Rule #3: Do not drink alcohol or eat sugar

Health

Dec 29

There is no therapeutic or hormetic dose of either substance — alcohol and sugar will hasten your death and limit your healthspan.

It is best to omit them entirely.

Alcohol is particular evil, a water- and lipid-soluble molecule that can penetrate literally every organ and system in the body, causing a host of negative health outcomes (shrinking the brain, altering the effects of emotion-regulating hormonal systems, compromising liver function, disregulating the gut microbiome, and substantially increasing cancer risk) as well as inducing a number of negative downstream behavioral effects (canceling impulse control, compromising coordination and accuracy, and reducing stress resilience).

Its benefits in lubricating personal interactions are small recompense for its poisonous effects, and its general social acceptability and ubiquity are a system-wide error rather than a marker of tribal wisdom.

Sugar (in its refined states), is one of the principal components of engineered foods, those processed consumables so closely correlated with the diseases of Western Civilization.

The overconsumption of sugar leads to chronically-elevated blood glucose levels and reduced insulin sensitivity, the key elements associated with Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, and obesity — the first two of which are among the leading causes of death in the United States, with heart disease taking the top spot.

Omitting sugar will cost you your ice cream cone, but it will give you many additional years of healthspan in which to come up with an acceptable substitute.