even short-term antibiotic use sets the stage for resistant bacteria to persist and cause long-term gut dysbiosis. Knowing this, it becomes clear that avoiding antibiotics unless necessary is essential to preserving your gut microbiome and lowering your risk for antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

Your Country’s Antibiotic Use Impacts Your Personal Gut Health

In a similar study published in Nature Communications, researchers revealed how antibiotic use, this time on a nationwide perspective, shapes the human gut microbiome. They analyzed samples from 3,096 participants currently not taking antibiotics across 10 countries, specifically looking at antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), which are markers indicating bacteria is able to withstand antibiotics.7

The researchers grouped these gut microbiomes into two distinct patterns, also known as “resistotypes,” based on how many and what type of ARGs they contained. The first resistotype included gut microbiomes with fewer resistance genes, while the second was marked by significantly higher levels of these resistance genes.

• Higher rates of antibiotic sales had countries carrying more resistant gut microbiomes — The researchers reported that people from countries where antibiotic sales were high, like Spain, Italy, and Greece, showed notably higher levels of ARGs in their gut microbiomes compared to people in countries with lower antibiotic sales, like the Netherlands and Denmark.

• Resistance genes are persistent — Even if antibiotic use dropped suddenly, the ARGs could linger for years or even decades in a population. That’s because these genes embed themselves deeply in the resident commensal bacteria — the beneficial microbes normally found in your gut.

The result? Countries that historically had high antibiotic use retain elevated resistance levels long after usage patterns shift, exposing generations of people to a higher risk for antibiotic-resistant infections.

• International travel influences antibiotic resistance — When travelers from low-resistance countries visited high-resistance countries, their gut microbiomes quickly adapted, acquiring new ARGs from local bacteria populations. Once back home, these bacteria continued to thrive and spread, creating localized pockets of resistance even in regions previously unaffected.

• Antibiotic use creates conditions ideal for spreading resistance — While antibiotics are intended to kill off harmful bacteria, they also create an environment favoring resistant strains. With fewer competitors, resistant bacteria begin to take over, embedding themselves firmly into your gut microbiome. “Antibiotic usage will impose a selective pressure, not just on the target pathogens, but the whole microbiome,” the researchers said.8

• Non-users have more diverse gut microbiomes — Unsurprisingly, the researchers noted that antibiotics significantly impact gut microbiome diversity:

“Focussing [sic] on the gut microbiome, we observed two distinct phenomena. The first, observed in healthy individuals not currently taking antibiotics, was a substantial difference in both median total ARG abundance (five-fold) and richness (four-fold) across countries.”9

Ultimately, this study shows how national policies affect public health. By advocating for responsible antibiotic guidelines while avoiding unnecessary prescriptions on your part, the risk for developing resistant strains will be lower, both for you and the public.

Antibiotics Intake During Childhood Alter Your Gut Health

A study published in Microbiome investigated how early-life antibiotic use affects gut bacteria in the long run. Specifically, researchers from China aimed to understand exactly how antibiotics given during childhood could permanently disrupt gut microbial networks, influencing overall health and metabolism into adulthood.10
The study used an animal model, providing a clear framework for observing long-term effects. Test subjects were given ceftriaxone — a commonly prescribed antibiotic for children — for eight consecutive days when they were four weeks old. Then, researchers closely monitored their gut bacteria and metabolism for 14 months, which is a timespan that equates to early adulthood in humans.

• Even a short course of antibiotics early in life significantly reduced the bacteria diversity — Moreover, that diversity never fully recovered. In simpler terms, their gut microbiome lost many important bacterial species permanently, becoming less robust and less effective at supporting healthy digestion and immune function.

• Substantial alterations in the microbial community’s structure occurred — The microbial network, which is the complex interactions among different bacterial species, was heavily simplified after antibiotic exposure.

Typically, a healthy gut has many diverse bacteria interacting like a dense, stable web. After antibiotics, however, researchers found fewer connections between bacterial species, meaning the microbial community became fragmented and fragile. This made the microbiome more vulnerable to future disruptions.

• Early administration significantly affects gut health during adulthood — Although antibiotics were only given briefly in early life, the damage persisted for at least 14 months, which is essentially a lifetime for the test subjects. In other words, the research implies that taking childhood antibiotics will affect gut health as time goes on.

• Keystone strains are affected — The study highlighted how early antibiotic treatment specifically removes “keystone” bacteria. This refers to “taxa with a high impact on the structure and functioning ecosystems.” In this case, keystones mean bacteria that help maintain balance and stability within the microbial community. When antibiotics wiped out these crucial players, the whole bacterial ecosystem fell apart and never fully repaired itself:

“[T]he numbers of keystones of the antibiotic group in the 1st–7th months were obviously less than those of control, indicating that antibiotic use obviously reduced the number of key species in gut MENs. The numbers of keystones in the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 12th months were similar between the two groups. But obvious fluctuations appeared in the 11th, 13th, and 14th months,” the researchers said.11

How to Protect Your Gut from Antibiotic Resistance

If you’ve taken antibiotics before — or if you live in an area where antibiotics use is widespread — protecting your gut bacteria is your top priority. As I’ve written before, your gut health shapes everything from your immune function, to your energy, and even mental health. The key approach here is preventing antibiotic resistance from taking a hold of your life. To do that, here are my recommendations:

1. Avoid unnecessary antibiotics — Antibiotics should be your last resort, not your first choice. If you’re experiencing minor infections, your body usually handles these naturally. Don’t fall for the advice that you always need them for colds or mild infections, because as the studies have noted, even short-term antibiotic use dramatically increases resistance and disrupts your gut ecosystem.

2. Eat probiotic-rich foods regularly — Incorporate homemade fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt, and kefir into your diet every day using traditional methods and clean, organic ingredients. The probiotics found in these foods help rebuild and maintain a diverse and healthy microbiome, which strengthens your overall health.

3. Minimize your intake of linoleic acid (LA) — Found primarily in vegetable oils, nuts, and ultraprocessed foods, LA damages your gut lining and promotes inflammation, weakening your gut health further. Swap out all products containing this toxic fat for healthier alternatives like tallow, grass fed butter, coconut oil, or ghee. This one shift alone will already dramatically improve your gut’s resilience.

4. Support keystone gut bacteria — Keystone species are the backbone of your gut microbiome. Protect and nourish these essential bacteria, namely Akkermansia, by regularly consuming fiber-rich foods, like apples with their skins, onions, and asparagus. These foods act as prebiotics that directly feed beneficial gut bacteria, ensuring your microbiome stays balanced and resilient. Don’t forget to consume fermented foods as well to cover all your bases.

5. Consider natural antibiotics — Instead of fighting harmful bacteria with antibiotic drugs, I recommend trying natural options. Many foods you eat contain antimicrobial properties that even eliminate drug-resistant bacteria. Some examples include medicinal honey, garlic, ginger, and thyme essential oil. For a detailed explanation on these alternatives, read “Natural Options to Try Before Taking Antibiotics.”

Frequently Asked Questions About Antibiotics Usage and Resistance

Q: How do bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?

A: Bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics through several sophisticated biological strategies — intrinsic resistance, acquired resistance, genetic changes and gene transference. Each of these methods differ but the end result is the same, which is a compromised gut microbiome.

Q: Can short-term antibiotic use cause long-lasting effects on the gut?

A: Yes. Research has shown that short-term antibiotic use will have significant and lasting effects on the gut microbiome. Taking ciprofloxacin for just five days was enough for bacteria in the gut to develop resistance. Within days, bacteria that were once vulnerable evolved into strains capable of surviving the antibiotic. These resistant strains remained prevalent in the gut for at least ten weeks after treatment and were projected to persist for up to a year.

Q: How does national antibiotic use affect individual gut health?

A: The level of antibiotic use in each country directly impacts the gut health of its population. People in countries with high antibiotic consumption, such as Spain, Italy, and Greece, tend to carry more antibiotic resistance genes in their gut microbiomes, even if they have not personally taken antibiotics recently.

This widespread presence of resistance genes stems from environmental exposure, which affects everyone living in these areas. Furthermore, individuals who travel from countries with low antibiotic usage to high-use countries often acquire resistant bacteria during their stay.

Q: What are the long-term consequences of antibiotic use in childhood?

A: Using antibiotics during childhood can cause permanent damage to gut health. Research found that a short course of antibiotics significantly reduced the diversity of gut bacteria, and that this diversity never fully recovered, even after a prolonged period. The structure of the microbial network became fragmented, making the gut microbiome more vulnerable to future disturbances.

Q: What can I do to protect my gut health from antibiotic resistance?

A: Protecting your gut from the harmful effects of antibiotic resistance begins with avoiding antibiotics unless they are necessary. Incorporating probiotic-rich foods like yogurt, kimchi, and kefir into your daily diet helps maintain a healthy balance of beneficial bacteria.

Also, reducing your intake of linoleic acid, which is found in vegetable oils and many ultraprocessed foods, as it damages the gut lining and promotes inflammation. Additionally, using natural antimicrobials like garlic, medicinal honey, and ginger can offer effective alternatives to synthetic antibiotics in many cases, reducing your reliance on pharmaceutical drugs and helping preserve your gut’s natural defenses.

Dementia is characterized by progressive loss of memory, thinking, judgment, and the ability to carry out everyday tasks. This means the brain gradually loses the ability to process information normally, making familiar conversations, appointments, and even simple daily routines increasingly difficult. In advanced stages, it can lead to dependence on others for daily care, which is exactly why the modifiable factors discussed in the featured research below are worth your attention.

Yet research points to a surprisingly simple factor tied to your future brain health — the amount of bright light you receive during the day.

A large prospective cohort study of 87,577 U.K. Biobank adults (with an average age of 62.36 years) followed participants for a 8.1 years after measuring their daily bright-light exposure with wrist-worn devices for seven days, and found a consistent pattern linking brighter days to lower dementia risk.1

The associations held across the study’s adjusted models, and the specific brightness targets the researchers identified give you something more concrete to aim for than vague advice to simply “get outside more.” However, keep in mind that the effect sizes were modest and the design was observational, so the study shows association rather than cause.

Meanwhile, decades of research show that sunlight does much more than support vitamin D production. Natural daylight also appears to influence your internal body clock, blood vessel function, circulation, mood, and sleep — systems that research links to brain health as you age. This matters because modern life keeps so many of us indoors beneath artificial lighting that rarely approaches the brightness found outdoors.

Researchers Identified Specific Daylight Targets Linked to Lower Dementia Risk

For the General Psychiatry study, investigators wanted to determine whether the amount of bright light received during an ordinary day influences long-term dementia risk. They equipped dementia-free adults with wrist-worn devices that continuously measured light exposure for seven days.

The participants, whose average age was just over 62, were then followed for a median of 8.1 years. During that time, 741 people developed dementia. Because the study used objective measurements rather than personal estimates, the findings provide a more reliable picture than self-report studies — though the authors note that wrist-worn sensors are only a coarse representation for the light actually reaching your eyes.

• Brighter daytime light was consistently linked to lower dementia risk — People whose average daytime light exposure exceeded 1,000 lux, roughly the brightness near a sunny window or outdoors on an overcast day (a practical comparison rather than a figure reported in the study), had a 16% lower risk of developing dementia than those who remained below that level, even after researchers adjusted for age, education, physical activity, smoking, diet, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, hearing loss, and other important risk factors.

Researchers also identified practical brightness targets. Spending more than 1.4 hours each day above 3,000 lux, more than 0.7 hours above 5,000 lux, or more than 0.45 hours above 7,000 lux was each associated with roughly 17% to 18% lower dementia risk than shorter exposure times. One caveat worth knowing: The wrist sensors used in this study had an approximately linear response only up to about 5,500 lux, so the 7,000-lux threshold should be read with more caution than the lower two.

• The greatest reductions appeared in people who already faced higher risk — The strongest protective associations were found among individuals exposed to higher nighttime light levels, people with an evening chronotype — meaning they naturally prefer later bedtimes and wake times — and those who carry the APOE4 gene variant, one of the strongest inherited risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease.

Depending on the group and the amount of daytime light received, brighter daytime light was associated with a 19% to 41% lower dementia risk. Researchers also found that the relationship between brighter daytime light and lower dementia risk remained consistent across different ages and between men and women, though they caution that the U.K.

Biobank cohort is healthier and less socioeconomically deprived than the general population, which limits how broadly the risk estimates translate to real life application.

• Daytime light outperformed several familiar dementia predictors — Using a single machine-learning model (XGBoost), researchers compared four daytime light measurements with 15 established dementia risk factors using the SHapley Additive exPlanations method.

Spending less than 0.70 hours each day above 5,000 lux ranked 10th of the 19 factors examined — a stronger predictor than alcohol consumption, obesity, air pollution, vitamin D supplement use, hearing loss, and traumatic brain injury. That doesn’t mean those factors are unimportant.

Instead, it highlights that daytime light has received far less attention than its predictive value deserves. Unlike many health markers that require laboratory testing, light exposure is also easy to measure with wearable devices, making it a practical way to identify people whose future dementia risk warrants closer attention.

