Bear Grylls Now Loves Meat, Probiotics, Reaching a Healthy Old Age, Low Carb Diet and Omega 3 Lowers the Risk of Alzheimer's

by Guest Author September 26, 2022

In this post:

After many years of being vegan, Bear Grylls now eats steak for lunch.
Restoring microbiome diversity with probiotics.
Can humans live forever (at least theoretically)?
The impact of a low-carb diet on common medications.
Omega 3 supplementation lowers the risk of Alzheimer’s, high blood pressure and muscle wasting.

1. Bear Grylls Used to Be a Vegan. Now He Loves Liver.

Image source: Wikimedia / The National Churches Trust

For many years adventurer Bear Grylls has been a massive advocate of the vegan lifestyle. Now his diet consists of lots of red meat, dairy, eggs, butter and some fruit. Liver, in particular, is one of his favourite foods.

Now at 48 years old, Grylls can easily do 25 pull-ups with a weighted vest as a pre-workout routine.

Read this GQ interview, where Bear Grylls talks more about why he had to rethink a plant-based diet, his intermittent fasting routine and avoiding nuts and raw vegetables.

2. Ask These 3 Questions Before Buying Probiotics

The reason I call it “The Second Brain” is that, like the brain in the head, the nervous system of the gut is able to function and control reflexes and behavior independently of any influence from the brain or spinal cord.”
—Michael Gershon

Prebiotics and probiotics can help get your GI system back on track, but there are a lot of confusing choices with these gut supplements.

When choosing your probiotics, fundamentally, there are 3 key considerations:

Am I getting the billions of CFUs as labeled?
Are the bacteria still alive when I receive them?
Do they survive the stomach acid?

Layer Origin PureHMO Synbiotic formula contains a potent 1000 mg of prebiotic (Human Milk Oligosaccharide) and 10 different strains of lacto- and bifido- probiotics, 40 Billion CFU. For comparison, most other probiotic supplements contain just a small amount (<50 mg) of prebiotics. Layer Origin overdose to 125% at the time of production to ensure you are getting at least what is labelled.

Akkermansia muciniphila , the main bacteria that tightens the gut mucosal lining, is an anaerobe, meaning it will die when exposed to oxygen. However, Pendulum has found a way to manufacture this tricky strain and offer it in a capsule form.

To satisfy the 3 selection criteria outlined above:

Pendulum load their Akkermansia supplement with 260 million AFU so that there is significant overage to support the 100 million AFU on the label.
Stability testing results prove bacteria are still alive as per above AFU count: Stored cool dry place – 1 yr ; Refrigerated – 2yr ; Frozen – 4yr (so far)
Akkermansia's enteric capsule is acid-resistant, meaning it is tough enough to get through the very acidic stomach, through the small intestines, and into the large intestines where it can do its job.

Listen to the Peter Attia podcast where he and Mike Gershon, a Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology at Columbia University, discuss the gut-brain connection, microbiome diversity, and the way we can restore its balance.

3. How To Reach a Healthy Old Age

The best bets to live to a ripe old age seem to be on reducing the burden of chronic inflammation and identifying lifestyle factors that improve metabolic health.

For example, robust evidence indicates that exercise, sauna use, cold exposure, eating plenty of polyphenol-rich fruits and vegetables, and many other lifestyle factors slow aspects of aging.

Epidemiological studies have correlated higher spermidine levels with longer, healthier life. The gut biome and our tissues produce 2/3 of our body's spermidine. This is known as "endogenous production". The final third comes "exogenously" or externally from our diet.

As we age, spermidine production in our tissues and gut biome begins to fall, reducing autophagy, and therefore cell renewal. But supplementing with spermidine can trigger autophagy again, make up for the loss of spermidine as we get older, and inhibit these 6 hallmarks of ageing:

Oxford Healthspan Primeadine Original and Primeadine GF (Gluten Free Spermidine) are both wholly food-derived with the amount of spermidine, 1mg, that has been used in human clinical trials showing enhancement of memory and cognition.

Watch the YouTube video below where Dr Rhonda Patrick dives into longevity and whether human lives are theoretically unlimited.

4. Medication Awareness With Very Low Carb Diets

Clinicians are well-versed in the therapeutic use of very low carb (ketogenic) diets but understanding the impact of diet on common medications is important to keep patients safe.

While the diet itself is safe, it may induce changes to metabolism and electrolyte balance, which in turn may cause patients to be overmedicated. [Source].

Read the full Biotics Research article.

5. Omega 3 Supplementation Lowers Alzheimer's Disease Risk

Omega 3 can potentially be a cost-effective, low-risk dietary intervention to lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. [Source] According to the study, people with a higher blood DHA level are 49% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Increased DHA supplementation is particularly effective among higher-risk individuals such as those carrying the APOE-ε4 allele.

Another study supports the evidence of Omega 3 supplementation for lowering blood pressure. [Source] In general, people who have high blood concentrations – an Omega-3 index of about 8% to12% – are far less likely to die from all causes of premature death than those with lower concentrations.

Another finding states that high-dose Omega-3 supplementation during immobilization has a robust effect on preventing muscle wasting and facilitating full recovery (even with passive recovery). [Source]

Increasing intake of DHA and EPA Omega 3s is easy with Primal Collective™ Omega-3 from marine algae oil. The ecological choice. Provides a meaningful dose of Omega 3s with 300 EPA and 500 DHA per serving.

Check out this guide to learn how to get more Omega 3 into your diet.

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