Dr. Gabe Mirkin on Fitness, Health and Nutrition

Chat with Dr. Mirkin’s AI research assistant about health issues that are discussed on the site

Preventing Dementia

Preventing Dementia

More than one in 10 North Americans, or 5.1 million, suffer from dementia. Today there is no effective treatment for dementia, but in the last month, several reports have shown that dementia may be delayed and prevented.

Some Athletes will Always Cheat to Win

Some Athletes will Always Cheat to Win

Taking drugs that can harm you gives athletes a major unfair advantage over other athletes who do not take drugs. Many athletes at the highest level of sports are taking drugs that can harm them and this practice is extremely unlikely to diminish in the future.

Mal Whitfield, Olympian and Tuskegee Airman

Mal Whitfield, Olympian and Tuskegee Airman

Mal Whitfield was twice Olympic champion at 800 meters and one of America’s greatest track and field athletes ever. Whitfield set six world records, won eight United States national titles, was elected to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1974 and the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 1988.

Alcohol Has No Health Benefits

Alcohol Has No Health Benefits

A study from New Zealand showed that 30 per cent of alcohol–related deaths were from cancer, and 60 per cent of those deaths were from breast cancer. One third of these deaths were associated with an average of fewer than two drinks a day.

Storing Fat in Your Liver Can Kill You

Storing Fat in Your Liver Can Kill You

North America’s epidemic of obesity, diabetes and heart attacks appears to be fueled by storing fat in the liver, muscles and around organs, rather than just in fat cells, excess calories, sugar added to foods and drinks and lack of exercise.

Alcohol Has No Health Benefits

How Eating Less May Prolong Life

Restricting calories, even in non-obese people, reduces inflammation, helps to prevent cancers and increases autophagy. Autophagy or cellular recycling extends the lives of many different species. Autophagy means “self-eating.” When a cell dies, the body has a quick way to break down the dead cell’s parts (protein-making, power-generating and transport systems) into small molecules that can be reassembled to be used for making new cell parts.

Preventing Dementia

Gut Bacteria and Auto-Immune Diseases

New studies show that two auto-immune diseases, chronic fatigue syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis, may be caused by having pro-inflammatory bacteria in your gut. These bacteria are likely to punch holes in your intestines, which allows bacteria to slip into your bloodstream to cause inflammation.

Mal Whitfield, Olympian and Tuskegee Airman

Kathleen Baker, Amazing Olympian with Crohn’s Disease

Kathleen Baker made the 2016 United States Olympic Swimming Team by finishing second in the women’s 100-meter backstroke at the United States trials. To be able to be in the Olympics, she had to have incredible drive and the ability to suffer pain from intense training day after day from early childhood. But there is far more than just the pain of training for this 19-year-old UC/Berkeley student.

Some Athletes will Always Cheat to Win

Strength Training Guidelines

1. People need to learn a correct range of motion for each exercise that is within their capability and practice that with lighter resistance. 2. There is not a lot of convincing data on repetition duration, but what there is including work we have done here, suggests for each exercise taking about three seconds for the concentric part of the rep, and three seconds for the eccentric part.