Archive.
— Every essay we have published. Nothing is paywalled. Nothing has been quietly edited after the fact.
- 01Nutrition
How much protein do you actually need? A grown-up answer.
The 0.8 g/kg public-health number protects against deficiency. The 2.2 g/kg influencer number sells whey. The honest answer lives in between — and it depends on what you are asking your body to do.
12 MIN - 02Nutrition
Ultra-processed food: what the evidence actually says.
Beyond the headlines, what do controlled feeding trials and large cohort studies tell us about UPFs — and which parts of the panic are out ahead of the data?
14 MIN - 03Movement
Zone 2 cardio, explained without the heart-rate monitor cult.
The most-hyped training method of the decade is also one of the oldest. Here is what zone 2 actually is, what it does to your physiology, and how to do it without buying anything.
11 MIN - 04Movement
Strength training after 40 is not optional. It is the lever.
The single most consequential thing most middle-aged adults can add to a week is two sessions of progressive resistance training. The literature is unusually loud about this. The wellness industry is conspicuously quiet.
12 MIN - 05Mind
Attention is trainable. Meditation is one route — not the only one.
The cognitive-science literature on attention training is older, broader, and stranger than the modern wellness conversation suggests. Here is what reliably works, what is decoration, and what to try first.
11 MIN - 06Mind
Loneliness is a public health problem with a missing budget line.
The mortality risk of chronic social isolation rivals smoking. The medical system has no billing code for it, and the policy response remains conspicuously thin. What the evidence supports — and what individuals can actually do.
12 MIN - 07Sleep
Morning light: the cheapest, most-studied sleep intervention you are not using.
Sleep advice tends to gather around the evening. The window that actually governs your nightly architecture begins the moment you open your eyes. Here is the protocol, the mechanism, and the things people get wrong.
10 MIN - 08Sleep
Sleep debt: what you can pay back, and what you cannot.
The reassuring story that a long Sunday lie-in repairs a five-night sleep deficit is mostly wrong. The honest story — what recovers quickly, what recovers slowly, and what does not recover at all — is more useful.
11 MIN - 09Nutrition
Fiber: the most under-rated macronutrient in your diet.
Protein gets the marketing budget. Carbs and fats get the arguments. Fiber, the one nutrient with the cleanest dose-response data for almost every chronic disease that matters, gets ignored.
11 MIN - 10Movement
The 10,000 steps myth, and what the data actually shows.
The number on your wrist came from a Japanese pedometer marketing campaign in 1965. The number in the journals is smaller, more useful, and more forgiving than the cultural one.
10 MIN - 11Mind
Doomscrolling and what it actually does to your nervous system.
The infinite feed is not designed to inform you. It is designed to keep your sympathetic nervous system mildly activated for as long as possible. After a while, that bill comes due.
11 MIN - 12Sleep
Caffeine and sleep: the half-life math no one teaches you.
You can probably fall asleep after an afternoon coffee. The question is not whether you fall asleep. The question is what the caffeine still in your bloodstream does to the sleep itself.
9 MIN - 13Nutrition
Seed oils: the controversy, the chemistry, and what the evidence actually says.
The seed-oils-are-poison thesis is loud, lucrative, and selectively cited. The defenders sometimes overcorrect. The honest read of the literature is more boring, and more useful, than either side.
11 MIN - 14Nutrition
Hydration: how much water do you actually need?
The 'eight glasses a day' rule has no clinical origin. What the renal physiology, thermoregulation literature, and NHANES data say about thirst, urine colour, and the real risks of under-drinking.
13 MIN - 15Movement
Stretching before exercise: does it actually prevent injury?
For decades, coaches insisted on static stretching before sport. Then the research reversed. What the Cochrane reviews, the Danish randomised trials, and sports-medicine consensus now say.
12 MIN - 16Mind
Decision fatigue: the hidden tax on willpower.
From parole boards to supermarket aisles, the evidence shows that the quality of human decisions degrades with use. What behavioural science says about ego depletion, glucose, and the architecture of better choices.
14 MIN - 17Sleep
Blue light, screens, and sleep: what the evidence actually says.
The 'blue light is destroying your sleep' narrative has been everywhere since 2012. What retinal physiology, melatonin suppression studies, and real-world trials say — and where the panic overshoots the data.
13 MIN - 18Nutrition
Intermittent fasting 16:8: what the randomised trials actually show.
Time-restricted eating has been sold as a metabolic miracle. What the controlled human trials say about weight loss, glucose, and the limits of the eating window.
14 MIN