Teresa Arnandis: "Weight is not indicative of being healthy, the key is size"
"The book is a tribute to our body, it vindicates our essence, our nature, which makes us unique. I think that everyone should know each other to love and value each other." Teresa Arnandis is many things: she has a degree in Pharmacy and in Optics and Optometry (with an Extraordinary Final Prize in both), she is a doctor in Biochemistry and Biomedicine, a professor at the Catholic University of Valencia, a science popularizer known on the networks as Ladyscience and, now, also a writer.
Written in a simple style and language, Arnandis proposes in You are a walking miracle! (Paidós) a complete journey through the human body, through its different systems, its functioning and many curiosities that the vast majority of the population will surely be unaware of. Did you know that it has neurons one and a half meters long? Or that it is scientifically proven that you sleep better naked and on your side? Issues like these and others are reviewed in the text, written in simple language and sprinkled with small practical tips –backed by science– for day-to-day life.
The book is a fairly complete compendium of the main functions of the body and how they are executed. What of all the things we do seems to you the most surprising or catches your attention?
From my classes at the Faculty of Medicine I have an idea of what can have the most impact. Everything impacts me, everything surprises me, but I see that people are struck by our lymphatic system, which is a great unknown. Our lymphatic system is a network of open vessels that we have in the body that is continuously draining the liquids that we have in the tissues. And those liquids go through service stations, which would be the lymph nodes, which cause molecules found in our tissues to activate our immune system. The lymphatic system is a great unknown, in part because there is nothing to move the lymph. It is the extrinsic muscles that we have in the body that move the lymph. People don't usually know that, and you don't see anyone say "my lymph hurts" either.
Another great unknown is the nervous system. People don't know that we have neurons that measure up to a meter and a half. The body of a neuron, the roundest and largest part, is housed either in our spinal cord or in the brain. This means that your body is in the spinal cord and that it has a process, a nerve, that goes down to the tip of the toe. People are often unaware of this: that a nerve impulse travels from the tip of the foot to the brain, where we integrate the signals that reach us from all over the body.
Since you mention the brain, you explain in the book that it has no pain receptors.
The brain is the place where we integrate all the pain signals that the body feels, but the spongy mass of the brain has no receptors, it is a super curious organ.
In addition to disseminating science, the book is packed with little practical advice for everyday life.
I think that in life you have to be practical. So, what better than having tricks to live better. Give your body what works: eat healthy, exercise, drink water.
I thought more about some specific things that appear in the different chapters. There are tricks to defecate better, sleep better or fall asleep, but not the 'counting sheep' type. Tricks with science behind. He speaks for example of sleeping naked. Because it is better?
Because there are no rubber bands, compression in the body, vasodilation is favored because you have to heat the body and the metabolism is activated, the folds or areas of the body that can retain moisture do not...
These things that seem practical for daily life are not told to us.
There are things that are not explained, yes. Going to the bathroom with the thinker's posture, having a 35º angle between the legs and the body, doing a calf raise exercise beforehand... These are little hacks we can do.
More questions like this. Intermittent fasting, so fashionable now. Is it good then?
Yes that's good. It has been shown to prolong longevity. In general, caloric restriction is good. It is about eating little, eating less. Our metabolism was forged when we were hunters, nomads, and we had to make a great effort to eat a little food. Our metabolism is prepared for these situations: big efforts, small meals. Intermittent fasting helps that, to eat little and move. What has been seen with this is that when you deprive a cell of nutrients, it consumes its own proteins. And it doesn't consume the best ones, it consumes the old. So, if you transform the old into the new, you are making it easier to have intact, young cells that function well. Intermittent fasting has also been seen to activate longevity cells.
And coffee? It is healthy? Because they tell us something different every six months.