• Healthier daily body rhythms explained part of the association — Researchers investigated whether brighter daytime light supported the body’s internal 24-hour timing system, known as circadian rest-activity rhythms. This system controls your sleep-wake cycle, hormone release, alertness, and many other biological functions.
Their analyses suggested these rhythms explained roughly 6% to 33% of the relationship between brighter daytime light and lower dementia risk, although these rest-activity mediation effects were no longer statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons, so the authors classify them as exploratory. These results suggest that a stronger daily rhythm may be one pathway through which brighter daylight relates to long-term brain health.

• The benefits extended beyond vitamin D alone — Brain imaging showed that brighter daytime light was associated with healthier characteristics in several brain regions. The clearest of these findings involved the fusiform cortex — an area that helps recognize faces and process complex visual information — which mediated about 9% of the association. It was also the only brain-structure mediator to survive correction for multiple comparisons.

Researchers also examined whether vitamin D explained the relationship between daylight and dementia but found no significant mediation effect. That finding suggests bright daytime light may influence brain health through pathways beyond raising vitamin D levels, though the study did not identify which ones.

If vitamin D alone doesn’t account for what the researchers observed, the question becomes which biological pathways do, and decades of research point to a set of responses that begin the moment sunlight reaches your body.

Sunlight Starts Powerful Biological Processes Beyond Vitamin D

Daylight is more than a vitamin D delivery system. It acts as an environmental signal that research links to circulation, hormone release, immune activity, sleep quality, and cellular energy production. An analysis by A Midwestern Doctor argues that modern indoor living has separated many people from the level of natural light the human body evolved to receive, making sunlight an often-overlooked part of overall health.2

• Your body creates compounds that supplements don’t provide — Ultraviolet light does much more than start vitamin D production. As sunlight reaches your skin, it also produces photoproducts such as lumisterol and tachysterol, which researchers continue to investigate for their biological roles.3

Research by Dr. Michael Holick suggests that sunlight stimulates the production of compounds that may support immune function, cardiovascular health, and mental well-being. He has also reported that vitamin D produced in your skin remains in your bloodstream two to three times longer than vitamin D taken by mouth because nearly all of it binds to transport proteins, whereas only about 60% of supplemental vitamin D does.4

• Sunlight includes its own built-in safety system — According to Holick, your body naturally limits vitamin D production during sun exposure. Once enough vitamin D precursor forms in your skin, continued ultraviolet exposure converts additional precursor into other photoproducts instead of endlessly producing vitamin D.

As he explains, “Mother Nature designed us” with a self-regulating system that prevents excessive vitamin D production through ordinary sun exposure. This differs from supplements, where excessively high doses can raise vitamin D levels beyond the body’s normal regulatory process.5

• Natural daylight is linked to better circulation throughout your body — One of the fastest responses described in the article involves nitric oxide, a signaling molecule released from your skin almost immediately after sun exposure. Nitric oxide relaxes blood vessels, allowing blood to move more freely throughout your body. Holick explains that sunlight “immediately release[s] nitric oxide” while also stimulating additional nitric oxide production, extending that effect.

Research also suggests sunlight supports cholesterol sulfate production and healthy fluid movement through tissues.6 For example, In a 20-year study of 29,518 Swedish women, those who avoided the sun had roughly 1.6 times the all-cause mortality of women with the highest sun exposure, and nonsmoking sun-avoiders had a life expectancy similar to smokers who got the most sun. The study was observational, so it cannot establish cause.7*

• Morning daylight helps set your body clock, mood, and sleep — Sunlight influences “clock genes” and “period genes,” which synchronize your body’s internal timing system.8 A well-aligned daily rhythm supports daytime alertness and deeper sleep at night.

Ultraviolet light also appears to stimulate beta-endorphins, your body’s natural mood-supporting chemicals, which researchers have proposed as one reason many people feel calmer and happier after spending time outdoors.9 Artificial indoor lighting doesn’t provide the full range of wavelengths found in natural sunlight, leaving your body without many of the biological signals that evolved alongside daylight exposure.

• Scientists continue to investigate how light communicates with your cells — Historical work by Alexander Gurwitsch proposed that living cells emit extremely faint ultraviolet light, sometimes called mitogenic radiation or biophotons, as part of cellular communication during growth and repair.10

Observations by A Midwestern Doctor also suggest blood and other tissues conduct light energy throughout the body, offering one explanation for why light exposure sometimes produces widespread effects instead of remaining limited to the skin. These concepts extend beyond established mainstream scientific consensus and remain areas of ongoing investigation, but together they reinforce the notion that sunlight influences far more than vitamin D production alone.

*These findings are from research conducted in clinical settings. Results may not apply to all individuals.

Increase Your Daily Bright Light Exposure for Optimal Health

One of the practical takeaways from the featured research is that your daily light environment may matter more than it seems. Bright daytime light isn’t a luxury. It’s a biological signal involved in many of the systems that research associates with long-term brain health. The good news is that this is one area where small, consistent habits add up. Instead of waiting until memory problems appear, you have the opportunity to build a daily routine that supports your brain now.

1. Make bright natural light part of your morning routine — If you spend most of your day indoors, start by stepping outside shortly after you wake up. Eat breakfast on a patio, walk the dog, take a short walk, or simply sit outside while you drink your coffee. If your schedule allows, build additional outdoor time into the middle of your day. The goal is to spend meaningful time in bright natural daylight instead of relying on dim indoor lighting from morning until evening.

2. Spend less of your day under dim indoor lighting — Many homes and offices provide only a fraction of the brightness found outdoors. If you work inside, move closer to windows whenever possible and take brief outdoor breaks throughout the day. Even a few scheduled daylight breaks are easier to maintain than trying to spend several uninterrupted hours outside. Each break adds to your daily bright-light total.

3. Protect your body’s natural daily rhythm — Your body clock appears to work best when it receives a strong contrast between bright days and dark nights. Flood your mornings with bright light, then dial down artificial light after sunset, especially overhead light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and screens, which are heavy in the blue wavelengths that delay sleep.

If you’re an evening person or work indoors most of the day, staying consistent with daytime light becomes even more important because the research found some of the strongest associations in higher-risk groups.

4. Support sunlight instead of trying to replace it — Whole-body sun exposure appears to offer benefits that extend beyond vitamin D alone. According to the research discussed earlier, sunlight also stimulates nitric oxide and other biologically active compounds that may influence circulation, mood, and your internal body clock.

Aim for regular, sensible sun exposure whenever conditions allow. If you still consume significant amounts of seed oils, such as corn, soybean, safflower, or canola oils, and other sources of linoleic acid (LA), avoid intense midday sun exposure (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) until you have reduced those foods for four to six months, then begin building up your exposure around solar noon.

This is because LA is a polyunsaturated fat that oxidizes easily, accumulates in your skin, and may increase your susceptibility to sunburn and skin damage. During that transition, build your sun exposure gradually. If your vitamin D level is low, I recommend working toward a blood level between 60 and 80 nanograms per milliliter (150 to 200 nanomoles per liter), with sunlight as your primary source whenever practical.

Talk to your health care provider about whether this testing is appropriate for you.

5. Support cellular energy every day — Bright light is most useful as part of a lifestyle that supports mitochondrial function. Eat enough carbohydrates to maintain healthy energy production instead of relying on very-low-carbohydrate eating patterns. For most adults, that means roughly 250 grams of targeted carbohydrates daily, adjusted upward if you’re very active.

Choose whole fruit and white rice first, followed by root vegetables and other minimally processed carbohydrate sources that fit your digestive tolerance.

Keep protein at about 0.6 to 0.8 grams per pound (1.32 to 1.76 grams per kilogram) of your ideal body weight, with roughly one-third coming from collagen-rich foods. Eliminate seed oils whenever possible and prepare food with tallow, ghee, or grass fed butter instead.

Pair those nutrition habits with regular movement to support the circadian and cellular-energy systems discussed above. To be clear, the dementia study measured light exposure only — it did not test diet or exercise as interventions.

FAQs About Daytime Light Exposure and Dementia

Q: What did the study find about daytime light and dementia risk?
A: The study found that people who received more bright light during the day had a lower risk of developing dementia over the next eight years. Those whose average daytime light exposure exceeded 1,000 lux had a 16% lower dementia risk than those exposed to dimmer light.

Q: Why does bright daylight benefit my brain beyond vitamin D?
A: Bright daylight does much more than help your body produce vitamin D. The featured research indicates that sunlight also stimulates nitric oxide and other biologically active compounds involved in circulation, mood, sleep, immune function, and your body’s internal clock. In the dementia study, vitamin D did not explain the association between daytime light and dementia risk, which suggests other pathways are involved. However, the study did not identify which ones.

Q: How much bright light should I aim for each day?
A: The research suggests aiming for regular exposure to bright natural daylight throughout the day rather than remaining indoors under dim artificial lighting. Practical targets included more than 1.4 hours above 3,000 lux, more than 0.7 hours above 5,000 lux, or more than 0.45 hours above 7,000 lux. Those light levels are often reached outdoors, though the researchers caution that the specific thresholds may not transfer directly to other populations.

Q: Who appeared to benefit the most from brighter daytime light?
A: The strongest associations were seen in people already considered at higher risk for dementia, including those with an evening chronotype, individuals exposed to higher nighttime light levels, and people who carry the APOE4 gene variant. Depending on the group, brighter daytime light was associated with a 19% to 41% lower dementia risk.

Q: What are the simplest ways to increase my daytime light exposure?
A: Build bright daylight into your daily routine. Step outside shortly after waking, eat breakfast outdoors when possible, take walks during the day, work near windows, and schedule short outdoor breaks instead of spending the entire day under indoor lighting. Pair regular sunlight with healthy eating, movement, and good sleep habits to support long-term brain health.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.

Test Your Knowledge with Today’s Quiz!
Take today’s quiz to see how much you’ve learned from yesterday’s Mercola.com article.

Which type of food is typically made with refined ingredients and industrial additives?

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Ultraprocessed foods are industrially manufactured and often contain refined starches, added sugars, oils, flavors, colors, emulsifiers, or preservatives. Learn more.
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Intermittent fasting (IF) has become one of the most popular health trends in recent years, with benefits stating it helps boost immunity, reduces the risk of autoimmune diseases and diabetes, and even promotes longevity.1 However, this eating pattern is not a one-size-fits-all strategy, and a 2025 study demonstrates why.

While prolonged fasting has been praised for its potential metabolic benefits in adults, doing it during developmental years carries serious risks. This raises important questions about the effects of fasting trends, particularly among teenagers and young adults, and whether they could be setting the stage for future metabolic dysfunction rather than preventing it.

How Does Long-Term Intermittent Fasting Affect Insulin Production in Adolescents?

An animal study published in Cell Reports,2 conducted by researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), LMU Hospital Munich and Helmholtz Munich, investigated how intermittent fasting impacts metabolism at different stages of life.

• Researchers sought to identify how fasting cycles affect metabolic responses — The study examined how short-term and long-term fasting cycles affect mice subjects, taking note of the differences in their metabolic responses.3

• The mice subjects were divided into three age groups — They were grouped into adolescents (2 months old), middle-aged (eight months old) and older (18 months old). The researchers subjected these groups to intermittent fasting cycles, wherein they were not given food for one day, and then fed normally for two days.

• Researchers analyzed pancreatic beta cell function — Beta cells are responsible for regulating blood sugar by releasing insulin. By understanding how intermittent fasting affects beta cell function, they were able to determine who actually benefits from this eating strategy and who could be harmed by it. As reported by News-Medical.net:

“After ten weeks, insulin sensitivity improved in both the adult and older mice, meaning that their metabolism responded better to insulin produced by the pancreas. This is key to regulating blood sugar levels and preventing conditions like Type 2 diabetes.”4

• Longer fasts revealed notable differences — Initially all groups showed improvements in terms of how they handled sugar; however, significant differences between the age groups emerged the longer they fasted.5 While positive results were seen on the older mice, the adolescent mice group had a completely different outcome.

Apparently, the younger mice developed beta cell impairment after doing intermittent fasting — this means that adopting this eating strategy disrupted how their beta cells functioned and their ability to produce insulin was significantly weakened.

Beta Cell Impairment in Adolescent Mice Mimic Type 1 Diabetes

For the researchers, the results were quite unexpected. As explained by co-lead author Leonardo Matta, “Intermittent fasting is usually thought to benefit beta cells, so we were surprised to find that young mice produced less insulin after the extended fasting.”6

• Seeking to understand what triggered beta cell impairment — The researchers used single-cell sequencing to examine the blueprint of the pancreas, where they discovered that the impairment occurred because the beta cells failed to mature properly.

• Fasting lead to effects similar to Type 1 diabetes — One of the most striking findings was that gene expression patterns in fasting-exposed adolescent mice resembled those found in individuals with Type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune disorder wherein the body attacks its own beta cells, leading to a severe deficiency in insulin.

• Beta cells did not mature fully because of fasting — The researchers discovered that fasting-induced impairment in adolescent mice mirrored this process, with beta cells failing to reach full maturity and producing less insulin. According to lead author Peter Weber from Helmholtz Munich, “At some point, the cells in the adolescent mice stopped developing and produced less insulin.”

