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Got a Fitbit or Apple Watch tracking your heart rate? Now you know your resting heart rate, but is it ideal? Let’s explore a study by Fitbit that analyzed resting heart rate data from 92,457 de-identified individuals to determine what your resting heart rate should be.
First, the study shows an average resting heart rate of 64 bpm for men and 67 bpm for women. It’s normal for women to have a slightly higher resting heart rate than men.
Interestingly, average resting heart rate varies by age, being lower when you’re younger and older. This can be due to factors like muscle mass and overall health. As BMI increases, so does resting heart rate, which is expected since the heart has to pump blood through more body mass. Additionally, heart rate variability decreases with age.
Overall, while a lower resting heart rate is generally better, it’s very individual. If you’re small and old with a low resting heart rate, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have an exceptionally healthy heart.
In a future post, we’ll dive into heart rate variability, which provides a better measure of heart health by showing the balance between your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems.
In this week's newsletter, we'll highlight some recently released product updates designed to make it easier for you to optimize your health.
We'll also provide a preview of some significant changes to the Bionic Health app homescreen that are coming soon.
Helping members achieve goals
Introducing Health Targets, a new feature that provides personalized guidance on the biomarkers you should prioritize. Research shows that physician-guided goal-setting leads to better health choices. That's why your dedicated clinician will select a unique set of targets tailored to your needs. Watch these personalized goals evolve as you progress on your health journey. Health Targets delivers clear, actionable insights from your physician to help you make informed decisions and achieve your goals more effectively.
Introducing the Bionic Health Biomarker Dashboard - a revolutionary way to visualize your health at a glance.
This intuitive, color-coded graphic displays each of your key biomarkers as a spoke, instantly showing you what's optimized (green), at risk (yellow), or needs attention (red).
The Dashboard also features four high-level scores:
1. Your biological age via the PhenoAge method
2. Bionic Score, a comprehensive metric of your tracked biomarkers designed to show your progress
3. % optimal - your proportion of featured biomarkers in Bionic optimal ranges
4. 30-year risk of a heart attack or stroke via the PREVENT model
With the Biomarker Dashboard, you can quickly assess your health status, track progress, and prioritize areas for improvement, all with one holistic picture.
At Bionic Health, we're dedicated to enhancing your well-being with insights that matter. This edition zeroes in on mental health with three keys:
Nurturing relationships
The mental uplift from exercise
Mastering resilience
Each plays a crucial role in your mental health journey, offering strategies to boost your happiness and longevity.
Embrace Connections: Your Key to a Happier Life
Harvard's landmark study on adult development unveils a simple yet profound truth: our relationships deeply influence our happiness and longevity. Over 80 years of research affirm that nurturing close bonds can elevate our life satisfaction and well-being, outweighing the value of wealth or success.
Quality Matters: Fulfilling relationships trump the number of friends.
Health Benefits: Strong connections correlate with better physical and mental health.
Combat Loneliness: A vibrant social life is as crucial as avoiding unhealthy habits.
Action tip: Invest in meaningful relationships. Prioritize quality interactions and mutual support to enhance your life quality and longevity.
Watch Robert Wladinger's TED Talk on Happiness:
Exercise Your Way to Mental Wellness
In her enlightening TED Talk, neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki shares compelling insights on how regular physical activity can significantly boost our mental health. Suzuki's research underlines that exercise is not just about physical health; it's a powerful stimulant for our brain health and emotional well-being.
Memory Enhancement: Regular exercise can improve your focus and memory, contributing to overall brain health.
The brain-changing benefits of exercise:
What about when terrible things happen?
In her poignant TED Talk, resilience expert Lucy Hone shares transformative strategies that helped her navigate the unimaginable grief of losing her daughter. Her insights offer a roadmap to resilience, emphasizing that adversity is a universal human experience, and our responses to it can shape our path forward.
Quick insights:
Acceptance of Adversity: Acknowledge that suffering is a part of life. This acceptance doesn't make the pain easier but grounds us, preparing us to face challenges head-on.
Selective Focus: Resilient individuals prioritize their attention on aspects they can control, finding gratitude even in the darkest moments. This isn't about ignoring the negative but balancing our perspective to foster resilience.
Self-Reflection for Healing: Asking, "Is what I'm doing helping or harming me?" guides us toward choices that support our well-being. This simple yet profound question can steer us away from harmful behaviors and towards healing.
Watch Lucy's TED Talk:
Don't forget: Get $50 for a new member referral!
