Is body fat percentage a good way to determine a healthy weight?

A 14% body fat is considered excellent for a healthy male, but it may not indicate a "healthy" weight. Body fat percentage, just like weight, depends on multiple factors that can vary per person, such as overall health, metabolism (how your body burns excess calories for energy or stores them as fat), amount of activity, and musculature.

Also, where you store body fat has a significant impact on health risks. Even if your weight is close to the normal range, a large waist size may mean you have an unhealthy amount of belly fat (visceral fat).

Larger amounts of belly fat increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease. Therefore, its possible that you could have a good overall body fat percentage yet still be at higher risk if the fat is concentrated at your waistline.

Rather than relying on one measurement like body fat percentage or body mass index to determine if you are overweight use two measurements: waist size and ratio of waist size to hip size.

• Waist size. Wrap a measuring tape just above your navel to find your waist size. Ideally men should strive for 90 cm or less.
• Ratio of waist size to hip size. Measure your hips around the widest part of your buttocks. Then divide your waist size by your hip size. The ideal waist-to-hip ratio for men is 0.9. If your number is higher, you may have too much belly fat. (Harvard)

Inflammation in Midlife Linked to Later Cognitive Decline

Higher blood levels of inflammatory markers in midlife are associated with greater cognitive decline many years later in the decades leading up to older adulthood. Maintaining health and thereby reducing inflammation in middle age can have positive effects on brain health in older adulthood. The study was published online February 13 in Neurology.

In the current study, the researchers measured several inflammatory markers in blood samples from cognitively normal individuals in mid-adulthood, in their 40s and 50s. They then followed these people for the next two decades and measured cognitive decline. They found that those with higher levels of inflammatory markers in midlife had steeper rates of cognitive decline over the next 20 years.

The most impactful thing about this study is that it suggests that inflammation may have a detrimental effect on later cognition much earlier in life than we have previously thought. Things that we do in our 40s and 50s seem to affect our cognitive heath in our 70s and 80s.

Major causes of inflammation include heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and hypertension — and avoiding these conditions can lower levels of inflammation in the body. Exercise lowers inflammation and we know certain foods — like saturated fats and sugar — cause inflammation. The Mediterranean diet has been shown to lower inflammation and has also been linked to reduced risk of dementia.

e-cigarettes can be life saver for tobacco smokers (quit or substitute)

1. Nicotine containing non-tobacco e-cigarettes are better than smoking tobacco cigarettes as they can wean tobacco smoker from bad habits and reduce tobacco-related diseases.
2. E-cigarettes contain nicotine and its use resembles smoking. Both these characteristics are crucial for the role of e-cigarettes in tobacco harm reduction, a strategy to reduce harm from risky behaviours using less harmful alternatives.
3. In tobacco harm reduction the key is absence of combustion, which is responsible for tar, CO and all of the toxins that a smoker inhales. E-cigarettes have no combustion and do not contain tobacco and are by far less harmful than smoking and fit perfectly to the definition of tobacco harm reduction.
4. Both in US and UK long-term (even life-long) use of nicotine in the form of pharmaceutical nicotine replacement therapies as smoking and tobacco substitutes has been approved with proven long-term safety.
5. e-cigarettes quality and sale need to be regulated with prohibition in < 21 years of age.