• No effects on beta cell maturity were seen in older mice — Since the older mice’s beta cells were already mature before they were put on intermittent fasting, they were unaffected and were able to reap the benefits from the experiment. This suggests that extended fasting at a young age could trigger metabolic conditions resembling early-stage diabetes, even in individuals without genetic predisposition. The researchers noted:

“The finding that longer IF periods may also have deleterious consequences is a novel finding with relevant implications, especially for using IF in adolescents and people at high T1D risk.

In light of our study, this supports the notion that during the period of development and maturation, IF might impair proper nutrient flux and hormonal balance required for proper cell differentiation and organ development.”7

Long-Term Fasting Impairs Protein Production and Cell Proliferation in Adolescents

Beta cells require a steady supply of nutrients and hormones to mature properly, but since insulin and glucose levels drop during fasting, cellular stress occurs instead. In fully developed beta cells, this stress activates protective mechanisms that enhance their function. However, in immature beta cells, it leads to dysfunction and reduced insulin output.

• Fasting disrupted key metabolic pathways — The study found that adolescent mice subjected to fasting experienced a reduction in key metabolic pathways related to beta cell growth, including decreased activation of the mTORC1 pathway, which is crucial for cell proliferation and function.

• It also affected production of essential proteins — Another notable finding was that adolescent mice had lower levels of key proteins, including MAFA, GLUT2, and NKX6.1. These proteins are essential for glucose transport and insulin synthesis and secretion, and having reduced levels indicates a fundamental disruption in pancreatic function.

• There’s also a notable difference in beta cellular proliferation between age groups — In adolescent mice, fasting led to a decrease in the replication and survival of beta cells. The study used a marker called BrdU to track cell proliferation, revealing that beta cells in fasting-exposed young mice were dividing at a much lower rate. In contrast, older mice showed no such decline, and their beta-cell function actually improved.8

Stephan Herzig, a professor at TUM and director of the Institute for Diabetes and Cancer at Helmholtz Munich, comments:

“Our study confirms that intermittent fasting is beneficial for adults, but it might come with risks for children and teenagers. The next step is digging deeper into the molecular mechanisms underlying these observations. If we better understand how to promote healthy beta cell development, it will open new avenues for treating diabetes by restoring insulin production.”9

Intermittent Fasting Is Not a ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Strategy

It’s no secret that obesity is a growing problem among the youth today. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 14.7 million U.S. children ages 2 to 19 are now considered obese — that’s 19.7% or nearly one-fifth of all children in the country.10

Hence, many concerned parents, as well as older teens, are often looking for strategies to manage weight and most of them resort to fasting. For more facts about childhood obesity, read “Toddler Obesity Is on the Rise.”

But as the featured research shows, even a healthy strategy like intermittent fasting could backfire, especially for younger audiences. Instead of long-term fasting, I believe that a more effective way to regain your health and address metabolic issues like obesity and diabetes is to evaluate your lifestyle and diet. For children whose bodies are still developing, the key to long-term metabolic health isn’t restriction — it’s supporting their body’s natural growth and energy needs.

For young adults who are looking to change their eating habits, here are tips to ensure your metabolism stays strong and resilient:

• Eat enough carbohydrates to fuel cellular energy — Your body needs carbohydrates to produce insulin and maintain stable blood sugar. If you restrict carbs too much, you put unnecessary stress on beta cells, which leads to insulin dysfunction. A child’s optimal carbohydrate intake depends on age, activity level, and overall energy needs. Based on general dietary guidelines:

◦ Toddlers (1 to 3 years) — ~30 to 150 grams/day

◦ Young children (4 to 8 years) — ~150 to 180 grams/day

◦ Preteens (9 to 13 years) — ~180 to 220 grams/day

◦ Teenagers (14 to 18 years) — ~220 to 250+ grams/day (approaching adult needs, especially for active teens)

These amounts ensure proper cellular function, brain development, and sustained energy levels. Healthy sources include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes.

• Remove processed seed oils that disrupt insulin function — One of the biggest hidden threats to metabolic health is excess linoleic acid from seed oils. These fats accumulate in your tissues and interfere with mitochondrial energy production, increasing stress on beta cells.

If you’re eating out frequently or consuming packaged foods, you’re likely getting too much. Replace seed oils with saturated fats from tallow, grass fed butter, or ghee. Avoid fried foods at restaurants, as even “healthy” options are often cooked in industrial oils.

• Prioritize balanced meal timing over fasting — Instead of skipping meals, aim for consistent eating patterns that support metabolic stability. Your body thrives on regular nutrient intake, especially during adolescence when growth and hormonal balance are at their peak.

Eating every three to five hours ensures beta cells receive a steady glucose supply, reducing stress on insulin production. If you’ve been practicing fasting and feel sluggish, cold, or have irregular energy levels, it’s a sign to adjust your approach and incorporate more frequent meals. To learn more about meal timing, read “How Meal Timing Impacts Your Blood Sugar Levels.”

• Get sunlight exposure for metabolic support — Your metabolism isn’t just influenced by food — sunlight also plays a crucial role in energy production. Morning sunlight exposure helps regulate circadian rhythms, which are tied to insulin sensitivity. Sunlight also promotes mitochondrial energy production, supporting overall cellular function.

If you’ve been avoiding the sun or spending most of your time indoors, gradually increase your daily sun exposure, but avoid high-intensity sunlight if you’re still clearing vegetable oils from your system. When exposed to peak sunlight, the linoleic acid (LA) in these oils oxidize in your body, triggering inflammation and DNA damage.

To mitigate this problem, you need to work to purge LA from your body. In the meantime, avoid midday sun exposure until you’ve been off seed oils for at least six months. Go outside in the early morning or late afternoon instead. For more tips on optimizing sun exposure, check out “2024 International Virtual Vitamin D Forum Unlocks the Power of Vitamin D.”

• Support gut health to improve blood sugar regulation — Your gut microbiome plays a major role in how your body processes carbohydrates and manages insulin function. If you have digestive issues, bloating, or irregular energy levels, your microbiome might not be supporting you properly.

Start by introducing Akkermansia muciniphila, a beneficial gut bacterium that strengthens the gut lining and improves insulin sensitivity. Avoid excessive fiber if your gut is compromised — stick to easily digestible carbs first, then gradually reintroduce more fiber as your digestion improves. Butyrate supplementation is another option.

The key to a strong metabolism isn’t restriction — it’s providing the right fuel, balancing meal timing, and removing metabolic stressors. Addressing these root causes now will set the foundation for long-term metabolic resilience.

FAQs — Commonly Asked Questions About Intermittent Fasting for Adolescents

Q: Why is intermittent fasting during adolescence different from fasting as an adult?

A: Intermittent fasting impacts metabolism differently depending on age. The research found that while adults and older individuals experienced improved insulin sensitivity and better glucose regulation, adolescent mice developed impaired beta-cell function.

Since beta cells are responsible for producing insulin, this means fasting disrupted their ability to regulate blood sugar properly, which leads to long-term metabolic issues.

Q: How does fasting affect insulin production in younger individuals?

A: The study revealed that fasting-exposed adolescent mice had fewer mature beta cells and lower levels of insulin production. Their pancreatic cells failed to develop properly, mimicking patterns seen in Type 1 diabetes.

Insulin production is crucial for maintaining stable blood sugar levels, and when beta cells don’t mature correctly, the risk of insulin resistance, blood sugar imbalances, and metabolic dysfunction increases. In contrast, older individuals whose beta cells were already fully developed were able to benefit from fasting without these negative effects.

Q: What are the risks of long-term intermittent fasting for teenagers?

A: Long-term fasting in adolescents leads to impaired insulin secretion, increased cellular stress, and disrupted metabolic regulation. The research found that beta-cell function declined in young mice that underwent prolonged fasting, leading to lower insulin production and reduced ability to handle glucose.

This could set the stage for insulin resistance, metabolic dysfunction, and a higher risk of developing Type 1 or 2 diabetes later in life. Since the adolescent body is still developing, fasting could interfere with crucial hormonal and cellular processes needed for lifelong metabolic stability.

Q: What can teenagers and young adults do instead of fasting for metabolic health?

A: Instead of restricting food intake through fasting, young individuals need to focus on balanced eating patterns that support cellular energy and beta-cell function. Eating enough carbohydrates — around 250 to 300 grams per day — ensures stable insulin production and metabolic regulation. Prioritize whole-food carbohydrates like fruit, root vegetables, and fiber-rich foods to support long-term glucose control.

Removing processed seed oils, optimizing gut health, and getting regular sunlight exposure are also key strategies to maintain healthy metabolic function without the effects associated with fasting.

Q: Can intermittent fasting permanently damage metabolism in younger individuals?

A: The long-term effects of adolescent fasting on metabolism are still being explored, but the study suggests that prolonged fasting at a young age could cause lasting disruptions in insulin function. Since fasting-exposed adolescent mice showed genetic patterns similar to those seen in Type 1 diabetes, there is concern that fasting causes metabolic stress that leads to long-term dysfunction.

However, adopting proper nutrition and lifestyle habits — such as regular meal timing, adequate carbohydrate intake, and avoiding metabolic disruptors like seed oils — helps restore and protect metabolic health.

Every heartbeat, breath, and thought depends on a steady flow of energy inside your cells. That energy comes from mitochondria — the microscopic engines that keep your body running. When those engines slow down, it reveals itself in subtle ways — small tasks feel overwhelming, your focus slips halfway through the day, and your endurance fades faster than it used to.

Over time, poor mitochondrial function contributes to everything from stubborn weight gain to premature aging. One of the most powerful ways to keep those energy systems working efficiently is through diet. Among the nutrients your cells rely on, the amino acid leucine stands out for its unique influence on cellular energy. Commonly associated with muscle repair, leucine also plays a deeper role in how your cells sense nutrients and regulate energy output.

Recent advances in mitochondrial research are revealing how much this single amino acid matters for your overall metabolism, endurance, and vitality. Findings from a 2025 Nature Cell Biology study highlight a hidden mechanism that explains why getting enough high-quality protein transforms how your body produces energy at the most fundamental level.1

Leucine Turns on the Mitochondrial ‘Power Switch’

The Nature Cell Biology study revealed how leucine directly influences how mitochondria respond to changes in nutrient availability.2 Researchers found that leucine stops key mitochondrial membrane proteins from breaking down.

This stabilizes the machinery that imports new proteins into mitochondria, allowing them to grow stronger and produce more energy. Leucine helps your cells “upgrade” their power plants, giving you more stamina, better metabolic control, and sharper brain function.

• The study focused on how leucine keeps mitochondria young and efficient — Researchers examined this process across species — from tiny roundworms to human lung cells — and found the same pattern. When leucine levels rise, mitochondrial proteins are preserved instead of discarded, improving overall respiration and energy output. This means your body uses leucine not just for building muscle, but also for maintaining metabolic efficiency and resisting fatigue.

• Leucine activates mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin), which then silences cellular stress sensors — Normally, these sensors detect low amino acid levels and trigger protein breakdown to conserve resources. When leucine activates mTOR, it inhibits these stress pathways, allowing your cells to shift from breakdown mode to building mode. This is why leucine uniquely preserves mitochondrial proteins while other amino acids don’t have the same effect.

When leucine disables the sensors’ brakes, it reduces a protein responsible for tagging mitochondrial components for destruction. As a result, mitochondria keep their essential outer membrane proteins, giving them more capacity to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP) — your body’s cellular energy currency.

Because mitochondria power every organ — from your heart to your brain — enhancing their efficiency improves nearly every aspect of health. People struggling with low energy, insulin resistance, or slow metabolism could benefit most from optimizing leucine intake. It’s not about more protein overall — it’s about hitting the leucine “sweet spot” that tells your cells to rebuild, not degrade.

• Leucine’s effects appear within hours, not weeks — In laboratory tests, cells treated with leucine for just three hours showed a measurable increase in mitochondrial respiration, meaning they burned fuel more efficiently.

This rapid response suggests that even a single high-leucine meal — such as a breakfast with eggs or whey protein — temporarily supercharges your cells’ ability to create energy. Over time, regular leucine intake helps sustain that performance by keeping mitochondria healthy and robust.

• Leucine’s action is highly selective and efficient — Out of many amino acids tested, leucine had the strongest effect on stabilizing outer mitochondrial membrane proteins. Other branched-chain amino acids, like valine and isoleucine, showed weaker or no response. This specificity makes leucine uniquely powerful for regulating energy metabolism — a finding that supports why high-leucine foods are often associated with athletic recovery and metabolic resilience.

The mTOR Connection — Why Leucine Is the Master Metabolic Switch

Here’s what the research doesn’t explicitly state but the mechanisms clearly reveal: leucine works primarily through mTOR — and that’s exactly why it’s so powerful. Among all amino acids, leucine is by far the strongest activator of mTOR, triggering this pathway 10 to 20 times more effectively than other amino acids.3 If you’ve been told that mTOR activation is “bad” because of its association with aging research, you’ve been given an incomplete picture. The truth is more nuanced:

• Pulsatile mTOR activation from meals is beneficial — When you eat a leucine-rich meal, mTOR surges briefly, then returns to baseline. This temporary activation tells your cells to build, repair, and strengthen mitochondria. It’s a natural metabolic rhythm that humans evolved with.

