Maca Root and Updated Features

Hi there, 

My latest article (below) is on the research studies on maca root powder. Maca is a traditional medicinal food from the Andes with benefits for balancing hormones both for women and men. 

I'm also working hard on some behind-the-scenes updates that will hopefully add more value for members. 

With well over 350 major articles, I've been struggling to make the connections between topics easier to understand. This week, I'm rolling out concept tags at the end of the articles. These tags are keywords curated from the article, including common symptoms, key pathways, biological concepts, vitamins, and supplements. I'm going through each article to pick out these keywords so that members will be better able to connect concepts across multiple articles. Members will also be able to choose articles by concept tags on the dashboard. 

I also wanted to let everyone know about two spin-off websites that I have:  LongevityLifehacks.me and LongSpike.com.  

After running up against the censors multiple times on social media and Google when sharing peer-reviewed research studies on the effects of the spike protein, I decided to move away from including the studies on Genetic Lifehacks. There are no earth-shattering revelations on the Long Spike website, but perhaps it will be informative for someone trying to tie together the threads of research.

Longevity Lifehacks has been a side project for several years. It is simply my collection of articles on healthspan and longevity. Healthspan is a topic that I've been personally pursuing and wanted to share what I've learned. Writing, for me, is an excellent way to organize my thoughts and distill out the important information. 

Gratefully yours,

Debbie

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Maca Root: Research-backed Benefits and How It Works

Key takeaways:
~Maca root is a cruciferous vegetable with adaptogenic properties used as a supplement.
~ Dried maca extract balances hormone levels, making it helpful for menopausal symptoms. It also may help with muscle building.
~ Discover the benefits of maca root, the potential side effects, and the possible interactions with your genes.

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What I’ve been reading:

 The impact of food order on postprandial glycaemic excursions in prediabetes

This study abstract is one of several studies I have read recently on how food order impacts insulin and blood glucose swings. When you eat, insulin is released and blood glucose levels rise -- and then both levels will fall, often below the baseline. 

This study shows clearly how eating protein first (or protein plus fat), and then eating carbs, causes less insulin and blood glucose spike and much less of the blood sugar drop a few hours later. This likely means that you won't be craving food again two hours later in response to low blood glucose.

The neat thing about the study linked above is that they used the same foods -- essentially a deconstructed sandwich with ciabatta bread, chicken breast, lettuce, tomatoes, pepper, and oil and vinegar. The only change was in the order of eating. For one trial of the study the participants ate the meat and veggies first and then the bread ten minutes later. The next trial was bread  first, followed by meat and then veggies. They also looked at just veggies first, followed by meat and then bread.

The differences in the blood glucose spike and drop were quite impressive. I'll paste the image below. 

At some point, I'm going to put all of these studies on food order together in an article. It seems like something that everyone should know -- especially anyone watching their weight or with pre-diabetes.