Get a $50 Amazon digital gift card for each new member referral.
Just tell the member to let us know that you sent them. We'll ask during sign up.
At Bionic, we use each member's unique biology, family history, lifestyle and goals to inform a personalized action plan.
However, there are some common recommendations we find ourselves referencing again and again.
In this week's newsletter I wanted to share 3 topics that can be part of anyone's journey to optimal health.
Wait, how many fruits & veggies?!
We all had our mom telling us to eat our veggies, but did she really have any science backing that up? I love to make things easy, so I challenge my members to eat 800 grams of fruit, veggies, and legumes. The veggies include potatoes and sweet potatoes.
First off, if you don’t know what a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) is, here is a quick explainer.
At Bionic Health, we love for our members to be educated about how their bodies work. There are few things you can track as easily as glucose, and it gives so many insights about how stress, sleep, what you eat, and how you exercise affect your glucose. Some key things to know. Not all high glucose spikes are bad, sometimes your body is reacting to heavy exercise.
The monitors are tuned for diabetics, so we’ll help you turn off the alarms during the overnight period.
It’s optional. It’s not for everyone, but overwhelmingly our members tell us that learn a lot over a short period of time and that it affects their habits.
Protein has been shown again and again to be one of the most important tools in building and maintaining muscle mass.
Our basic rule of thumb is this: If you are trying to lose weight, make sure to eat enough protein to maintain muscle mass. If you are trying to build muscle, you have to eat enough protein.
So, how much is enough?
Use this simple equation. 0.8 gram of protein per pound of body weight.
For me at 210 pounds, that’s 168 grams of protein per day. Caveat: this is an oversimplification but a safe way to do this.
Last week, we shared that we expanded our supplement discount to 35% off all supplements from Fullscript with a wider selection from the top manufacturers.
For members, you will see a Benefits section under the Profile page shortly. In the meantime, chat us for early access to the link.
At Bionic Health, we feel the most important biomarkers are those that help you understand where you are now and help us plan together where you want to go.
We check biomarkers that you’ve probably never heard of and never had checked previously.
In this week's newsletter, we'll dive deeper on three of my favorites.
VO2 max: the master biomarker
You may not think of VO2 max as a biomarker, but there is no other measure that tells us as much about how healthy you are and your likelihood of healthy years ahead.
Strength is just behind this. That’s why we recommend this type of testing and make it easy to be tested.
Lipoprotein 'little a' abbreviated Lp(a) is a hidden killer and not many people have had it checked. Around 10-20% of the population have genes that increase their levels of Lp(a) which doubles their risk for a heart attack.
We found 15% of our members have elevated levels and work with them to decrease their risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Here is a great overview of Lp(a) from a cardiologist.
The Heart Doctor explains Lp(a)
Cholesterol Balance from Boston Heart Lab
Why do I have two lipid tests in this newsletter? Because heart disease continues to be the number one killer of all people in the US and Europe.
We can prevent heart disease. One way is to understand if your body makes too many lipoproteins (cholesterol) or if it reabsorbs too much.
The cholesterol balance test gives us that answer and allows us to practice true precision medicine.
This short video gives a great explanation of cholesterol absorption and production.
Are you a cholesterol hyper absorber?
Expanded member benefit
Lastly, we are extremely excited to share that we expanded our supplement discount to 35% off all supplements from Fullscript with a wider selection from the top manufacturers.
We are constantly working to get better deals for our members. Expect more benefits in different categories coming soon.
Unlocking the Secrets of Aging: A Conversation with Professor Matt Yousefzadeh, PhD
In the second episode of our groundbreaking Medicine 3.0 podcast, Dr. Jared Pelo sits down with Dr. Matt Yousefzadeh, a faculty member at Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Yousefzadeh work at the intersection of aging and immunity provides fascinating insights into the complex world of biomarkers and the hallmarks of aging.
Key Takeaways:
1. The Complexity of Aging: Dr. Yousefzadeh emphasizes that aging is not a simple process but involves multiple interconnected "hallmarks" or pillars. While it's tempting to simplify, understanding this complexity is crucial for developing effective interventions.
2. Cellular Senescence: One focus of Dr. Yousefzadeh's research is cellular senescence, where cells become "stressed out" and stop proliferating. While this is an anti-cancer mechanism, the accumulation of these cells contributes to inflammation and aging.
3. Biomarkers of Aging: The podcast delves into various types of biomarkers, including molecular, physiological, and digital. Dr. Yousefzadeh discusses specific markers like GDF-15, DNA damage indicators, and mitochondrial DNA.