• Chronic mTOR overactivation is the problem — This happens with constant overfeeding, excessive calorie intake, and never giving your body periods of fasting or lower protein intake. It’s the difference between healthy growth signals and metabolic exhaustion.

• mTOR is how leucine drives mitochondrial improvements — When leucine activates mTOR, it triggers a cascade that increases PGC-1α (the master regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis), enhances mitochondrial protein synthesis, and improves mitochondrial dynamics. This is why the effects appear within hours and why leucine outperforms other amino acids so dramatically.

The rapid improvements in oxygen consumption and ATP production seen in the Nature Cell Biology study? That’s classic mTOR signaling at work. The stabilization of mitochondrial membrane proteins? Driven by mTOR’s influence on protein turnover. The enhanced cellular energy output? A direct result of mTOR activating the machinery that builds and maintains healthy mitochondria.

Understanding this connection helps explain why leucine-rich foods have such profound effects on energy, recovery, and metabolic health. You’re not just feeding your muscles — you’re sending a precise signal through one of your body’s most important metabolic pathways.

Leucine Effectively Teaches Your Cells to Conserve Their Best Components

The research team discovered that leucine treatment increased the total number of mitochondrial proteins, especially those tied to energy metabolism and respiration.4 This included key import machinery such as a gatekeeper protein that allows energy-building enzymes to enter mitochondria. By protecting this gatekeeper protein and related proteins, leucine enables a kind of mitochondrial “remodeling,” making your cells more capable of meeting energy demands.

• This remodeling translates into higher oxygen use and better performance — Both in worms and human cells, leucine treatment increased oxygen consumption — the measure scientists use to quantify mitochondrial respiration.

The improvement was so strong that when the researchers blocked protein import using a mitochondrial inhibitor, leucine’s energy-boosting effects disappeared. This confirmed that leucine works through the mitochondrial import system, not by stimulating new protein synthesis.

• The effects were so pronounced that blocking leucine’s pathway reduced fertility — When the scientists inhibited leucine breakdown in worms, their mitochondrial protein degradation stopped. This unbalanced state meant the worms’ fertility got worse when they were under stress.

This indicates that too much or too little leucine balance disrupts mitochondrial homeostasis. In human cell tests, tumor cells with high leucine levels were more resistant to mitochondrial stress, showing that the same pathway influences how cells survive and adapt under strain.

• Your mitochondria respond to leucine like a thermostat to temperature — They sense abundance and adjust output. When leucine signals that nutrients are plentiful, mitochondria “expand” their machinery to prepare for increased energy demand.

This adaptation happens through a rapid reduction in protein degradation and a buildup of metabolic enzymes. Think of it as switching your body from economy mode to performance mode, optimizing energy flow for movement, focus, and healing.

• Leucine gives your mitochondria the green light to work harder and smarter — It restores energy output without requiring more calories. That’s why diets rich in high-quality animal proteins — grass fed beef, eggs, dairy, and whey — tend to promote metabolic resilience. They deliver enough leucine to keep your cellular engines running efficiently.

• This discovery opens the door to personalized energy nutrition — Instead of chasing supplements that promise to “boost metabolism,” this research suggests that tuning your leucine intake could achieve measurable improvements in mitochondrial health.

How to Use Leucine to Boost Your Cellular Energy

Your mitochondria respond directly to what you eat, and leucine is one of the most powerful ways to signal your cells to make more energy. If you’ve been feeling drained, unfocused, or slow to recover after workouts or illness, this amino acid could be a turning point. The goal here isn’t to overload on protein but to supply the right kind, in the right amounts, to strengthen your mitochondria from the inside out.

1. Start with complete, high-quality protein — The easiest way to get enough leucine is through whole foods rich in complete protein. Grass fed beef, pastured eggs, and dairy are the most efficient sources. A meal or snack containing 25 to 35 grams of protein provides about 2 to 3 grams of leucine — the amount often recommended to maximize muscle health in older adults.5 If you’re not a big meat eater, a single scoop of whey protein offers a similar dose and is easy to digest.

Most adults need about 0.8 grams of protein per pound of ideal body weight (or about 1.76 grams per kilogram) daily. About one-third of your protein should come from collagen-rich foods such as bone broth, pure gelatin powder without sugar and other additives, oxtail, shanks, or grass fed ground beef containing connective tissue.

Leucine Cheat Sheet

Food (serving)
Protein (g)
Est. leucine (g)

Lean beef, cooked, 3 oz
22 to 26
2.3

Whey isolate, 25 to 30 g
23 to 27
2.5 to 3.0

Cottage cheese, 1 cup
25 to 28
2.0 to 2.5

Eggs, 2 large
12 to 14
1.0 to 1.2

Tempeh, 150 g
28 to 30
2.0 to 2.1

Milk, 16 oz
16
1.4 to 1.6

2. Time your leucine intake around activity or fatigue — Your body is most responsive to leucine after physical or mental exertion, when your cells need to repair and recharge. Have a high-leucine food or shake within 30 minutes of exercise or at times of low energy. This helps your mitochondria replenish faster, keeping your metabolism efficient and preventing that mid-afternoon crash.

3. Include leucine-rich plant options if you avoid animal foods — For those who eat a plant-based diet, fermented soy foods such as tempeh are among the most practical sources. A 150-gram serving delivers about 28 to 30 grams of protein and just over 2 grams of leucine. Pairing it with carbohydrate-rich foods such as rice or fruit improves absorption and helps deliver the amino acid directly into your cells’ energy pathways.

4. Support your mitochondria with balanced nutrition — Leucine works best when your overall diet supports mitochondrial health. Avoid seed oils, as they’re high in the polyunsaturated fat linoleic acid (LA), which damages the same membranes leucine helps stabilize.

Focus instead on saturated fats like tallow, grass fed butter, or ghee, and aim for 250 grams of carbohydrates per day from healthy sources like fruits and root vegetables to supply the glucose your mitochondria use to generate ATP. Think of it as feeding your energy engine clean, efficient fuel.

5. Track how your body responds and adjust gradually — Everyone’s metabolism and activity level are different. Notice how your energy, sleep, and focus change when you increase your leucine intake. If you feel stronger and more alert after meals, that’s your body signaling improved mitochondrial performance.

By focusing on these five steps, you give your cells the raw materials and signals they need to operate at full capacity. The difference isn’t subtle — it’s the feeling of your energy coming back online, the clarity returning to your thoughts, and the resilience that follows when your mitochondria finally have the support they’ve been waiting for.

FAQs About Leucine

Q: What exactly does leucine do for my body?

A: Leucine is an essential amino acid that acts as both a building block for muscle and a metabolic signal that tells your cells to make more energy. It stabilizes the outer membranes of your mitochondria so they work more efficiently. When you get enough leucine, your body burns fuel more cleanly, improving stamina, focus, and recovery.

Q: How much leucine do I need each day?

A: Most research suggests that 2 to 3 grams of leucine per meal is ideal for activating muscle health benefits. This amount is found in about 25 to 35 grams of high-quality protein, such as 3 ounces of cooked grass fed beef, a scoop of whey protein, or a cup of grass fed cottage cheese.

Q: What foods are the best natural sources of leucine?

A: Grass fed beef, pastured eggs, and dairy products like cottage cheese or whey protein are the richest sources. For those following a plant-based diet, fermented soy foods such as tempeh are the best option, providing roughly 2 grams of leucine per 150-gram serving.

Q: How quickly will I feel the effects of leucine?

A: According to research in Nature Cell Biology, leucine begins improving mitochondrial respiration within hours of intake.6 Even one leucine-rich meal — such as a breakfast with eggs or a whey protein shake — temporarily boosts cellular energy output. Regular intake helps sustain these effects, improving vitality, metabolism, and endurance over time.

Q: Is leucine supplementation necessary if I eat enough protein?

A: For most people who regularly eat high-quality protein from whole foods, supplementation isn’t needed. The key is consistency and balance — getting enough leucine with each meal rather than relying on large amounts from a single source. The goal isn’t more protein overall, but the right type of protein that signals your cells to rebuild and recharge efficiently.

Q: I’ve heard mTOR activation accelerates aging. Should I avoid leucine?

A: No. This is one of the most misunderstood concepts in nutrition science. mTOR activation from eating high-quality protein is fundamentally different from chronic mTOR overactivation. When you eat a leucine-rich meal, mTOR spikes briefly (two to three hours), drives beneficial processes like mitochondrial repair and muscle maintenance, then returns to baseline.

This is healthy metabolic signaling. The problem occurs when people constantly overeat and never allow mTOR to cycle down through fasting or calorie restriction. The solution isn’t avoiding leucine — it’s eating high-quality protein in the right amounts with appropriate fasting windows.

Ultraprocessed foods have moved from a niche nutrition concern to the center of a national debate, and researchers recently asked a question that gets skipped in most of that conversation: What do Americans actually want their government to do about it? Not whether people think these foods are healthy, but which specific policies they’d support — official definitions, dietary guidance, school restrictions, grocery store limits, or taxes.

Unlike minimally processed foods, ultraprocessed foods are industrial formulations made with ingredients and additives that are rarely found in a home kitchen. They often contain refined starches, added sugars, industrial oils, flavor enhancers, colors, emulsifiers, and preservatives designed to improve shelf life, taste, or texture.

Researchers from Purdue University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign reported that Americans viewed these foods as convenient and tasty, yet also unhealthy, unsafe, unnatural, and addictive.1 What’s more revealing, though, is how those perceptions translated into support, or lack of support, for actual government intervention.

Meanwhile, U.S. nutrition guidance is undergoing its biggest shift in decades: for the first time, how a food is made, not just what’s in it, is becoming part of the official health conversation. That debate has expanded beyond scientific journals into schools, grocery stores, and federal nutrition policy.

I believe understanding both the science and public opinion gives you a stronger foundation for making food choices that match your own priorities instead of relying on marketing claims alone. The next step is to look closely at what the first study discovered about which ultraprocessed food policies Americans support most and why those preferences differ across the population.

Americans Back Education More Than Food Taxes

A cross-sectional survey study published in PLOS One examined how 990 U.S. adults viewed six different government approaches to ultraprocessed foods, including education, restrictions, and taxes. Researchers recruited participants from across the U.S. during February 2025 using quota sampling stratified by gender, age, income, and region. The authors note the final sample skewed toward lower-income households, one of four limitations they identify.

The researchers wanted to learn which government actions Americans actually supported and what beliefs influenced those opinions. Public opinion often shapes future nutrition policies. Instead of assuming what consumers want, the study measured it directly and identified which ideas gained the broadest acceptance and which faced the strongest resistance.

• Support depended on what people believed about ultraprocessed foods — The survey found that opinions were driven less by politics alone than by how participants viewed ultraprocessed foods themselves. People who believed these foods were unsafe or addictive consistently expressed greater support for government action, while people who viewed them as especially tasty were less likely to favor restrictions on their availability.

In other words, personal beliefs about these foods strongly influenced whether respondents thought education, restrictions, or other policy changes were appropriate. The researchers also found that people who felt more confident identifying ultraprocessed foods generally expressed stronger support for several policy options, suggesting that knowledge and awareness influence public attitudes.

• Different groups supported different policies for different reasons — Younger adults were less likely to support information-based policies such as official definitions and dietary guidance, yet they were more supportive of restricting ultraprocessed foods in grocery stores. Parents with children younger than 18 years were also more likely to support grocery-store restrictions, while people receiving food assistance expressed greater support for limiting ultraprocessed foods in retail settings.

Lower-income participants were less likely to support taxes or certain restrictions affecting food assistance programs. Political affiliation also influenced some responses, although not every policy divided people along political lines. For example, support for school restrictions remained comparatively broad across groups, showing that protecting children generated wider agreement than other proposals.

• Taxes ranked far behind other ideas — Information-based strategies consistently received stronger support than policies that increased costs or reduced consumer choice. Restricting ultraprocessed foods in schools attracted considerably more support than restricting them in grocery stores or limiting purchases through federal food assistance programs.

By comparison, taxing ultraprocessed foods was the least popular of the six options at 43.6% support, well behind an official definition of ultraprocessed foods (84.7%) and clearer dietary guidance (82.4%), though only modestly behind grocery-store restrictions (50.8%). School restrictions drew 68.4% support.

If you want to understand where nutrition policy is most likely to move first, this finding offers an important clue. Policymakers often advance proposals that already have substantial public support because those measures face fewer obstacles than highly controversial taxes or outright bans.

• Knowledge gives you an advantage when food labels remain confusing — One interesting finding involved what researchers called “subjective knowledge,” meaning how confident people felt about recognizing ultraprocessed foods while shopping. This didn’t necessarily mean participants were always correct. Instead, it measured whether they believed they could identify these products.

Researchers found that greater confidence generally corresponded with stronger support for several government actions. That highlights an important practical lesson. The easier it becomes to recognize heavily processed products, the easier it becomes to compare foods, ask better questions, and make purchasing decisions that match your own priorities instead of relying solely on front-of-package marketing claims.

