Grain Brain. The surprising truth about Wheat, Carbs and Sugars - Your brain's silent killers by Dr David Perlmutter

Informative, easy to read and to the point. Explains the truths about some "healthy" foods that intoxicate and damage our health. It explains how our bodies can become insulin resistant and how from there we can get a series of chronic, degenerative diseases, some of which affect the brain: think anxiety, depression, ADHD, Parkinson's and dementia. Moreover, the author believes our brains are definitely sensitive to gluten, which carry a lot of health problems intersecting with insulin resistance. Most of these issues can be reversed or at least improved. We only need to stop eating grains, breads, pastas, etc. and start eating more saturated fats because that is what the brain needs to function and repair itself. Sugars/carbs are bad, cholesterol is good. 

Recommend.

Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling

👍👍👍 A cyberpunk novel without cyberspace. I found it a bit difficult to read, and while the reading experience itself wasn’t especially enjoyable (except from the final chapter) I’m still glad I read it. Chapter and chapter sections are fragmented and discontinuous with abrupt time jumps and with characters who randomly appear and disappear. The book offers a lot to think about though, particularly regarding posthumanism, evolution, and immortality. The protagonist, who survives across decades (even centuries) undergoes numerous cybernetic and genetic rejuvenation treatments. His natural biology is repeatedly altered, disrupting the normal ageing process and turning his life into a continual cycle of self-reconstruction aimed at extending his life. Yet despite these enhancements and renewals, there remains a persistent sense of physical decline and mental exhaustion accumulating over time. As his body and identity were repeatedly transformed, I wondered if he would still call himself human. There was much more in Schismatrix. The world building is interesting mainly based on politics, political factions, and war. The edition in the photo includes Schismatrix, the novel, and 5 short stories based in the same universe. I only read the novel.

Contrapaso. Mayores, con reparo by Teresa Valero.

(Contrapaso, elders, with reservations) 

🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎 Beautiful, gripping. This is the second part following Contrapaso, the children of others. Part 2 does not disappoint. We meet again Leon Lenoir, Emilio Sanz and Paloma Rios, the main Journalists/Investigators. The story takes place in Madrid in October 1956, once again delving into the bleak and oppressive atmosphere of Franco’s dictatorship. The protagonists investigate a string of murders linked to the Spanish film industry. Both the artwork and the graphic storytelling are exceptional. Valero vividly transports the reader to 1950s Spain, fully immersing us in the analogue, pre-digital world of newspapers and police work. There is so much worth mentioning, but one standout character is Charo, the teenage daughter of a forensic doctor, who skips school to assist her father in examining murder scenes. 😎 

Perfect comic. 

Recommend.

The Web of Life. A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems by Fritjof Capra

👍👍👍👍👍 In this book Capra argues for a new perspective to understand living systems. Instead of dividing and isolating the parts of a system to study it, systems should be studied as wholes. The system is much more than the sum of its parts, and according to Capra (and the cyberneticists and systems thinkers he bases his proposal on) the qualities that make up a system are not embedded in its parts but they emerge as networks of relationships and interdependent processes when the system is all put together. Capra advocates for an ecological worldview that recognizes interdependence, feedback loops, cooperation, and sustainability as fundamental principles of both nature and human society. 

The Web of Life is an interesting and thought provoking idea but is complex to understand. Capra grounds his work on so many models and theories it felt a bit overwhelming. I can highlight though a couple. The Models of Self-organisation which Capra defines as open systems far from equilibrium, systems that remain stable not by being static, but by continuously transforming energy and adapting and The Mathematics of Complexity where Capra turns to non-linear mathematical tools to model and explain living systems. These mathematical models show how Life is not a random process or phenomenon but a result of complex patterns. 

What struck me most is the way Capra moves from the small to the large scale, beginning with studies of self-organising chemical systems and showing how these systems display remarkable life-like properties that may help explain the origins of life. He then expands the discussion to a range of influential theories, including Maturana and Varela’s Theory of Autopoiesis and Margulis and Lovelock’s Gaia Theory. 

The Web of Life is built upon these ideas to construct a model of the world founded on principles such as interdependence, cooperation, recycling, partnership, flexibility, diversity, and sustainability. This model emphasizes spirituality and interconnectedness, reminding us that human beings are not separate from or above nature, but are themselves part of it.

