The Habit Healers

If your cholesterol is still high even though you’re eating healthy, you are not alone, and it does not mean you failed. On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I explain why your LDL cholesterol can stay high no matter how hard you’re trying, and what to do next. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and I ask you to picture your liver as a giant shipping warehouse that runs day and night. LDL is the deli...

What is the best diet to slow aging? A new study of 6,470 adults tested ten healthy eating patterns against epigenetic clocks, the blood tests that measure your biological age, and the answer surprised a lot of people. There was no single winner. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through what the research found. We start in Dunedin, New Zealand, where scientists showed that...

Morning stiffness, tight muscles and achy joints when you first get out of bed are some of the most common things people ask me about, and feeling stiff does not automatically mean your body is wearing out. On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m explaining what is actually going on when you feel stiff and what you can do about it. I start with a story about a glacier in the Alps that ev...

Hungry again two hours after breakfast? That mid-morning blood sugar crash may have less to do with your willpower and more to do with how your breakfast was made. On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m walking you through what your first meal does to your hunger, energy, and blood sugar long after the bowl is empty. We start in 1894 with the accidental invention of the cereal flake, an...

In the fall of 1727, a 21-year-old printer named Benjamin Franklin gathered about a dozen friends in Philadelphia into what he called a club of mutual improvement. Most of them were young tradesmen. They named the club the Junto, and they met on Friday evenings, first in a tavern and later in a small room in one member’s house. Franklin wrote the rules himself. When a member’s turn came, he had to...

Night shift work is hard on your health, and it isn’t because you lack discipline. Your circadian rhythm runs on sunlight, not on your work schedule, and when the two don’t match, your metabolism, heart and sleep all pay the price. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I start with a surprising story from the U.S. Navy. For fifty years, submarine crews ran on an 18-hour day, and their bodi...

Thank you Olamide Amosu , Heather in 🇬🇷 , Cynthia Reed , David Hawkins , Afsi , and many others for tuning into my live video with Chef Martin Oswald ! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

How do you build healthy habits that actually stick, especially if you think you’ve started too late? In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m using a story about Julia Child to walk you through ten common habit mistakes and the simple fix for each one. Julia didn’t publish her first cookbook until she was 49. She failed her first final exam at cooking school. Then, on live-to-tape TV, sh...

Healthspan vs lifespan: are you adding years to your life, or healthy years? I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and in this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m looking at what the science of longevity and healthy aging actually says, and what’s already within your reach. We start with Maria Branyas Morera, who lived to 117 and let scientists study her body at 116. What they found fascinated me: she was...

Can the number of push-ups you can do say something about your heart health? On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m unpacking the well-known firefighter push-up study, what the headlines got wrong, and how to start strength training as a beginner, at any age. I’ll tell you about one of my patients, a woman in her 60s who started with two counter push-ups and worked her way up to sixty i...

Can poor sleep raise your blood sugar during menopause? If your fasting glucose is creeping up even though you’re eating well, broken sleep from hot flashes and night sweats may be the hidden driver nobody has asked you about. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast is about treating sleep as metabolic medicine. I start in an unlikely place, the apple storage warehouse...

Thank you Helene Broitman , Heather in 🇬🇷 , David Hawkins , Afsi , Karen Frye , and many others for tuning into my live video with Chef Martin Oswald ! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

Can a weighted vest help prevent osteoporosis and improve insulin resistance? The research says a small amount of added weight, worn while you walk or do everyday chores, may be one of the simplest ways to protect your bones and your metabolism as you age. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through the science of putting gravity back into your life. You’ll learn how your body...

Why is it so hard to be alone with your thoughts, and why does your hand reach for your phone the second you’re bored? In one famous study, people chose to give themselves an electric shock rather than sit quietly with their own minds for fifteen minutes. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through that research and what it reveals about boredom, distraction, and why we reach...

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

Can two meals with identical nutrition labels affect your insulin, blood sugar, and metabolism differently? A new study on ultra-processed foods says yes, and I think it changes how you should read every package in your kitchen. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through a fascinating experiment. Researchers built two trays, one ultra-processed and one less processed, matched...

Healthy holiday eating gets so much easier when you decide what you’ll do before you’re hungry, tired, and sitting at someone else’s table. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m sharing a simple four-line plan to help you handle holiday stress, travel, and family food pressure without giving up the meals and traditions you love. Most of us plan the holiday menu, but the hardest moments...

Chronic back pain that has lasted for years, plus an MRI that says disc degeneration or a disc bulge, can make it feel like your spine is simply wearing out. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through a clinical trial of pain reprocessing therapy that tells a very different story about chronic low back pain relief. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and here’s what I want you to know: th...

Are lectins in beans dangerous? Can you cook dried kidney beans in a slow cooker? Here’s the truth: your beans were never the problem. The problem is a pot that never boiled long enough. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through a file of kidney bean poisonings that public health investigators collected over nearly thirteen years, most of them in ordinary home kitchens, incl...

Should you take a GLP-1 like semaglutide (Wegovy)? Before you ask whether these weight loss drugs work, I want you to ask a better question: how much risk did the people in the studies actually have, and do you have that same risk? In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through the big semaglutide heart study, what it really showed about preventing heart attack and stroke, and wh...

Thank you Sloane , Catherine Wyatt-Morley , Heather in 🇬🇷 , MB Parker , David Hawkins , and many others for tuning into my live video with Chef Martin Oswald ! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

Menopause brain fog can feel like early dementia, but the research tells a much more hopeful story. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and in this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m breaking down what’s really behind perimenopause brain fog, forgetfulness, and memory lapses in midlife, and which causes you can start treating now. If you’ve been losing words, rereading emails, or quietly worrying about...

Strength training for beginners doesn’t have to mean rows of machines and hours at the gym. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through a simple full-body workout you do twice a week: six lifts that work every major muscle group in about an hour a week. If you’ve put off lifting weights because it seemed like more time than you have, this one is for you. We talk about why a si...

Why do some people catch every cold that goes around while others never seem to get sick? On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m sharing research that changed how I think about your immune system and the common cold, and it has nothing to do with vitamin C. When healthy volunteers were given a cold virus on purpose, the people with more kinds of relationships got sick far less often. No...

At one point, I asked Chef Martin Oswald whether restaurant kitchens had robots doing all the prep. Not yet, he told me. A little later, as tray after tray of cooked vegetables appeared on his counter, I decided he must at least own a magic oven. If batch cooking has ever sounded like three days of the same finished meal, this session asked a better question. Could the repetitive work happen once...