• The study explains attitudes rather than proving health effects — Unlike a clinical trial that measures changes in blood pressure, weight, or disease risk, this research focused on public opinion. It didn’t test whether any proposed policy improved health, nor did it examine biological changes inside the body because that was outside the study’s purpose. Instead, it identified the beliefs that predict support for different nutrition policies.

Researchers found that perceptions of safety, addictiveness, and personal knowledge consistently influenced public attitudes more strongly than many other characteristics.

That makes the findings valuable because they help explain why some food policies gain public acceptance while others struggle, offering insight into how future discussions about ultraprocessed foods are likely to develop. That preference for clarity over restriction isn’t just theoretical; it’s already showing up in federal policy.

Federal Dietary Guidelines Now Target Highly Processed Foods

In an editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health, nutrition scientist Marion Nestle wrote that the 2025 – 2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans marked the first time since the guidelines began in 1980 that they advised people to limit “highly processed foods.”2

While the document avoided the specific term “ultraprocessed foods,” Nestle explained that the recommendation clearly referred to them because the scientific review supporting the guidelines repeatedly discussed ultraprocessed foods and cited research on their health effects. She notes that the guidelines use “highly processed” as a euphemism, adopted because no consensus definition of “ultraprocessed” yet exists.

This matters because federal dietary guidelines influence everything from school meals and public health campaigns to nutrition education provided by doctors and dietitians. Even small wording changes often signal a broader shift in how nutrition experts think about healthy eating.

This is also worth reading alongside the survey findings above. Americans didn’t rank official definitions and clearer dietary guidance as their top choices by accident; those are exactly the tools this guideline update relies on. Rather than restricting where ultraprocessed foods can be sold or taxing them at checkout, the federal government chose the same lever the public said it trusted most: better information. Whether that information actually changes what people buy and eat is a separate question.

• More than 100 observational studies have examined diets high in ultraprocessed foods — Nearly all of them report higher risks of chronic disease and earlier death among people who consume more of these products.3,4 Observational studies compare people’s eating habits and health over time instead of assigning diets in a laboratory, so they identify relationships rather than proving direct cause and effect.

Even so, when dozens of studies continue pointing in the same direction, researchers often view the overall pattern as meaningful. If you regularly rely on packaged convenience foods, that growing consistency gives you another reason to look more closely at how much of your diet comes from heavily manufactured products.

• One tightly controlled experiment produced striking results — The article highlighted an unusually rigorous clinical trial of 20 adults in which volunteers lived inside a metabolic ward, meaning researchers provided every meal and carefully monitored exactly what participants ate.5

Each participant ate an ultraprocessed diet for two weeks and a minimally processed diet for two weeks, in randomized order. Because the volunteers remained under continuous supervision, they couldn’t underestimate or misreport their food intake. Researchers compared nutritionally similar diets that differed mainly in how processed the foods were.

Participants eating the ultraprocessed diet consumed about 500 extra calories every day without realizing it.6 That finding attracted attention because the foods contained similar amounts of nutrients, yet participants still ate substantially more. If your goal is to manage your appetite or maintain a healthy weight, this study suggests that the structure and formulation of food itself influence how much you naturally consume, not just the nutrition label.

Nestle notes the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee excluded this trial from its review because it was too short and too small to meet the committee’s inclusion criteria — a decision she argues it should have made an exception to, since metabolic-ward studies are expensive and few volunteers will stay in one for long.

• Scientists continue to study why these foods encourage overeating — One criticism of ultraprocessed food research has been that the biological mechanisms are still under investigation. The article acknowledged that point but explained that newer clinical studies have produced biologically plausible results that support earlier observations.

“Biologically plausible” means the findings fit with how the human body is known to function rather than appearing random or contradictory. Researchers continue investigating how industrial processing, food texture, flavor combinations, and other characteristics influence appetite and calorie intake. That ongoing work helps explain why two foods with similar nutrition facts don’t always produce the same response after you eat them.

• Politics and industry influence nutrition debates as much as science — The article devoted substantial attention to how scientific evidence becomes public policy. Nestle argued that disagreements often center less on whether ultraprocessed foods deserve attention and more on how governments respond. Some groups prefer education alone, while others support broader policy tools that make healthier foods easier to obtain.

The article also discussed financial relationships between some contributors to the scientific reviews and food industry organizations, raising questions about conflicts of interest.

Specifically, Nestle reports that seven of the nine writers of the research reviews disclosed financial ties to food industry groups — four to meat and dairy organizations — leading her to conclude the guidelines “appear to have been captured by the meat and dairy industries” and to criticize them for encouraging more meat, full-fat dairy, butter, and beef tallow.

However, I don’t share Nestle’s concern about healthy fats. I don’t consider a recommendation to eat butter, tallow, and full-fat dairy a warning sign — I regard those traditional, stable fats as far healthier than the industrial seed oils that dominate ultraprocessed foods.

Where I agree with her is the broader point: Even guidelines framed as pure science are shaped by who’s in the room when they’re written, which is exactly why learning to read an ingredient list yourself, rather than waiting for an official verdict, is worth doing regardless of what future guidelines say.

• Education alone rarely changes eating habits — Information, while valuable, doesn’t consistently change what people buy or eat. Nestle argued that long-term dietary improvement requires healthier foods to become easier to find, more affordable, and more accessible through a combination of education and broader policy approaches.

If you’re trying to reduce your intake of heavily processed foods, this idea offers a practical challenge. Instead of relying entirely on willpower, take inventory of your own food environment. Look at what fills your pantry, what appears most often in your grocery cart, and which foods are easiest to grab during a busy day. Small changes to those daily habits often make healthy choices much easier to repeat.

Build a Food Environment That Works for You

Your daily food choices become much easier when you understand what you’re buying and make healthier options the easiest ones to reach. Focus on changing the environment around your meals instead of relying on willpower alone. Small, consistent changes add up, especially when they become part of your routine.

1. Build most of your meals around minimally processed foods — I recommend making foods that look close to the way they came from nature, the foundation of your diet. Fill your plate with vegetables, fruits, intact whole grains if you tolerate them, pasture-raised eggs, and grass fed dairy and meats instead of foods built from long ingredient lists.

Cut out ultraprocessed foods, especially those made with vegetable oils such as soybean, corn, safflower, sunflower, and canola oil. These oils are high in linoleic acid (LA), a polyunsaturated fat that oxidizes easily under heat and storage.

Those oxidation byproducts accumulate in your tissues over time and are thought to compromise mitochondrial function — the tiny structures inside your cells that produce energy — which is part of why diets high in LA are linked to inflammation and metabolic disruption.

Replace vegetable oils with more stable fats such as grass fed butter, ghee, or tallow. I recommend keeping your daily LA intake below 5 grams, with a goal of about 2 grams whenever possible. If you’re unsure where to start, challenge yourself to make at least two meals each day from ingredients that require little or no industrial processing.

2. Read ingredient lists before you trust front-of-package claims — A package that says “natural,” “high protein,” “whole grain,” or “heart healthy” doesn’t automatically make it a better choice. Turn the package over and read the ingredient list first.

If you see vegetable oils, refined starches, added sugars, artificial flavors, colors, emulsifiers, or preservatives near the top, place it back on the shelf and compare it with a simpler alternative. That habit gives you far more control than relying on marketing language.

3. Replace convenience foods one category at a time — Trying to overhaul your entire pantry in one afternoon often leads to frustration. Instead, pick one category every week. Replace vegetable oils first, then frozen entrées and packaged snacks. Then sugary breakfast foods. Continue until most of your routine foods come from simpler ingredients. If you enjoy tracking progress, keep a checklist and cross off one category at a time. Small victories make lasting habits much easier to build.

4. Make healthier foods the easiest choice in your home — Your environment influences your decisions every day. Keep washed fruit where you immediately see it. Prepare vegetables before you become hungry. Cook extra portions so leftovers become tomorrow’s quick meal instead of reaching for packaged convenience foods. If you’re a busy parent or work long hours, this one habit often saves both time and money while reducing your reliance on highly processed products.

5. Stay informed instead of waiting for food policy to change — Government dietary guidelines will continue to evolve as new research becomes available, but your next meal is your decision. I recommend learning how to recognize heavily processed foods yourself rather than depending entirely on labels or advertising.

The more confident you become at identifying foods that require little industrial processing, the easier it becomes to shop with purpose and build eating habits that match your long-term health goals.

FAQs About Ultraprocessed Food Policies

Q: What are ultraprocessed foods, and why are they receiving more attention?
A: Ultraprocessed foods are industrially manufactured products made with refined ingredients and additives that are rarely found in a home kitchen. They often contain refined starches, added sugars, vegetable oils, artificial flavors, colors, emulsifiers, and preservatives.
Research linking diets high in these foods with chronic disease has prompted growing public interest and led the federal government to recommend limiting highly processed foods for the first time in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Q: What did Americans support most in the survey about ultraprocessed food policies?
A: Americans showed the strongest support for education rather than taxes. Survey participants favored official definitions of ultraprocessed foods (84.7% support) and clearer dietary guidance (82.4%), while restrictions in schools (68.4%) received more support than restrictions in grocery stores (50.8%). Taxes on ultraprocessed foods were the least popular proposal, at 43.6%.

Q: Why do ultraprocessed foods often lead people to eat more?
A: One tightly controlled clinical trial of 20 adults living in a metabolic ward, each of whom ate both diets for two weeks in randomized order, found that participants consumed about 500 additional calories each day on the ultraprocessed diet without realizing it, even though the meals contained similar amounts of nutrients.7
That is roughly the equivalent of an extra meal a day. Researchers are continuing to study why this happens, but current evidence suggests that the way these foods are formulated influences appetite and calorie intake beyond what appears on the nutrition label.

Q: What is the most effective first step for reducing ultraprocessed foods?
A: Focus on replacing them with minimally processed foods instead of trying to overhaul your entire diet overnight. Build meals around foods with simple ingredient lists, avoid products made with vegetable oils such as soybean, corn, sunflower, safflower, and canola oil, and replace those oils with more stable fats like grass fed butter, ghee, or tallow. Reading ingredient lists instead of relying on front-of-package marketing also makes healthier choices much easier.

Q: Why does understanding food policy matter if I simply want to eat healthier?
A: Nutrition guidelines influence school meals, public health programs, and the information consumers receive about food. Learning how those recommendations are developed and understanding the science behind them helps you evaluate nutrition advice and make food choices based on evidence instead of advertising or food marketing.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.

Test Your Knowledge with Today’s Quiz!
Take today’s quiz to see how much you’ve learned from yesterday’s Mercola.com article.

Which form of magnesium is generally better absorbed by the body?

Organic forms
A 2021 paper published in Nutrition found that organic magnesium forms were generally more bioavailable than inorganic forms, and absorption also varied with dose. Learn more.
Inorganic forms
Oxide forms
Sulfate forms

When was the last time you danced or learned to play a musical instrument? How about painting or doing a mural? You may not realize it, but these seemingly mundane hobbies, activities that allow you to exercise your creativity, may be doing more for you than you realize — they’re helping your brain stay young and healthy.

Research shows that people who consistently engage in creative tasks tend to have brains that function several years younger than their chronological age. Creative engagement keeps your neural networks active, helping your brain become more adaptable and resilient.

What’s more, even short bursts of creativity can make a difference. Trying something new, learning an unfamiliar skill, or taking time to express yourself all give the brain a workout that strengthens its internal wiring. It’s a reminder that creativity isn’t only for artists — it’s a form of preventive care for the mind.

Creative Engagement Strengthens Brain Networks and Sharpens Mental Function

Research published in Nature Communications explored how creativity affects brain function and biological aging. The study set out to determine whether creative expertise — activities like music, painting, dance, or even playing certain video games — could measurably delay how quickly the brain ages.1

Using cutting-edge brain imaging and machine learning, researchers found that individuals deeply involved in creative practices, such as tango dancers, musicians, visual artists, and strategy gamers exhibited “younger” brains than their non-creative counterparts.

• The study design — Led by an international team headed by researchers from the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), the research brought together participants from 13 nations, namely Canada, Chile, Argentina, Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Poland, and Germany. It is one of the largest and most comprehensive studies ever conducted on the relationship between creativity and brain health.

• The research involved nearly 15,000 participants — 1,472 adults between 18 and 80 were included in the study. Some were professional artists while others were individuals with little creative experience. The researchers designed two key experiments, each exploring creativity’s effects from a different angle.

• The first experiment was an expertise comparison evaluating long-term creativity — The researchers compared experts vs. non-experts across four creative domains, including tango dancing (Argentina), music performance (Canada), visual arts (Germany) and real-time strategy gaming (Poland). The experts had years of dedicated practice, while the controls were matched for age, education, sex, and geography but lacked artistic training.

• The second study was a learning experiment, which looked at short-term creativity — A separate group of non-experts underwent 30 hours of video game training in StarCraft II, a complex strategy game requiring creativity, adaptability, and rapid decision-making.

This was done over three to four weeks, with each participant playing between five and 10 hours per week. Their brain activity was recorded before and after training, alongside a control group trained on Hearthstone, a simpler, turn-based game with fewer creative demands.

