Does abstinence improve sporting performance?

There seems to be a trend at the moment of researchers discovering that chronic disease starts in the gut. A theory was proposed in 2003 that was that Parkinson’s which is seen as a brain disease originates in the gut.  Now researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark have confirmed that Parkinson’s migrates from the gut. Another important discovery is that the hearts of people with Parkinson’s can also be affected.  In fact, the protein alpha-synuclein starts in the gut, then damages the heart before moving on to the brain.  They also discovered that it’s in the heart where the damage to the nervous system begins. Researchers now say that a build-up of the protein alpha-synuclein in the gut can be detected up to 20 years before the disease manifests.  Researcher Per Broghammer says that understanding where Parkinson’s originates is the first step towards preventing the disease and developing an effective treatment. Reference https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00401-019-02040-w

For those of your who don't know I have a background in IT.  This means I am very comfortable with technology and love my smartphone.  However I am for once a month to do a digital detox the reason is that I recognise that I live in an "always on" society.  I am inundated on a daily basis with social media updates, text messages and emails.  What's worse are "always on" society ecpects us to be contactable at all times and to respond immediatley.  Its no surprise that research has found a link between heavy smarphone usage and increased anxiety. Did you know that smartphones are actually designed to distract us?  They rob our brains of vitally important downtime preventing them from being creative.  A digital detox allows my brain to reachage and focus on the present.  No one needs to give you permission to go off grid for half a day and you don't need to feel guilty either. A digital detox can start simply as 45 minutes without using a smartphone, laptop, tablet or other device one evening a week and then build up slowly to a couple of hours.  I find regular digital detox is hugely beneficial to my state of mind and can be easily incorporated into your routine. Reference https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4500888/

There is an old wives saying, feed a cold and starve a fever, but what does the latest science say? Although eating less when we are ill can sometimes help us to recover faster.  The loss of appetite when we have an infection is a biological "trick" that simply allows bacteria to spread.  Eating nutritious food when we have an infection can reduce its severity and recover time say researchers. Researchers have tracked the health of laboratory mice infected with the Salmonella bacteria and found that natural loss of appetite helped the bacteria spread from the intestines to other tissues.  By comparison, mice fed extra calories lived longer. This discovery could lead to new ways to tackle bacterial infections that don't rely on antibiotics. Reference Rao, Shelia et al, 2017, Pathogen-Mediated Inhibition of Anorexia Promotes Host Survival and Transmission, Cell, Volume 168, Issue 3, 503 - 516