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Welcome to Weekly.health’s 29th issue. Every week, we explore cutting-edge research, actionable advice, and science-backed nutrition insights to help you live longer and healthier.

Our aim is to help you live another 10 healthy years and cut your risk of age-related disease.

🗒️ In This Issue:

• 📚 Books We’re Reading Right Now

• 📈 Research Digest: What’s new in nutrition science

• 📊 We’re considering something new. Your input matters

• 🔥 Calculate your BMR (try our free tool)

• 🧮 Macro Calculator: Stop guessing your macros

• 🛍️ Recommendations

• 📘 Glossary of Terms: Definitions for technical terms in this issue

📚 Books We’re Reading Right Now

📈 Research Digest: What’s New in Nutrition Science

Here’s the best of recent nutrition research:

🧠 Metabolic health matters for your brain
In over 1,300 adults aged 60+, higher insulin resistance (measured by METS-IR from blood sugar, fats and BMI) was linked to worse memory, attention and thinking speed. Cognitive decline became noticeably steeper once METS-IR rose above ~28–33. Translation: poor blood sugar and lipid control may quietly harm brain health. Keeping weight, glucose and cholesterol in check could help protect cognition as you age. (source)

🧬 Two nutrients, two clean-up systems for healthy ageing
This recent review shows urolithin A and spermidine support cellular recycling, but via different routes. Urolithin A (best studied at 500–1,000 mg/day) targets mitophagy, clearing damaged mitochondria to improve energy, muscle strength and endurance. This is especially relevant as mitochondrial function declines with age. Spermidine (≈1–2 mg/day) activates broader autophagy, helping cells clear waste more generally, with links to better heart health, brain ageing and longevity. Not everyone produces urolithin A from food due to gut differences, so supplements may matter, while dietary spermidine levels are typically quite low. Used alongside exercise and good nutrition, they appear complementary rather than interchangeable. (source)

🧠 Vitamin balance matters for brain health as we age
In over 2,500 adults aged 60+, higher blood levels of vitamin D and folate were linked to a 25–30% lower risk of cognitive impairment. But vitamin B12 followed a U-shaped curve: both low and very high levels were associated with worse cognition—especially in people with kidney stones, hypertension or metabolic issues. Takeaway: optimise vitamin D and folate, but don’t megadose B12 without good reason. (source)

⏰ Eating earlier may sharpen thinking in older adults
In a 12-week randomised trial of adults aged ~74 with mild cognitive impairment, a 15:9 time-restricted eating pattern (eating between 8am–5pm, fasting overnight) improved overall cognition and memory compared with eating freely. MoCA scores rose by ~1.7 points, and word-recognition memory improved, without weight loss or muscle loss. Adherence was high and no side effects were reported. This suggests meal timing rather than calories may support brain health in ageing. (source)

📊 We’re considering something new. Your input matters

One question we hear regularly from readers is: I understand the research, but how does it apply to me?

We’re considering offering a small number of one-off, personalised nutrition reports, written by the nutrition writers behind Weekly.health.

How this would work (if we go ahead):

• You’d fill out a detailed form about your diet, lifestyle, and goals

• We’d personally review and analyse your responses

• You’d receive a written report with clear, evidence-based, actionable recommendations, tailored to your situation

This would be more like a structured, written consultation, not a course, programme, or ongoing coaching.

These would be paid reports. Before building anything, we want to be very honest and ask about realistic interest, not hypothetical interest.

Here’s the personalised reports we’re currently considering;

• 🧭 Personal Nutrition & Health Baseline
  A personalised assessment of how your current diet and habits stack up, and which changes would matter most for you.

• ⚡ Energy, Fatigue & Brain Fog Review
  An analysis of likely nutrition and lifestyle factors affecting your energy or focus, with specific next steps.

• 🧬 Longevity & Healthspan Nutrition Priorities
  A tailored report identifying the most important nutrition levers for long-term health, based on your age, habits, and priorities.

• 🍽️ Appetite, Hunger & Eating Pattern Review
  A personalised look at what may be driving hunger, cravings, or overeating — and how to improve appetite regulation without rigid dieting.

• ⚖️ Weight Loss & Body Recomposition Review
  Personalised guidance on fat loss and body recomposition, including how to lose weight while maintaining (or building) muscle.

• 💊 Supplement Stack Reality Check
  A personalised review of what you’re taking, what’s likely useful, what’s unnecessary, and what to prioritise.

