Here’s a very useful piece on how to keep up with the deluge of medical information: 21st Century Physician: Triaging the Tsunami of Medical Information by Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH. Notice how he recommends doing a very deep dive into the studies you’ve selected. Since there’s a tsunami of papers published every week this requires a very strong filter. Not only that, in order to study a study in detail, it takes time and practice. And with time and practice, you’ll be able to cut down on the amount of time it takes to truly read and interpret a paper and its implications.
On a related note, I’m often asked how I actually read a journal article. The first thing I do is read the figures and tables until I understand what they mean. I also do this with the supplement.
An example of this is actually relevant to the upcoming podcast episode with David, Sinclair, PhD. He published a 2006 Nature paper heard round the world: Resveratrol improves health and survival of mice on a high-calorie diet. We get into more details in our conversion, but the supplement of this article provides more insight into how resveratrol may be activating AMPK in the treatment group.
On a lighter note (although likely a more contentious topic than the aforementioned Nature paper), I provided my current morning coffee ritual on Instagram, in case anyone’s looking to step up their java game. Of course, the purists have already admonished me for a dozen or so infractions, but this is still (IMO) the best “80/20” coffee recipe I know. Sadly, long gone are my days of roasting and grinding my own beans each week…
– Peter