It's good. There's a scientific paper that came out in the New England Journal Magazine that said it has neuroprotective effects. Everything is in the dose always. The difference between a poison and a medicine is the dose. Do not go overboard, have a little coffee that facilitates cerebral vasodilation. What coffee does is peripheral vasoconstriction (reduces the caliber of the peripheral vessels, but vasodilates the vessels at the cerebral level), and that facilitates cerebral immediacy, that ideas come to you and gives a feeling of well-being. And that increased blood flow protects against long-term neurodegeneration, so it's neuroprotective.
In the book he explains stem cells. He has reminded me that there was a time when they seemed to be the solution to all the ills and ignorance of medicine, but then they fell into oblivion, at least at the media level. Are they still the great hope?
A lot of research continues, now the challenge is to get these adult stem cells to differentiate into a cell type. Guide them to perform a specific function and can be implanted in the body and replace defective cells. Investigation continues, but matrixes in which they are anchored and a lot of financing and infrastructures are needed.
You investigate, too, since we talked about this. What do you work on?
I research breast cancer. I'm trying to figure out why it's due to have extra centrosomes (the centrosome is an organelle that is produced in the mitotic spindle during mitosis, they are like fishing rods that separate the sister chromatids during mitosis. All cells have two and that's why we have symmetrical divisions), as happens with cancer cells, and if it can be a prognostic factor for cancer to have a worse prognosis.
It also clarifies a concept in the book with which we still have some confusion. He says, regarding health, that the important thing is not so much the weight.
The concept of being well is not losing weight, but losing size. The weight is not indicative of anything. Muscle weighs more than fat, but you are healthier when you have more muscle and less fat. Weight is not an indication of being healthy, it is having a certain size, which is different. A waist circumference. Nutritionists, to see if you are healthy, look at your abdominal perimeter. Do you have a narrow waist? Well, it means that there is no fat in that area, but neither in the internal vessels, while if you have fat in the internal vessels it means that you can have a thrombus and even have a heart attack. It is more a matter of sizes than weights, which mean nothing.
Speaking of this and of such a specific area, another widespread concept is that fat can be lost in a localized way. Is it possible to reduce only the belly by killing yourself with sit-ups, for example?
Of course not. You have to put the body in caloric reduction and you will lose weight in a general way. It is very very difficult to lose weight in a localized way. Not impossible, but much more difficult.
One last thing: he says that he sleeps better on his side. Why?
Because it is favored, if there is any food left in the digestive system, that everything progresses towards the end of the system. Lymph cleansing processes at the brain level are also favored and the compression of large vessels that enter and leave the heart is avoided.
It has been publicizing for a short time. What led you to enter that world with a professional career already on the line?
I work at the University doing research, I have always been passionate about science. I discovered disclosure a bit by chance. We were in confinement and the pandemic and hoaxes and lies began to circulate. We couldn't go to the lab or do anything and I started taking scientific publications as is in English and telling them in videos in a short and entertaining way. I saw that they were successful, people liked them. I started telling stories and I realized that they had an impact. I thought that with my background in this field I had to take advantage of it. And so I started to generate content related to science and it worked very well. I'm very happy.
The same does not have elements to compare because it did not disclose before the pandemic, but do you think that interest in science has increased due to the coronavirus?
Yes, I think so, and people value science much more because they have realized how important it is for progress. A pandemic has come to us, something unexpected, and without scientific tools we would not have been able to combat it, we would have spent 10 or 15 years with a very high lethality. But thanks to science we have managed to turn it into a constipation that lasts four days. Science provides tools that help combat any threat and solve it with the least possible impact. That has made people value science a lot.
Exposing yourself in public is almost automatically being a victim of hate. Have you suffered? How do you deal with it, are you in favor of dialogue and trying to convince or better ignore?
I had a boss who said: "If you have enemies, it's because you're important." If you are in the spotlight, you will be haters or envious, and if there are, it is because you are doing something right and you are making an impact. It's all about what you do with your time, it's very important to me. I am a teacher, I have two children, I do outreach, I have friends, family... I cannot waste time with people who only want to release negativity without building.