Excession by Iain M. Banks

🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎 Top of the tops. My favourite Culture book so far but it isn't perfect. Excession is not about the Excession, a mysterious object which randomly appears in our space and which seems to have come from another universe (or reality). Excession is about what happens to the Culture's Minds and outside species once the strange object is discovered. The Minds' behaviour and rationale are super interesting to see and at points reminded me of human politics. Humans are not the protagonists, although there is a story line with humans, which didn't make much sense to me at the end. A great read regardless. 

 Recommend.

The Salt Fix. Why the Experts Got it All Wrong and How Eating More Might Save Your Life by James DiNicolantonio

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

An excellent and extremely important read. For anyone who believes that salt causes high blood pressure, this book offers insight into why that may not be the case. 

What I learned: 

Salt cravings are our body telling us it needs more salt to remain in homeostasis. Those signals are instinctual drives, an evolutionary fact which aims to keep us in an optimal state. 

Our body has the capacity to automatically control the levels of salt and water it needs at all times by eating, reabsorbing and excreting it. 

Evolutionarily speaking, we came from the sea. Even when we left the sea and moved to the land we took part of that sea with us. This is why we have kidneys and salt cravings. “We evolved on a high-salt diet.” Our body needs normal levels of salt to work. 

All those claims about salt causing hypertension are not true. These claims were created either by people with bad intentions or the accumulation of misunderstandings of bad quality scientific studies, or both. (Read about Lewis K Dahl, George Meneely, Harold Battarbee and John D. Swales). 

There is another product which can be blamed for all the illnesses salt has been wrongly accused of causing. Data shows how during the first half of the 20th century hypertension chronic disease levels raised but salt consumption decreased following guidelines based on the mentioned claims. (Also with the invention of the fridge, salt was no longer used to preserve food.) Data also shows that at the same time sugar intake considerably increased. Think. 

Normally, people (who follow their body signals) would consume 3 to 4 grams of sodium per day. This is also true for animals. 

Low levels of sodium (90% of salt is sodium) in our diet and body will cause water going from the blood into our cells to increase the levels of sodium in blood. This generates cellular swelling. High levels of sodium would cause cellular shrinkage. Swelling and shrinkage are harmful. This is why the body has mechanisms to keep our sodium levels normal in the blood.

Sweat contains seven to eighty times more sodium than tap water, so when we sweat, it’s important to rehydrate with both water and electrolytes. Lowering salt content in packaged/ultraprocessed food requires the addition of preservatives. 

This is a list of harms low salt consumption causes: 

Increased heart rate – reduction of blood and oxygen circulation - risk of heart attack. 

Compromised kidney function. 

Hypothyroidism. 

Higher triglyceride, cholesterol, insulin levels. 

Insulin resistance, obesity, type 2 diabetes. 

Blood volume goes down 10-10% - low blood volume. 

Dehydration. 

Contributes to hypertension. 

Sensitises our brains for an excessive reward from refined sugar and drug abuse. 

Anxiety, hypochondriasis, invalidism. 

Decreased fertility. Iodine deficiency. 

Reduced energy and increased fatigue. 

 Recommend - if you are a health conscious person... or not.

Lao-Tzu's Taoteching translated by Red Pine, with selected commentaries from the past 2000 years

This is an ancient poem that seeks to depict the nature of our world. It uses the concept of the Tao, something deeply elusive and difficult to fully grasp, to express all that is harmonious and functions as it should. Even in the 21st century, we still face countless questions and gaps in our understanding of the universe, both at the vast cosmic scale and at the microscopic level. It’s remarkable to imagine how ancient thinkers tried to make sense of the world, expressing their insights through a language shaped by farming and everyday life. The result is a remarkable work of poetry that has inspired generations. It has certainly inspired me to view the world not merely in material terms, but by observing how it functions effortlessly, how everything is interconnected, and how human beings might improve themselves by following the example of the Tao. 

I didn’t fully understand much of the poem or even the commentaries, but I still found it deeply enjoyable to read. Some ideas I’d like to explore further include Dark Virtue, the interplay between existence and nonexistence, noninterference, inner truth, and the cultivation of the Tao.