Together, these studies allowed the researchers to examine both the long-term impact of artistic expertise and the short-term plasticity of creative learning.

The Brain Clock Model — Machine Learning Meets Neuroscience

Researchers used advanced brain imaging and AI-driven “brain clocks” to calculate the difference between participants’ chronological and biological brain ages. However, to fully understand the significance of their findings, it’s important to understand what brain clocks are.2

• Just as our bodies carry biological markers of age, so do our brains — Using advanced algorithms trained on brain imaging data, neuroscientists can estimate how “old” a brain looks relative to a person’s actual age.

• A powerful machine-learning model was used to quantify brain age — The researchers built a model using M/EEG (magnetoencephalography/electroencephalography) data from 1,240 participants aged 17 to 91. Rather than just structure, it analyzed functional connectivity, which refers to how different brain regions communicate.

Functional connectivity reflects the brain’s dynamic ability to coordinate information across networks, a measure thought to capture both cognitive vitality and neural efficiency.

• The key metric is the Brain Age Gap (BAG) — This is the difference between your brain’s predicted age and your real chronological age. A positive BAG means your brain appears older than expected (accelerated aging), while a negative BAG means your brain appears younger (delayed aging).

Traditionally, higher BAGs have been associated with Alzheimer’s disease, depression, schizophrenia, and other neurological conditions. Conversely, lower BAGs are linked with resilience, emotional health, and cognitive sharpness.

Until now, factors like exercise, sleep, diet, and education were known to influence BAGs. This study adds a fascinating new variable to the mix — creativity.

The Results Were Clear — Creative Minds Had Younger Brains

What they discovered changes how you think about creativity — these activities are not just a hobby; they’re neurological workouts that directly affect how youthful and efficient your brain stays over time. Across every creative field, participants with higher creative expertise displayed significantly younger brain ages than their non-expert peers.

• Results among the creative groups — Tango dancers exhibited the greatest delay in brain aging, with their brains appearing approximately 7.1 years younger than their chronological age. Musicians followed closely, showing brains that were on average 5.4 years younger, while visual artists demonstrated a similar rejuvenating effect with a 6.2-year reduction. Strategy gamers also benefited, displaying brains about 4.1 years younger than expected.3

• Even short-term learners showed measurable results — Those who engaged in only 30 hours of creative video game training had their brain age reduced by roughly 3.1 years. The control group showed no such effect, confirming that creativity-driven learning was the catalyst.

• Brain aging doesn’t affect all regions equally — Some areas, especially frontoparietal networks involved in attention, motor control, and cognitive flexibility, are particularly susceptible to age-related decline. In this study, those same regions showed the strongest protective effects from creative engagement.

When the researchers mapped connectivity patterns, they found that experts exhibited stronger, more efficient connections precisely in the brain hubs most vulnerable to aging. This suggests creativity might counteract age-related deterioration by reinforcing neural pathways critical for complex coordination, imagination, and adaptability.

• The Neurosynth meta-analysis confirmed this — This analysis links brain activity to psychological functions. The researchers found that creative experts’ brain networks were enriched in domains like:

◦ Motor coordination and rhythm
◦ Imagery and visual salience
◦ Attention and perception
◦ Cognitive control and working memory

Simply put, creativity doesn’t just build skill-specific circuits — it enhances the very systems that maintain cognitive vitality across the lifespan. Augustin Ibanez, professor in Brain Health at the GBHI and School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, and a senior and corresponding author of the study, said:

“Creativity emerges as a powerful determinant of brain health, comparable to exercise or diet. Our results open new avenues for creativity-based interventions to protect the brain against aging and disease. Our study also showed that brain clocks can be used to monitor interventions aimed to improve brain health.”4

Neural Plasticity at Work

So, how does creativity accomplish this rejuvenation? The researchers point to neural plasticity — the brain’s ability to adapt, rewire, and strengthen connections in response to new experiences.

• Engaging in creative practice involves various processes — These include constant learning, emotional engagement, sensorimotor integration and cognitive flexibility. These processes activate and reinforce communication among brain regions, particularly those involved in higher-order functions like planning, decision-making, and self-expression.

Over time, this sustained engagement builds resilience into neural circuits, maintaining efficiency and preventing the disconnection that often accompanies aging.

• This aligns with decades of research on enriched environments — It highlights that being in environments that encourage novelty, challenge, and emotional meaning stimulates neurogenesis (the birth of new neurons) and synaptic remodeling. Creativity, in this sense, is a natural exercise for the brain’s plastic potential.

• One of the most exciting insights came from analyzing network efficiency — This is a measure of how effectively the brain transfers information between regions. The experts found that creative experts had higher global efficiency (better overall communication) and higher local efficiency (more specialized, finely tuned processing).

• Statistically, lower brain age gaps were tightly linked with higher efficiency scores — This means a “younger” brain isn’t just structurally intact — it’s functionally smarter, processing information faster and with less waste.

Whole-brain computational modeling further revealed that these effects were accompanied by increased global coupling — stronger biophysical interactions among neural networks. This implies that creativity stimulates not just the architecture of the brain but the dynamic harmony of its rhythms.

• Interestingly, even short-term creative learning showed measurable effects — Participants who trained in StarCraft II for just one month not only improved their gameplay but also demonstrated enhanced attention and cognitive control in unrelated tasks, such as reaction time and visual accuracy tests. This suggests that creative learning produces generalized cognitive benefits, extending beyond the specific skill being trained.5

Creativity Is a Universal Brain Booster

For decades, medical science has focused on disease prevention through diet, exercise, and medication. But the growing field of neuroaesthetics, the study of how art affects the brain, suggests that human expression itself is medicine.

This study provides biological evidence to support what many creative practitioners have long believed: Engaging in creative expression isn’t just emotionally fulfilling — it’s neurologically protective.

• While creativity is often associated with traditional arts, this study broadens its definition — The inclusion of video gaming as a creative domain underscores a vital point: Creativity is not limited to art — it’s a mode of thinking.

• Strategic gaming can be an art form — Like improvisational music or dance, it requires flexible problem-solving, pattern recognition, anticipation, and innovation. These are all hallmarks of creative cognition. By engaging these systems, even non-artistic pursuits can confer similar neuroprotective benefits.

This opens a new avenue for how we might integrate creativity into public health strategies and clinical therapies. From community dance programs to art workshops, from digital game-based training to music therapy, the potential applications are vast.

• What makes this study stand out is how directly applicable it is to everyday life — You don’t need to take up a formal art class or master an instrument to experience these benefits. Even small daily creative choices like journaling, doodling, cooking without a recipe, or designing a garden engage the same neural systems that keep your brain young.

• It’s the act of creating, not the artistic skill, that drives these changes — By making creativity part of your lifestyle, you’re not just expressing yourself, you’re also strengthening your brain’s core operating system. The implication is profound — it may never be too late to start something creative.

How to Use Creativity to Rebuild and Protect Your Brain

Creativity is far more than self-expression; it’s one of the most powerful tools available for maintaining cognitive vitality. In a world where mental fatigue and distraction are common, this finding matters deeply. Creative engagement offers a science-backed way to rebuild focus, restore emotional balance, and keep your mind sharp well into later life.

When you view creativity through this lens, it becomes not just enjoyable, but necessary for sustaining your brain’s longevity and performance. Here are strategies you can follow to turn creativity into a daily practice that keeps your brain young, adaptable, and sharp.

1. Make daily creativity non-negotiable — Treat creativity like your brain’s workout. Whether you write, dance, sing, paint, play an instrument, or cook from intuition, commit to doing something expressive each day. You don’t have to be talented — what matters is effort and engagement.

If you’re someone who says, “I’m not creative,” start small. Try doodling while you talk on the phone or rearranging your space in a way that feels fresh. Consistency matters more than time. Even 15 minutes a day of focused creative activity helps maintain healthy communication between brain regions, which improves attention and emotional balance.

2. Challenge yourself with new skills — If you feel stuck in routine, that’s a sign your brain needs novelty. Learning something new pushes your neural circuits to adapt. If you’re a musician, try painting. If you’re analytical, experiment with improv or dance.

I recommend choosing an activity that feels slightly uncomfortable — that’s where growth happens. The research shows that even short-term creative learning, like spending a few hours each week mastering a complex game or instrument, can rejuvenate your brain’s biological age. You’ll notice clearer thinking, quicker problem-solving, and better emotional control.

3. Engage all your senses — Creative work activates more of your brain when it involves multiple senses — sight, touch, sound, and even movement. If you paint, pay attention to texture and color. If you cook, use aroma and plating as part of the creative process. If you’re learning dance, focus on rhythm and body awareness.

The goal is to wake up underused brain areas. When you do, you create stronger networks that resist age-related decline. This sensory layering builds resilience in your neural circuits, making your brain more adaptable under stress.

4. Turn routine into play — Instead of following autopilot routines, inject novelty into them. If you’re a parent, invent a new bedtime story with your child. If you’re retired, turn gardening or journaling into a creative project. If you work in an office, brainstorm solutions visually instead of with text.

Gamify your creativity — set a small goal like “five new ideas this week” or “one new dish this month.” When you track progress and reward yourself for creative wins, you activate dopamine circuits that boost motivation and focus.

5. Reconnect creativity with movement and light — If your brain feels sluggish, combine creative tasks with physical and environmental stimulation. Move your body, get sunlight, and let your senses be fully awake. The study showed that activities combining movement and rhythm like dancing or drumming produced the strongest protective effects on brain aging.

If you work indoors all day, take your creative time outside. Sketch under natural light, walk while brainstorming, or stretch while listening to music. Your mitochondria, the tiny power plants in your cells, depend on light and oxygen for energy. Pairing movement with creativity amplifies the brain’s rejuvenating response.

Each of these steps restores your brain’s natural rhythm of curiosity, challenge, and reward. Creativity doesn’t just help you think better; it allows you to feel alive again. When you make time for creative play, you’re not wasting time; you’re repairing your brain’s wiring, boosting your mood, and protecting your mental sharpness for years to come.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Creativity

Q: How does creativity help keep the brain young?
A: Creativity acts like a workout for your brain. When you learn, express, or experiment creatively through painting, dancing, writing, or even gaming, you activate multiple brain regions at once, forcing them to communicate more efficiently.

This strengthens neural connections and helps delay the aging process of the brain. The study published in Nature Communications found that people deeply engaged in creative activities had brains that appeared five to seven years younger than their actual age.

Q: Do I have to be an artist or musician to benefit from creativity?
A: Not at all. The research made it clear that it’s the act of creating, not artistic talent, that delivers the benefits. Everyday creative choices such as journaling, cooking without a recipe, designing a garden, or even playing a strategy game keep your brain active and adaptable. The key is engagement and novelty. Challenge yourself to think or act in a new way stimulates neuroplasticity, your brain’s ability to rewire itself.

Q: How quickly do the benefits of creative activity show up?
A: Even short bursts of creativity can lead to measurable improvements. In one part of the study, participants who trained for just 30 hours in a creative video game reduced their biological brain age by about three years. This demonstrates how fast the brain responds to new challenges. You don’t need years of training — just consistent effort and curiosity over time.

Q: Which creative activities are most effective for brain health?
A: Activities that combine movement, rhythm, and emotional expression like dance or music produced the strongest antiaging effects in the study. Tango dancers’ brains appeared more than seven years younger, while musicians, visual artists, and strategy gamers also showed significant benefits. You’ll get the best results from activities that engage multiple senses or require coordination, imagination, and focus.

Q: How can I make creativity part of my everyday life?
A: Start small and stay consistent. Schedule at least 15 minutes daily for something creative. Try sketching, learning a new song, experimenting with new recipes, or writing ideas in a journal. If you’re busy, transform routine moments into playful ones — like inventing a new route to work or turning chores into challenges.

Combine your creativity with movement and sunlight when possible. This blend boosts oxygen flow, activates dopamine (the neurotransmitter associated with motivation), and enhances your brain’s natural resilience.

Your brain relies on magnesium to regulate energy, nerve function and blood flow, but most people don’t realize how easily they fall short. Even when your diet looks clean on paper, soil depletion, stress and common gut issues quietly interfere with magnesium absorption, creating a mismatch between what you eat and what your body can use.

What’s troubling is that magnesium deficiency rarely announces itself. You might notice brain fog or memory lapses, but write it off as normal aging. Meanwhile, beneath the surface, your brain could be edging toward structural changes that raise your risk for cognitive decline. One major clue comes from research published in Advances in Nutrition, where scientists found a precise threshold for magnesium in the blood linked to dementia risk.1

While many people don’t get enough magnesium, overdoing it also creates problems, forming a U-shaped risk curve that challenges the “more is better” approach. Your brain doesn’t just need magnesium; it needs it in the right range, consistently. And once that balance slips, your nervous system pays the price. Let’s dig into what researchers found and how it ties magnesium levels to long-term brain health.

Too Much or Too Little Magnesium Raises Dementia Risk

The Advances in Nutrition analysis explored how magnesium — measured through supplements, diet and blood levels — is linked to cognitive decline, dementia and overall brain aging.2

The study included data from three randomized controlled trials and 12 cohort studies, pooling insights from diverse adult populations around the world. Researchers used multiple statistical models to investigate whether there’s a clear pattern between magnesium status and mental decline. What they found was striking.