(This is just to guide what we build, if anything. There’s no obligation.)

Optional follow-up

If you’d like, you can also reply to this email with:

• which report you’d be most interested in, or

• what would make something like this more useful for you

That feedback will directly shape whether, and how, we proceed.

🔥 Calculate your BMR (try our free tool)

Do you know how many calories your body needs just to exist?

Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the number of calories your body burns each day at complete rest — breathing, circulating blood, maintaining organs, repairing cells. No steps. No workouts. Just staying alive.

Why does this matter?

Because BMR is the foundation of almost every nutrition decision:

• Trying to lose fat without under-fueling

• Eating enough to support muscle, hormones, and recovery

• Avoiding “mystery plateaus” where weight or energy stalls

• Understanding why two people of the same size can need very different intakes

If you don’t know your BMR, you’re guessing, often by hundreds of calories per day.

I’ve just calculated mine using our BMR calculator over at The Healthspan Academy BMR calculator (screenshot above). It takes less than a minute and gives you a personalised baseline you can actually use, whether your goal is fat loss, muscle, or long-term health and longevity.

Once you know your number, everything else - protein targets, calorie ranges, even meal planning - becomes clearer and far easier to get right.

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🧮 Macro Calculator: Stop guessing your macros

Most people don’t struggle because they “don’t know what healthy eating is”.

They struggle because their nutrition has no clear structure. Some days are protein-heavy by accident. Other days are mostly carbs and snack-food. Then progress feels random. Energy dips, hunger creeps up, and motivation takes the blame.

That’s what macros are good for.

Macros (protein, carbs, fat) are the three big levers that shape:

• how full you feel after meals

• how stable your energy is across the day

• how well you recover if you train (or just have a physically demanding life)

• whether your diet supports fat loss, maintenance, or muscle gain

Why use our Macro Calculator?

1) It turns “eat better” into numbers you can use
Not a diet. Not a rulebook. Just daily targets you can build meals around so you’re not relying on vibes.

2) It helps you choose the approach that fits your life
Our calculator gives you three simple presets you can start with:

• Balanced (a sensible default for most people)

• Low Carb (if you feel better with fewer carbs and higher fats)

• High Protein (if satiety and muscle maintenance are priorities)

You can then tweak the sliders and instantly see what changes without needing to do any maths.

3) It converts percentages into real food targets
Percentages are abstract. Grams are actionable.
The tool automatically shows your daily targets in grams of protein, carbs, and fat, based on your calorie goal.

4) It keeps nutrition quality in view (not just numbers)
Right under your macro targets, we include a daily fibre target (25–30 g), because better health outcomes usually come from consistently eating more fibre-rich foods (vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains), not just “hitting macros”.

5) It adapts to how you train
At the bottom, you’ll see quick guidance for different training styles, for example:

• endurance-heavy weeks often do better with more carbs

• strength-focused goals often benefit from a higher-protein bias

• mixed training, or no training at all, tends to do well on Balanced

It’s a small thing, but it stops people using the same macro split for every goal and every week.

How to use it (without turning your life into a spreadsheet)

1. Set your daily calories (or bring them over from your TDEE result)

2. Choose Balanced / Low Carb / High Protein

3. Adjust the sliders until it feels realistic

4. See the exact breakdown of how much of each macro you should consume every day

➡️ Try it now: go to Tools → Macro Calculator in The Healthspan Academy and get your personalised macro targets in under a minute.

🛍️ Recommendations

Discover the products, services, and retailers we’ve mentioned in past Weekly Health issues, all in one place so you can explore at your own pace.

📥 Finding this newsletter useful so far?

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Every subscriber helps us towards our goal of improving lives and helping people live longer.

🙏 Thanks for Reading!

That’s the end of this issue of Weekly.health.

This newsletter is written by a small, independent team, led by James — who’s been following nutrition science for nearly 20 years and is now working towards a formal, industry-recognised qualification.

We’re based in England, so if you’re over the pond, you might notice a few strange spellings.

Our goal is to make cutting-edge, evidence-based nutrition advice simple, useful, and genuinely applicable to everyday life.

We don’t want to bombard you with adverts, but a few of the links in this email may reward us when you click and make a purchase. This goes towards helping us to continue bringing you this newsletter.

We’ll keep improving with every issue. If you’ve got any feedback or suggestions, we’d love to hear them (just reply to this email).

See you next week!

📖 Glossary of Terms in This Issue (Alphabetical Order)

A–Z Glossary of Technical Terms

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