4. Epigenetic Clocks: These tools, which measure biological age based on DNA methylation patterns, are discussed as potential ways to track aging and the effectiveness of interventions.
5. Lifestyle Interventions: The conversation highlights the importance of diet, exercise, and social connections in healthy aging. Dr. Yousefzadeh mentions studies showing how exercise and caloric restriction can reduce markers of cellular senescence.
6. The Role of Muscle: An interesting debate emerges about the balance between calorie restriction (known to extend lifespan in animal studies) and maintaining muscle mass for healthy aging.
7. Future Directions: While exciting new interventions are being studied, Dr. Yousefzadeh emphasizes the importance of proven lifestyle factors and suggests using biomarkers to guide personalized interventions.
Dr. Yousefzadeh's insights remind us that while the field of aging research is dynamic and complex, some of the most effective interventions are also the simplest: exercise, a healthy diet, and strong social connections. As we await further developments in aging science, these foundational habits remain crucial for promoting both lifespan and healthspan.
Stay tuned for more episodes of Medicine 3.0, where we continue to explore the cutting edge of health and longevity science.
Hey, I’m Dr. Jared Pelo, the co-founder of Bionic Health, where our goal is to help you live as healthily as possible for as long as possible. Many people face a miserable fourth quarter of life due to disease, poor heart health, or lack of mobility. Family doctors often lack the time to optimize your health fully.
At Bionic Health, we take you through the Bionic Journey, where you are assigned an experienced doctor to examine your family disease risk, heart health biomarkers, hormones, metabolic health, and perform strength and aerobic testing. We also use Dexa for body composition and wearable devices for daily activity and sleep quality tracking.
You’ll also get a Bionic Advisor, your healthy habit partner, guiding you through necessary lifestyle changes. Our app provides an easy-to-understand format for each step and allows direct communication with your doctor or advisor.
Today’s Bionic Beat newsletter is all about body composition.
Understanding your body’s composition is key to maximizing your healthspan. This is why we have an entire module dedicated to measuring then optimizing your body’s unique balance of muscle, bone and tissue. If you only monitor your weight, you are blind to so many elements that contribute to a long and healthy life.
Here are a few resources that align with how we think about optimizing your body's composition.
Muscle is your key to health and longevity
In this study of elderly individuals, researchers measured participants' muscle mass then continued to monitor their health. Muscle mass was found to be an indicator of longer life.
Not a fan of journal articles? Watch Gabrielle Lyon give an excellent TED Talk on muscle-centric medicine, and I weigh in on saving muscle for retirement.
More muscle-centric medicine:
Saving muscle for retirement:
Too much deep belly fat is dangerous
An excess of belly fat, or visceral adipose tissue, doesn’t just impact your confidence, it can negatively impact your healthspan too. And you don’t know how much you have unless you have a DEXA, CT or MRI scan.
Welcome to the first edition of Bionic Health’s biweekly email newsletter.
We hope to deliver you the latest in medical news that we believe will be interesting and help you live healthier longer. We’re glad you’re here!
We'll try to make the articles and videos fun to read but also allow you to go deep and really geek out if you want to (like I do). We also want to keep you up to date on the Bionic Journey.
Protein: Maximizing Muscle with Every Bite
I think of protein as more than just a nutrient; it's a building block for a vibrant life, especially as we age.
A riveting discovery reveals we can effectively utilize up to 100 grams of protein in one sitting to bolster muscle synthesis, challenging previous notions about protein absorption limits.
The secret lies in the protein's digestibility rate, highlighting the advantage of combining whole foods and protein shakes to ensure a steady supply of this essential nutrient to our muscles. This finding underscores the importance of selecting the right type of protein for optimal health benefits.
Sleep does more than just recharge our batteries; it's a cornerstone of health, influencing everything from mood to performance.
However, the flip side reveals that inadequate sleep can have dire consequences, leading to deteriorated health outcomes.
Recognizing the dual role of sleep not only illuminates its importance for daily functioning but also as a preventive measure against a spectrum of health issues.
While Zone 2 exercise has its merits, it's not the pinnacle of fitness goals.
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and strength training emerge as the champions for rapid health improvements, offering a more efficient route to peak physical well-being.
These forms of exercise are designed to maximize benefits in a shorter timeframe, proving that the foundation of a robust exercise regimen goes beyond steady-state cardio to include dynamic and strength-building workouts.