• Both low and high blood magnesium levels were tied to increased dementia risk — Instead of a simple “more is better” outcome, the findings showed a U-shaped curve. This means both ends of the spectrum, too little magnesium or too much, are linked to higher dementia risk.

The safest range, according to the researchers, centers around a serum magnesium level of 0.85 mmol/L. Compared to this midpoint, those with lower magnesium levels had a 43% higher risk of cognitive impairment, while those above the high end had a 30% greater risk.

• The body’s magnesium “sweet spot” protects your brain — People whose magnesium levels stayed within the range of 0.75 to 0.95 mmol/L had the lowest risk of dementia. The researchers believe this is because optimal magnesium levels support key protective processes in the brain, such as reducing inflammation and guarding against damage to brain cells.

• Magnesium helps prevent neurological breakdown through multiple pathways — Researchers identified several ways magnesium keeps your brain stable and functional. It helps maintain your blood-brain barrier, which acts as your brain’s security system by keeping harmful substances out.

It also preserves the structure of myelin, the fatty sheath around nerves that enables fast, accurate communication, and prevents nerve overstimulation, which, if left unchecked, leads to neuron burnout.

• Magnesium affects your blood vessels, too — not just neurons — The review also highlighted magnesium’s role in regulating blood pressure and vascular tone, two factors closely tied to dementia risk. Low magnesium triggers hormonal shifts and increases clotting agents, which raise the risk of stroke and brain damage, especially in older adults.

• Brain scans confirm structural benefits of optimal magnesium levels — In one cohort of 1,466 adults, those with higher serum magnesium had larger brain volumes and fewer small vessel infarcts — tiny strokes that silently destroy brain tissue. These individuals were 56% less likely to have signs of damage in the deeper parts of the brain compared to those with the lowest magnesium levels.

Higher Magnesium Intake Means a Younger, Healthier Brain

A large-scale study published in the European Journal of Nutrition looked at how daily dietary magnesium intake influences brain volume and white matter health.3 Researchers used brain scans from 6,001 participants between the ages of 40 and 73. The goal was to see if magnesium levels, and how they change over time, correspond to differences in brain aging — decades before cognitive decline or dementia would be diagnosed.

• People with higher magnesium intake had larger brain volumes and fewer brain lesions — On average, participants who consumed more magnesium had greater gray matter volume and healthier hippocampal regions — the parts of your brain responsible for learning and memory. These individuals also had fewer white matter lesions, which are signs of microdamage in the brain often linked to memory problems, reduced processing speed and higher dementia risk.

• Increased magnesium intake predicted more brain volume over time — Compared to people with normal intake levels, those in the top quartile of magnesium consumption (around 550 milligrams (mg) per day) had brains that looked nearly a full year younger, based on tissue volume. That 41% increase in magnesium intake correlated with a 0.20% increase in gray matter and a 0.46% increase in right hippocampal volume, a key marker of brain resilience.

• Magnesium benefits were tied to brain tissue, not blood pressure — Although magnesium is known to lower blood pressure, the researchers were surprised to find that its impact on brain health was not due to cardiovascular effects. Instead, the protection came from anti-inflammatory and neuro-supportive actions in the brain itself. White matter damage was reduced even when blood pressure remained unchanged.

• Long-term magnesium intake patterns mattered more than short-term spikes — The study broke participants into groups based on their magnesium “trajectory” over time: stable, increasing or decreasing. Those with consistently high intake, especially if they started high and dropped slightly, still showed strong brain protection. This suggests that lifetime patterns of adequate magnesium lock in structural brain benefits even if intake fluctuates later in life.

• Magnesium preserves both neurons and their support systems — Magnesium protects brain volume by enhancing how well brain cells communicate, reducing oxidative stress and slowing down inflammatory processes that damage brain tissue. These are some of the same mechanisms that underlie Alzheimer’s and age-related memory loss, making magnesium a valuable tool for brain health in middle age and beyond.

Vitamin D Status Influences How Magnesium Affects Your Memory

Research published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia analyzed data from 2,508 adults aged 60 and older who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2011 and 2014.4 The study set out to determine whether total magnesium intake, meaning from both food and supplements, was connected to cognitive performance in older adults.

• Higher magnesium intake was tied to better overall brain performance — After controlling for factors like age, income, education and calcium consumption, adults with the highest magnesium intake showed better overall cognitive performance than those with the lowest intake, with a 0.15-point advantage on standardized memory and attention tests.

That might sound like a small difference, but in large population data like this, it’s enough to signal a meaningful shift in mental clarity and memory strength.

• The benefit was strongest in people with “sufficient” vitamin D levels — Among those with vitamin D levels of 20 ng/mL (50 nmol/L) or higher, high magnesium intake led to even better results.

These participants scored higher on global cognitive function and showed greater accuracy on memory tests, particularly naming animals quickly, a marker of verbal memory and processing speed. Ideally, aim for vitamin D levels between 60 and 80 ng/mL (150 to 200 nmol/L).

• Magnesium also helps your brain by enhancing vitamin D’s performance — There’s a two-way relationship here: Vitamin D boosts magnesium absorption in your gut, while magnesium helps convert inactive vitamin D into its active form. That means if your magnesium is low, vitamin D won’t work properly, and vice versa. This interplay is likely why the strongest cognitive improvements were seen in people who had enough of both nutrients.

Magnesium and vitamin D work synergistically, along with vitamin K2. Combining all three supplements significantly reduces the amount of vitamin D needed to maintain optimal health. A study of 2,920 individuals indicated that many of those not taking magnesium and K2 required a remarkable 244% more oral vitamin D to achieve similar healthy levels compared to those who took magnesium and K2.5

Why I Recommend Magnesium Supplements Over Food Alone

If your brain feels foggy or your memory isn’t what it used to be, you’re not alone. Many people aren’t getting enough magnesium, even those eating a whole-food, plant-rich diet. And that’s not because you’re doing something wrong. It’s because our soil isn’t what it used to be. Thanks to industrial farming, magnesium levels in vegetables have dropped significantly.

Further, only about 30% to 40% of the magnesium you eat is actually absorbed.6 While I usually recommend food first when it comes to getting your nutrients, magnesium is one exception. Whole foods still matter, but when your goal is protecting your brain and slowing age-related decline, supplements are often needed to fill the gap. Here’s how I recommend you start.

1. Test your intake against your symptoms — If you struggle with low mood, mental fatigue, poor sleep or forgetfulness, there’s a good chance low magnesium is part of the problem. These are all signs your nervous system is underpowered. You won’t always catch this on a standard lab test, either. What matters most is how you feel and what you’re eating. Track your average daily intake and watch for signs of stress or cognitive slowdown.

2. Skip the nuts and seeds, even though they’re high in magnesium — Many nutritionists will tell you to eat pumpkin seeds or almonds to boost your magnesium levels. But the truth is, these are also loaded with linoleic acid (LA), a polyunsaturated fat that disrupts your mitochondria and increases inflammation. If your gut or metabolism is already struggling, these “healthy fats” will set you back. I don’t recommend relying on nuts or seeds as a magnesium source.

3. Stick with magnesium glycinate or magnesium malate for long-term — These forms are well tolerated and actually get into your tissues, where they matter. Glycinate is calming, making it ideal if you’re facing stress or poor sleep.

Malate helps with energy production, which is useful if you feel tired all the time. I don’t recommend magnesium oxide; it mostly passes through your system unused.

4. Use magnesium as a tool, not a crutch — Supplementing is wise, but don’t stop there. Magnesium works best when you’re also lowering stress, walking daily, sleeping deeply and eating a wide variety of whole foods. Think of it as a foundation, not a fix. Keep an eye on your body’s cues and adjust as needed. But remember, supporting optimal brain health requires a comprehensively healthy lifestyle.

FAQs About Magnesium and Your Brain

Q: What does magnesium do for your brain?

A: Magnesium helps regulate brain function by supporting your blood-brain barrier, reducing inflammation and protecting neurons from overstimulation. It also plays a key role in maintaining memory, focus and learning by helping to stabilize nerve signaling and prevent damage from excess calcium.

Q: How do I know if I’m low in magnesium?

A: Common signs include poor memory, brain fog, anxiety, trouble sleeping and fatigue. While there are blood tests to check serum magnesium levels, they’re not always reliable because most magnesium is stored in your tissues, not your blood. Many people are magnesium deficient, and if you experience high stress or have gut issues, you’re likely not getting enough.

Q: Can I get enough magnesium from food alone?

A: In theory, yes — but in reality, most people don’t. Modern soil depletion means even magnesium-rich foods contain far less than they used to. Plus, only about 30% to 40% of the magnesium you eat is actually absorbed. Many top sources like nuts and seeds are high in LA, which causes mitochondrial stress, so I don’t recommend them. For these reasons, many people benefit from magnesium supplementation.

Q: What’s the best type of magnesium to take?

A: Magnesium glycinate and magnesium malate are highly absorbable and easy on the digestive system. Glycinate is ideal if you need help calming your nervous system or improving sleep. Malate is better if your energy levels are low. Start by finding your ideal dose using magnesium citrate — until it causes slightly loose stools — then switch to one of these long-term.

Q: How much magnesium should I take each day?

A: Most adults need at least 400 mg daily, but the ideal dose varies by individual. The best way to find your personal dose is to gradually increase magnesium citrate until your stools begin to loosen, then reduce slightly. That level reflects your body’s saturation point, and it’s more reliable than guessing based on labels alone.

The public is at last awakening to the dirty secret of SSRI antidepressants — they trigger psychotic violence (e.g., suicides and sometimes mass shootings). This side effect was discovered in clinical trials but covered up by the FDA, even after the agency received a deluge of complaints (39,000 in the first nine years1) once the first SSRI, Prozac, hit the market. For example, consider how they acted at this 1991 Congressional hearing:

When SSRIs came out, the FDA was deluged with reports of suicide, homicide and mass shootings caused by those “antidepressants.” Lawsuits then revealed the industry knew that risk, but, just like now, the FDA hid it from the public. This 1991 FDA hearing will blow you mind as… pic.twitter.com/9OKEY5wNnE— A Midwestern Doctor (@MidwesternDoc) November 2, 2025
Video Link

Because of those deaths, lawsuits through discovery found the drug companies were well aware of these issues (and many more) but chose to conceal them. As such, we now have a much clearer picture of the harms of these medications.

Note: While many patients react badly to SSRIs, there is also a subset of patients who benefit from SSRI antidepressants (discussed here). Sadly, it is quite rare that patients will work with antidepressant prescriber practitioners who have the time and knowledge to accurately determine which patients to give these drugs to.

The Toxicology Bell Curve

In toxicology, you will typically see severe and extreme reactions occur much less frequently than moderate reactions:

For example, consider the distribution of injuries from the COVID-19 vaccines.

Note: These calculations were based on 2023 data,2 and since then, vastly more evidence of harm has emerged (e.g., a 2025 poll found 63 million American adults had minor reactions to the vaccine and 17 million had severe side effects3).

As such, violent psychosis is just the tip of the iceberg for the mind-altering effects SSRIs have. For example, in a survey of 1,829 patients on antidepressants in New Zealand:4

• 62% reported sexual difficulties
• 60% felt emotionally numb
• 52% felt not like themselves
• 47% had experienced agitation
• 39% cared less about others

Most importantly, the respondents to that survey reported that their prescribers did not warn them about many of these side effects.

Doctored Data

Originally developed as a weight loss drug, Eli Lilly pivoted to having Prozac “treat” depression as this metric was subjective to the point any trial could be doctored to show a “benefit.” Despite this, Prozac’s initial data was so atrocious, it could only be approved through bribes (which a former Eli Lilly executive testified occurred).

This fraud is proven by patients consistently choosing to stop taking SSRIs despite them being “proven” to make you feel better:

• A review of 29 published and 11 unpublished Paxil clinical trials containing 3,704 patients who received Paxil and 2,687 who received a placebo, an equal proportion of patients in both groups left their study early (suggesting Paxil’s benefits did not outweigh its side effects), and that compared to placebo, 77% more stopped the drug because of side effects and 155% more stopped because they experienced suicidal tendencies.5

• A study of 7,525 patients found that 56% of them chose to stop taking an SSRI within 4 months of being prescribed it.6

• An international survey of 3,516 people from 14 patient advocacy groups found that 44% had permanently stopped taking a psychiatric drug due to its side effects.7

• A survey of 500 patients found 81.5% were unsure if their antidepressants were necessary.8

Note: Fluorinated versions of pharmaceuticals tend to be more toxic and persist for longer periods in the body (making them much harder to detoxify from). Many believe a key reason SSRIs cause so many issues is due to the high dose of fluoride they bring into the brain.

Violent Behavior

In 1985 when the FDA’s safety reviewer scrutinized Eli Lilly’s Prozac application, they realized Lilly had “failed” to report psychotic episodes of people on the drug and that Prozac’s adverse effects resembled that of a stimulant drug.

