Olive Oil for the Win

In this edition, a by-product of olive oil shows exercise benefits, there's good news and bad for sleep's connection to dementia, and let's not forget your weekly recommendations.

The Rundown

Olive Oil for the Win. New research has found that a by-product typically thrown away during the production of olive oil could have exercise benefits. Olive fruit water had positive effects on several markers of running performance.

Nutrition researchers from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK, recruited 29 recreationally active people who consumed either OliPhenolia, a commercially available olive fruit water product containing phenolic compounds and hydroxytyrosol, or a placebo matched for taste and appearance for 16 consecutive days. (Olives contain polyphenols, which have antioxidant properties).

The people on the concentrated olive fruit water improved their respiratory parameters at the beginning of exercise, along with their oxygen consumption and running economy at lower levels of intensity. Acute recovery after incremental exercise also improved.

The researchers plan to investigate if the product can be used for marathon training and recovery and test its effectiveness in reducing inflammation associated with exercise.

The team notes that the study was funded by the company (Fattoria La Vialla, Arezzo, Italy) that makes the olive fruit water but the funders had no role in the design of the peer-reviewed study, the collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, the writing of the paper or the decision to publish the results.

Sleep & Dementia. The link between sleep disorders, whether it’s not enough or poor quality, and an increased risk of dementia has been documented by various studies in recent years and now, a new paper has some good news/bad news for the sleep-dementia connection.

The bad news: Researchers from SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, New York, found that older adults who had trouble falling asleep within 30 minutes of going to bed, or used sleep medication, had an increased risk of dementia.

The team looked at 10 annual waves of data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), an analysis that highlighted cognitive decline over time. The data came from a nationally representative sample of more than 6,000 Medicare recipients aged 65 years and older. It only included those who were free from dementia in 2011. Over the ten-year period, about 13.6% of the sample were diagnosed with dementia.

The good news: While the risk of dementia rose for those who had trouble falling asleep, dementia risk was less for those who had difficulty falling back to sleep after waking. The researchers are unclear why this was the case and hope further studies into disruptions and overall length of sleep will reveal more.

Extra Point

Watch

Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker. A tennis sensation who won Wimbledon when he was 17, Boris Becker would go on to win 49 career titles, including six Grand Slams and an Olympic gold medal. He has also had a high profile, sometimes turbulent personal life and in late April 2022, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for hiding assets and loans to avoid paying debts.

This two-part docuseries features a series of interviews with Becker (including one held the week of his sentencing), his immediate family and tennis stars John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, Novak Djokovic, Mats Wilander and Michael Stich. Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker premieres on Apple TV+ on April 7.

Listen

The Ultimate Health Podcast. Hosts Jesse Chappus and Marnie Wasserman interview experts in the health and wellness community who discuss nutrition, fitness, meditation, diet and sleep. The goal of their podcast is to approach mainstream medical thinking with holistic information and alternative viewpoints.

Read

The Key to Happiness is Living in Reality. In this quick take, The Growth Equation’s Brad Stulberg ponders social media, and AI to explore the link between the quality of our feelings and our ability to live in reality. “Tools to falsify reality for the sake of attention and status will continue to improve,” he writes. “This means it will be more important, and more challenging, than ever to live in actual reality.”