In the last few issues of Men’s Health I’ve written one-page stories that shed light on weird but trending health topics. So far: Parabiosis, old people paying too much money to inject themselves with the blood of younger people, and adaptogens, exotic herbal powders that yuppies use to supposedly relieve their first-world-problem induced stress.
I’ll be doing more of these pieces—check the May issue for a page on a weird new fitness trend—and in the meantime you can read the published ones below.
From the Parabiosis Story
Imagine an old lab mouse—the bad hair, the wrong turns in the maze, the lazing around. Now imagine that mouse surgically conjoined to another, more youthful one . . . and then seeing it, within weeks, start getting younger. When scientists did this, “they found the old mouse showed fewer diseases of aging, like diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s,” says Jesse Karmazin, M.D.
For Dr. Karmazin, the old mouse is you. This 33-year-old Stanford-trained physician has no plans to sew you to a college freshman. But he’s betting, based on recent research, that humans experience the same age-bending benefit from a dose of young blood. Keep reading …
From the Adaptogens Story
Seventy-nine percent of Americans say they’re stressed-out—thanks, work, screaming kids, social media, and deciding what to have for dinner tonight— which explains the rise of the multibillion-dollar anti-stress marketplace. With a bevy of attractive, shiny options, you can choose between established practices—therapists and an array of prescription pills—and more esoteric stuff like meditation, tapping, and yoga. The newest in the latter category: adaptogens, a group of (supposedly) stress-fighting plants that are showing up in today’s trendiest teas, coffees, and snack foods.
Adaptogens (a hard-to-pin-down category that even the dictionary defines only as “plant extracts that increase the body’s ability to resist stress”) come from obscure and god-awful-tasting plants, roots, fruits, and fungi that survive in harsh conditions, making scientists believe they help humans do the same. They’re sold for a too-high price with too-gorgeous packaging in too-precious web stores like Moon Juice and Goop. They have exotic, spelling-bee- finals names—including ashwagandha, rhodiola, reishi, Panax ginseng, and Cordyceps—and promise to take you back to your center and make you feel normal again, no matter what’s going on. Keep reading …