In turn, the warnings on the labels for SSRIs, such as anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia, hypomania, and mania match the effects commonly observed with stimulant street drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine.9 Likewise:

• A Cochrane review found SSRIs were found to double the risk of suicide.10
• A 2000 study of 20 volunteers in good mental health found Zoloft made 10% become suicidal (with one almost killing themselves) — both of whom remained deeply disturbed for months.11
• Eli Lilly showed in 1978 that cats who had been friendly for years began to growl and hiss on Prozac and became distinctly unfriendly until Prozac was stopped.12

To illustrate what this can look like, I will share what four different patients experienced prior to killing themselves or others:13

“A month later, Toran experienced a severe cluster of adverse reactions including suicidal behavior, self-harm, aggression, hostility, hallucinations, lack of concentration and impaired functioning. The symptoms were so severe that he dropped out of school. His psychiatrist’s response was to increase his dose, which worsened the adverse reactions.

Six days later, Jake had his first reaction. He walked out of an exam half-way through it and cried for about 2-3 hours that night, saying, ‘You don’t know what it’s like in my head.’ His parents thought this was from the stress of the exams. They never imagined that a drug could do this to a person.

The last two days she was just a complete zombie I have to say. She was just agitated, jumping at every noise and not making sense. I was very concerned. We were very close to Cecily. I just loved her deeply.

Shortly before his death, Woody came home crying after driving around all day. He sat in a fetal position on the kitchen floor profusely sweating with his hands pressing around his head saying, ‘Help me. Help me. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I am losing my mind. It’s like my head is outside my body looking in.'”

Note: The process through which SSRIs do this (e.g., some individuals report an experience akin to “being possessed”) is discussed further here.

Fortunately, thanks to MAHA being elected to office, after decades, there at last appears to be real interest in addressing this issue. Consider, for example, this statement from H.H.S. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:

Note: Initially, the media disclosed school shooters were on SSRIs, but then stopped ever mentioning a shooter’s medications. I learned through a CDC employee the CDC has found shooters continue to be on SSRIs but has avoided disclosing it to avoid the political ramifications of acknowledging this.

Likewise, the agitating quality of SSRIs can frequently trigger Bipolar disorder. For example:

• Yale researchers reviewing the records of 87,290 patients with depression or anxiety found SSRIs made 7.7% become bipolar each year (tripling the rate patients become bipolar).14

• A survey found 60% of bipolar patients become bipolar after receiving SSRIs for depression.15

• Peter Breggin reported that of 184 hospitalized patients started on an SSRI, 11 developed mania and 8 became psychotic, and in Yale, 8% of 533 consecutive admissions were for mania or psychosis caused by antidepressants, with two patients heard voices commanding them to kill themselves.16

This helps to explain why bipolar has become hundreds of times more common since the pre-SSRI era and switched from being a temporary to lifelong condition that is far more disruptive and difficult to treat (e.g., 83% of bipolar patients reported being severely impaired in some facet of their lives).17,18

Note: A good case can be made that many of the severe complications from bipolar disorder are a result of the medications used to treat it rather than the disease itself.

Sexual Dysfunction

One of the most common ways antidepressants worsen depression is by causing permanent sexual dysfunction. For example, a Spanish study of five of the most commonly prescribed SSRIs found on average the drugs caused sexual disturbances in 59% of 1,022 (previously normal) patients, two-thirds of whom considered that dysfunction unacceptable and that:19,20

• 57% experienced decreased libido
• 57% experienced delayed orgasm or ejaculation
• 46% experienced no orgasm or ejaculation
• 31% experienced erectile dysfunction or decreased vaginal lubrication

Remarkably, to avoid scaring patients away from a “necessary” prescription, doctors rarely warn their patients of these side effects. Fortunately, two months ago, the New York Times finally brought mainstream attention to this and exposed that virtually no psychiatrist will disclose this issue to patients.21 To quote the article:

“Only over the past few years has Ruth learned, from her daughter, about the sexual side effects she still lives with and about her grief. ‘Her erogenous zones don’t work,’ ‘I have huge, terrible regret’ about allowing her child to be medicated. ‘I can’t believe I so easily said yes.’

He took a moderate dose, a 10 milligram pill, and an hour later, he said, ‘I had numb genitals.’ He abandoned the drug almost right away and has taken no psychiatric medication since. ‘Three years later,’ he explained, his penis ‘feels like my elbow — if you touch my elbow, it’s that same kind of sensation.’

And there is emotional numbness to go with the physical. ‘I can’t feel any connection to you guys — I feel like my soul was ripped out of my body.’ He has tried to get doctors to pay attention. ‘They were like: That’s impossible. It’s all in your head.’

But she noticed quickly that on the drug, climaxes became ‘superficial’ and ‘so short-lived,’ she recalled. ‘It infused a dominant emotion of frustration into sex.’ Her capacity for transporting sex is still mostly relegated to the past, and she worries that it will stay back there forever.

It has been six years since Guin stopped taking her S.S.R.I. She is 29. ‘I don’t have the capacity for romantic relationships,’ she said. ‘That’s just gone in a stark way. For me, the chemical mechanisms of the romantic are too deeply tied in with sexuality for the romantic to exist independently … She has just had her first child.

Because she has no partner, she used in vitro fertilization.’ ‘I wanted a partner,’ she said. ‘I wanted a child to grow up with their mom and dad. Your sexual life is so core when you consider that the sexual relationship is the basis for most long-term relationships.'”

Emotional Anesthesia

Much in the same way SSRIs make you “sexually numb” they can do the same to emotions. Common stories include:

• Losing the drive to exit a toxic situation (e.g., a relationship or job) and wasting years if not decades in it.
• Losing the joy one felt in life.
• Losing the depth and richness of life.

Note: In psychiatry, this effect is termed “emotional blunting,” and the studies I’ve reviewed found 40% to 60% of SSRI users experience this.

Worse still, SSRIs can also cause a variety of other disconcerting psychiatric changes (e.g., many report it feeling as though they are losing their mind).

Birth Defects

It is also unconscionable SSRIs are pushed on pregnant mothers. This skit exposes the absurdity of the practice. pic.twitter.com/zx5qqj6xgT— A Midwestern Doctor (@MidwesternDoc) January 16, 2026
Video Link

To increase sales, SSRIs are routinely pushed on pregnant mothers despite the fact:

• SSRIs increase the risk of premature births, with the greatest risk (a doubling) occurring if an SSRI is taken during the third trimester.22

• SSRIs significantly increase the risk of septal defects (which often require heart surgery to repair). One study of 500,000 Danish infants found taking a single SSRI while pregnant caused the likelihood of the child having one to go from 0.5% to 0.9% while taking two or more increased it to 2.1% (with the worst SSRIs tripling the risk).23

• SSRIs significantly increase the risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension in a newborn baby. One study of 1,173 infants found SSRIs increased the risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension by 6.1 times,24 while another found a 4.29X increase,25 and a third found a 2.5X increase.26

Note: Other newborn complications linked to SSRIs include irritability, tremor, hypertonia, and difficulty sleeping or breastfeeding, along with reduced growth early in life.

SSRI Withdrawals

One of the most insidious aspects of SSRIs is that they are dosed so that you can easily enter severe withdrawals if you change their dose.27,28

This is immensely unfortunate as:

• To “cure” an SSRI dependence (which is analogous to an addiction), you need to let the brain rewire itself back to normal, and until that happens, the brain will behave in an abnormal fashion (e.g., its ability to adapt to outside stressors in a healthy way is dramatically reduced). Since this is often a very slow back and forth process, the journey patients go through is frequently something like this as the brain tries to rewire itself:

• It’s very hard to quit the drugs without triggering withdrawals, as in many cases, minuscule drops need to be made over months (e.g., by lightly sanding off part of a pill slightly more each week), with the entire withdrawal process typically taking years — particularly since psychiatric patients tend to be on so many drugs (which are often given to manage the consequences of other medications) — and typically only one can be withdrawn from at a time.

• These withdrawals are often quite severe, and in many cases, a SSRI dose change (either an increase or decrease) has been linked to violent or suicidal behavior.

• Physicians typically interpret these withdrawals as proof “the medication was working and needs to be continued” because they chose to believe the SSRI was keeping an existing mental disease in check rather than causing severe psychiatric destabilization. As such, much like the bipolar example, when SSRIs create withdrawal issues, rather than recognize it, they will typically prescribe psychiatric medications to manage the new issues.

When people read other people’s stories, they realize that they’re not the only person that’s experiencing that problem. There are 6,000 relatively complete case histories [on SurvivingAntidepressants]. You realize it’s all the same story. It’s one story.

And each person who experiences it is so surprised that it happened to them — people go through a period of absolute disbelief. They realize that they’ve been trusting their doctors to have a certain amount of knowledge, and their doctors don’t actually have that knowledge.

And you know, this is heartbreaking. I went through this, and I felt that the world had fallen out from underneath me. There wasn’t any medical safety net. So the sociological phenomenon exists, and has not yet filtered into medicine [this is also exactly what has happened with the COVID-19 vaccines].

Medicine has its own ways of gathering information, and in psychiatry, for some reason, they keep asking each other what the truth is instead of asking their patients. The patient voice is not very well recognized in psychiatry at all.29

Additionally, less severe (and often fluctuating) withdrawal symptoms also occur such as:

• The feeling of an electric shock in your arms, legs, or head (these horrible things are commonly referred to as “brain zaps” and have happened to so many people I know)
• Dizziness (mild to severe)
• Visual problems
• A large number of sensitivities (e.g., to light, heat, a supplement or food)
• Anxiety which comes and goes, sometimes in intense ‘surges’
• Difficulty in getting to sleep and vivid or frightening dreams
• Low mood, feeling unable to be interested in or enjoy things
• A sense of being physically unwell
• Rapidly changing moods (e.g., spontaneous weeping spells, attacks of sheer terror, or sudden plunges into unprecedented contentless black holes of pure dread)
• Anger, sleeplessness, tiredness, loss of co-ordination, and headache
• A feeling that things are not real (‘derealisation’), or a feeling that you have ‘cotton wool in your head’
• Difficulty in concentrating
• Suicidal thoughts
• Queasiness or indigestion
• A feeling of inner restlessness and inability to stay still (this is known as akathisia and often precedes psychotic SSRI violence)
• Crippling muscle pain or spasms

Furthermore, these reactions are very common. A meta-analysis found that 56% of patients who stop using SSRIs experience withdrawals, that 46% who stop an SSRI experience severe withdrawals, and that these withdrawals last for weeks to months. Additionally, it is well known in the SSRI recovery community that the risk of a withdrawal varies greatly depending on the drug (Paxil is notorious for this, Cymbalta is also a common offender).30

Note: A 1996 door to door survey of 2003 randomly selected people in England found that 78% of them considered SSRIs to be addictive.31

Sadly, the industry is well aware of this, to the point they will often deliberately put “placebo” subjects in SSRI trials into withdrawals (by terminating their existing prescription) so they can dishonestly make the drug group look “better” than the “placebo” patients.

Pharmaceutical companies are frequently accused of operating as “organized drug dealers,” an argument especially common with SSRIs due to their (addictive) potential for dependence and how aggressively they are promoted to everyone.

Conclusion

Since the pharmaceutical industry is fundamentally driven by a need to maximize sales, drugs will routinely be brought to market that benefit a small subset of patients but then be marketed to an ever increasing number of people (e.g., the SSRI manufacturers invested heavily in convincing the public normal emotions actually “needed” lifelong SSRI treatment and that depression is a “chemical imbalance in the brain” despite no evidence supporting this).

Because of this, these mass marketed ‘blockbuster’ drugs frequently cause far more harm than any benefit they can provide. As such, members of the population are typically on multiple drugs like this (e.g., statins for “high” cholesterol), this results in healthcare costs continually going up while the general populace becomes sicker and sicker.

This downhill spiral needs to stop, and for the first time in my lifetime, the political will to acknowledge and address the harms overprescribed pharmaceutical drugs are inflicting upon society at last exists (e.g., consider RFK’s statements on antidepressants).

For things to shift, it is imperative for each of us to begin openly discussing these taboo subjects and make those we care about be aware of the real risks from pharmaceutical medications doctors rarely warn us about. I thank each of you for doing that and helping to end this; far too many people I know have had their lives ruined by SSRI antidepressants.

Author’s Note: This is an abridged version of a longer article which discusses the above points in much more detail (e.g., who benefits from SSRIs, how to safely withdraw from them) along with reviewing alternative treatment options such as psychedelic assisted psychotherapy.

That article and its additional references can be read here. Additionally, a companion article about the depression industry (e.g., how marketers managed to convince everyone they were depressed) and effective natural therapies for depression can be read here, while a companion article about the anxiety industry, natural therapies for anxiety, and the dangers of benzodiazepines can be read here.

A Note from Dr. Mercola About the Author

A Midwestern Doctor (AMD) is a board-certified physician from the Midwest and a longtime reader of Mercola.com. I appreciate AMD’s exceptional insight on a wide range of topics and am grateful to share it. I also respect AMD’s desire to remain anonymous since AMD is still on the front lines treating patients. To find more of AMD’s work, be sure to check out The Forgotten Side of Medicine on Substack.