Too Turnt Tuesday: Your Hippocampus Walks Into a Bar...

Brain Science, Aspartame, & Snake Oil Salesmen

Author

Colin Dragon
September 05, 2023

Welcome back to the Daily Dumbbell, where we turn the confusing world of health and fitness into child’s play. Without the murderous dolls.

We’re back to daily delivery this week with a slightly different format and we’d love to hear your feedback! Stick around to the end to let us know your thoughts.

Let’s dive in!

Research Roundup

Who are you calling a hippo-campus?!

Our homies from the Perelman School of Medicine just discovered that for folks with a high BMI (especially those with EDs) there is a "disrupted connection" between the dorsolateral hippocampus (the memory powerhouse) and the lateral hypothalamus (the hunger control room).

Don’t worry, you won’t be quizzed on those.

Dr. Halpern, the main guy behind this research, says that people’s brains can actually be wired differently in ways that up their risk for obesity.

It's not about willpower or just eating carrots instead of carrot cake. We might need some brain 'electricians' to fix the circuitry!

Unfortunately it’s not quite as simple as bonking the TV to get a more clear picture.

But how did they figure this out?

By monitoring patients’ brains while they were getting hype for a chocolate milkshake (relatable).

The two brain areas lit up together, showing they were closely connected. However, for the obese patients there appeared to be a fuzzy connection. The heavier the patient, the more messy this connection was.

What’s next? Developing therapies to treat this frayed connection.

Teach Me Tuesday

You likely heard all about Aspartame over the last couple months after the WHO decided to classify it as possibly carcinogenic.

Frankly, the decision was dumb, dangerous, and completely unfounded. There is no reason whatsoever to believe Aspartame causes cancer, but we don’t want you to just take our word for it, so we’ve compiled some resources here to help explain.

A Shallow Dive: A 30 Second Overview

A Medium Dive: This Article from a dentist who argues from an oral health standpoint.

“Aspartame is one of the most studied food additives in the human food supply. FDA scientists do not have safety concerns when aspartame is used under the approved conditions.”

What do you think about the controversy around Aspartame? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Twitter Tuesday

So much of nutrition education is deprogramming. Unlearning the harmful ideas and tropes that have been instilled in us.

Diet culture is real and if you don’t stop and look around from time to time, you can find yourself in the matrix following along with disordered eating patterns, developing unhealthy relationships to food & exercise.

Life’s better when you break free.

In his best selling book Change Maker, Jon Berardi explains the #1 problem in the health and fitness industry: The Gap.

The ever widening gap in understanding, education, & expertise between the experts in the industry and the general public. There are incredible people working to close that gap, but there are also charlatans and grifters working to widen it.

Why? There’s a lot of money to be made off of people who don’t know better. The supplement industry is worth $140B today and is expected to double by the end of the decade.

The vast majority of these supplements are unregulated and do *literally nothing*. You can’t save everyone, but you can save yourself!

We hope you enjoyed today’s edition! If you can take a second to rate us we’d love to hear what you think.