broth vs pharma

 

Sama Hoole

@SamaHoole

Every hospital in Britain had a stockpot on the stove until approximately the 1960s. Every workhouse before that. Every military mess. Every school kitchen. Every farmhouse. Every household that could afford bones, which was every household, because bones were the cheapest thing the butcher sold. The stockpot ran continuously. Beef bones, pork bones, chicken carcasses, lamb shanks. The bones went in with water and were simmered for 12, 18, 24 hours. The broth that came out was the foundation of every soup, every stew, every gravy, every sauce. Bone broth contains collagen, which breaks down into gelatin during cooking. Gelatin provides glycine and proline, essential for joint health, gut lining integrity, and connective tissue repair. It contains calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium leached from the bones. It contains glucosamine and chondroitin, now sold as joint supplements at £15 per bottle. It contains bone marrow, rich in fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and K2. Your grandmother did not know the names of these compounds. She knew the broth kept the family well. She knew a bowl of broth settled the stomach when someone was ill. She knew the broth made the gravy and the gravy made the dinner and the dinner kept the children growing. The broth was replaced by the stock cube. The stock cube contains salt, maltodextrin, palm oil, yeast extract, flavouring, sugar, and colouring. It does not contain collagen, glycine, glucosamine, or any of the compounds the 24-hour broth provided. The stock cube is flavoured salt water. The generation that grew up on the broth has joints. The generation that grew up on the stock cube has a glucosamine subscription and an orthopaedic appointment. The supplement industry now sells, individually and at substantial markup, every compound the bone broth contained for free. Collagen powder: £25. Glucosamine tablets: £15. Bone broth itself, repackaged as a wellness product: £8 per serving from a company in Shoreditch with a minimalist label. They have not discovered anything new. They have rediscovered what their grandmothers threw away. The stockpot is still available. The bones are still at the butcher's. Water. Bones. Heat. Time. The broth has been the broth for approximately 10,000 years. The stock cube has been the stock cube for approximately 70. The broth's track record is better.

LAST HOURS OF LIFE

 

Unfiltered

@quotesdaily100

WHAT ICU NURSES KNOW ABOUT THE LAST HOURS OF LIFE THAT FAMILIES ARE NEVER PREPARED FOR: 1. Hearing is the last sense to go. Many patients can hear everything being said in the room long after they appear unconscious. Nurses know this. Most families do not act like it. 2. The body does not shut down all at once. It withdraws blood and oxygen from the extremities first, working inward toward the heart. The cold hands and feet you notice are the body making a final decision about what to protect. 3. A sudden, unexpected improvement in energy and alertness hours before death is not a good sign. Nurses recognize it immediately. Families almost always mistake it for recovery. 4. The sound called the death rattle is not pain. It is simply the throat relaxing and losing muscle control. But no amount of medical explanation prepares a family for hearing it for the first time. 5. Most people do not die during the night. The body has a biological rhythm and many deaths occur in the early hours of morning, between 3am and 5am, when the nervous system is at its lowest. 6. Patients often wait. Nurses have watched people hold on for days until a specific person arrives, or a specific word is spoken, or permission is quietly given to let go. It happens too consistently to be coincidence. 7. The words "we did everything we could" are sometimes true and sometimes the most painful half-truth a family will ever receive without knowing it. 8. Families who are not present at the moment of death carry guilt that no counselor fully resolves. Nurses see this guilt begin forming in real time and cannot always stop it. 9. The face relaxes completely at the moment of death in a way that is impossible to describe until you have seen it. Nurses say it looks like the person finally put something down they had been carrying for a very long time. 10. Many ICU nurses privately believe that the most painful deaths are not the ones with the most physical suffering. They are the ones where the patient dies surrounded by family members who are fighting with each other. 11. The thing families almost never say, but almost always should, is simply this: it is okay to go. Those four words, spoken out loud, do something that medicine cannot explain and nurses have witnessed more times than they can count. 12. Nurses grieve too. They learn the names, the histories, the family dynamics, and the small personal details of every patient. They cry in break rooms, in parking lots, and on drives home. Then they walk back in the next morning and do it all over again, because someone has to, and they chose to be that person.

Playing tennis

 

Aakash Gupta

@aakashgupta

Tennis players live 9.7 years longer than sedentary people. Not 9.7 months. 9.7 years. Nearly a decade. The Copenhagen City Heart Study tracked 8,577 people for 25 years and ranked every sport by how much life it adds. Badminton: 6.2 years. Soccer: 4.7. Cycling: 3.7. Swimming: 3.4. Jogging: 3.2. Tennis almost triples jogging. A separate study of 80,000 adults found racket sports cut all-cause mortality by 47% and cardiovascular death by 56%. Swimming hit 41%. Aerobics hit 36%. The question is why racket sports destroy everything else. Three mechanisms stack on top of each other. First, the physical demands. A tennis rally requires explosive sprints, lateral cuts, and sustained aerobic output. You're training fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers simultaneously. Most cardio only trains one system. Second, the cognitive load. You're reading spin, predicting angles, adjusting position, and executing motor patterns in real-time. Your brain is solving spatial puzzles at 80+ mph. That hand-eye coordination and strategic processing builds neural connections that protect against cognitive decline. Third, and this is the one researchers keep coming back to: you literally cannot play alone. Every racket sport requires another person on the other side of the net. That forced social interaction triggers neurochemical benefits that solitary exercise cannot replicate. Strong social connection alone increases your chance of longevity by 50%. Jogging is you and your thoughts. Tennis is you, a strategic opponent, and a community. Dr. Daniel Amen is right. The data is overwhelming. If you want the single highest-ROI activity for a longer life, pick up a racket.

Eshan

@eshanbuilds

"tennis players live 9.7 years longer than sedentary people" is the finding from the copenhagen city heart study and it's probably the most misused longevity statistic in wellness content. the study measured people who REGULARLY played tennis over 25 years versus sedentary controls. the population that sustained tennis play for 25 years is a selected sample. they had the time, money, physical health, and social access to play tennis consistently for a quarter century. the 9.7 years might be measuring tennis. it might also be measuring "people who could afford to play tennis for 25 years were wealthier, had better healthcare access, and were less physiologically compromised at baseline." the number is real. the causation is contaminated. tennis correlates with longevity. whether tennis CAUSES longevity requires separating the sport from the demographics of people who sustain it

Shai Machnes

@shai_machnes

How is it correlated to wealth and a generally leisurely lifestyle, which translates to less stress and better healthcare?