Hi everyone,
Big week. We got the first images of how ketamine changes the depressed brain in real time, a Yale trial that flipped everything we assumed about childhood obesity, and a specific sleep number that appears to be the sweet spot for blood sugar. I also dove deep into the creatine research this week, and what I found went well beyond the gym. Plus, I had a fascinating podcast conversation about a therapy most people have never heard of that could change how we think about chronic illness.
This Week’s Podcast Spotlight
Episode 35: Exercise with Oxygen Therapy: Fighting Lyme, Cancer & Mitochondrial Dysfunction
This is a fascinating conversation I had with Brad Pitzele about something most of us have never heard of: Exercise with Oxygen Therapy, or EWOT. The basic idea is that chronic inflammation causes swelling inside your smallest blood vessels, physically restricting oxygen from reaching your tissues. Your cells then switch to inefficient anaerobic metabolism, and that sets off a vicious cycle of more inflammation and more oxygen deprivation. EWOT breaks that cycle by combining exercise with concentrated oxygen breathing, using gas laws (specifically Henry’s Law) to force more oxygen into tissues than either intervention alone.
What really struck me is how many conditions this connects to. Lyme disease, long COVID, chronic fatigue, even cancer metabolism all share this common thread of cellular oxygen deprivation. Olympic athletes use the same protocol for VO2 max gains, but it is the chronic illness applications that I found most compelling.
Three practical takeaways from this episode:
- The protocol is surprisingly simple: 15 minutes of exercise while breathing concentrated oxygen, 3 to 5 times per week. That is it.
- Chronic inflammation at the capillary level may be an underappreciated driver of conditions ranging from exercise intolerance and brain fog to more serious chronic diseases.
- Safety matters. Oxygen toxicity is a real consideration, so proper protocols and awareness are important before trying this.
This Week in Health Science
Here is what stood out from the research this week. These studies fascinated me, and I hope at least a few of them resonate with you.
First Direct Images of How Ketamine Rewires the Depressed Brain
For the first time, researchers captured PET images of how ketamine changes AMPA receptors in the living human brain. In a study of 34 patients with treatment-resistant depression, the receptor changes tracked directly with symptom improvement. This matters because about 30% of people with major depression do not respond to standard medications, and until now, we only understood ketamine’s mechanism from animal studies. The correlation between receptor changes and clinical improvement is not just academically interesting. It opens the door to personalized treatment, where brain imaging could help predict who will respond best.
Key finding: Ketamine produced measurable changes in AMPA receptor density that directly correlated with depression symptom improvement, providing the first human evidence of how the drug works at the receptor level.
Yale Trial: Parent Mindfulness Reduced Childhood Obesity Risk Six-Fold
This one really caught my attention because it challenges what most of us assume about childhood obesity. A Yale randomized controlled trial of 114 parent-child pairs found that teaching parents mindfulness for 12 weeks was far more effective at preventing childhood obesity than nutrition education alone. Children whose parents only received diet advice had a six-fold higher risk of becoming overweight. The takeaway is striking: parental stress may be a bigger driver of kids’ weight than what is on the plate. Stressed parents lean toward convenience foods, use snacks as comfort, and have less energy for active play. Addressing the stress behind those habits appears to matter more than the dietary advice itself.
Key finding: Children in the nutrition-education-only group had a six-fold increased risk of becoming overweight or obese compared to children whose parents received mindfulness training.
Glyphosate Linked to Lower Birth Weights Across 10 Million US Births
A study published in PNAS analyzed over 10 million US births across two decades and found that the surge in glyphosate use following GM crop introduction significantly reduced birth weights and shortened pregnancies. The most alarming part is how unevenly the damage falls. The reduction in birth weight for the most vulnerable babies (lowest 10th percentile) was 12 times larger than for the heaviest babies. Non-White mothers experienced effects 1.8 times greater than White mothers. The researchers used an instrumental variable design, which gives these findings much stronger causal weight than a typical observational study. The estimated annual health cost: $750 million to $1.1 billion.
Key finding: Glyphosate use surged 750% after GM crop introduction, with the most vulnerable newborns experiencing 12 times the birth weight reduction of the least affected.
My book, 2mm, is almost here. It is the story of seven years inside the operating room, where every decision is measured in millimeters and every millimeter matters. If you want to be the first to know when it is available, leave your email at 2mmbook.com.
A Blood Test That Catches Liver Disease Before Symptoms Appear
This one genuinely excited me. Researchers at Johns Hopkins developed an AI-powered blood test that detects early liver fibrosis and cirrhosis by reading the fragmentation patterns of cell-free DNA in the blood. Current blood tests miss early fibrosis entirely and only catch cirrhosis about half the time. This new approach identified disease stages with high sensitivity across 1,576 patients. About 100 million Americans have liver conditions that put them at risk, and most will not know until significant damage has already occurred. The test also picked up signals of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative conditions, which raises the possibility of a single blood draw screening for multiple diseases at once.
Key finding: The AI-powered test detected early liver fibrosis that current blood tests miss completely, across a study of 1,576 patients.
The Exact Sleep Duration Linked to Healthy Blood Sugar: 7 Hours and 18 Minutes
A study of 23,475 adults put a precise number on something we have long suspected. Roughly 7 hours and 18 minutes of sleep per night appears to be the metabolic sweet spot for insulin sensitivity. Sleeping less or more than this was linked to greater insulin resistance. What I found particularly useful is the weekend catch-up data: if you sleep less than 7 hours during the week, 1 to 2 extra hours on weekends appears to help. But overdoing it (more than 2 hours of catch-up) actually made things worse. Women and adults between 40 and 59 showed the strongest effects, making sleep consistency especially important during middle age.
Key finding: 7 hours and 18 minutes of weekday sleep was the optimal duration for insulin sensitivity across 23,475 adults, with modest weekend catch-up sleep helping short sleepers.
Creatine: Far More Than a Gym Supplement (This Week’s Deep Dive)
This week I published a comprehensive deep dive into the creatine research, and what the evidence shows goes well beyond building muscle. Here are the highlights that stood out most:
The International Society of Sports Nutrition reviewed the full body of research and concluded that creatine is safe at doses up to 30 grams per day for as long as five years. A 12-week randomized controlled trial found that creatine combined with exercise training dropped HbA1c by a full percentage point in type 2 diabetics. A study published in Scientific Reports showed that a single high dose of creatine improved cognitive performance during 21 hours of sleep deprivation. Reviews of female athletes found no adverse effects on kidney, liver, or blood markers with long-term use. And the brain research is particularly compelling: creatine may support recovery from traumatic brain injuries, reduce symptoms of depression, and protect cognitive function under stress.
Vegetarians and women appear to benefit the most, likely because they start with lower baseline creatine stores. The standard effective dose is 3 to 5 grams of creatine monohydrate per day.
I reviewed over 20 articles covering every angle of the creatine evidence. Here are some of the most practical:
- ISSN Position Stand: Creatine Safety and Efficacy
- Creatine for Type 2 Diabetes: A Placebo-Controlled Trial
- Single Dose Creatine Boosts Cognitive Performance
- Creatine Supplementation in Women’s Health
- Creatine for Brain Health and Traumatic Brain Injury
- Creatine for Older Adults: Sarcopenia and Frailty
Stay curious. Stay skeptical. And stay healthy.
Dr. Kumar