noema

Data Deletion from noema

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Your Data Privacy Matters to Me¶

At noema, I am committed to ensuring the privacy and security of your personal information. This page outlines the steps you can take to manage and delete your data associated with your interactions on this blog, particularly when using third-party login to comment.

Types of Information Collected¶

The only information collected and stored when you log in to comment on this blog is your comments themselves. I do not collect any additional personal information from the third-party account you use to authenticate.

Managing and Deleting Your Comments¶

You have full control over the comments you make on this blog. Each comment you post is accompanied by a “delete” link located below your comment. If you wish to remove any of your comments, simply click on the “delete” link, and the comment will be permanently removed.

Requesting Data Deletion¶

If you encounter any difficulties or have concerns about data deletion, you can contact me at sara@sindro.me. When you reach out to me via email, please provide:

Your name
Email address associated with the account you used to comment
Subject: Data Deletion Request
Description: confirm that you would like to request the deletion of all your comments and associated data from this blog.

I am committed to addressing your data deletion requests promptly. You can expect a response and confirmation of data deletion within 1 business day from the date of your email.

Terms of service for noema

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

1. Acceptance of Terms¶

Welcome to noema. By accessing or using this website https://noema.sindro.me (the “Website”), you agree to comply with and be bound by these Terms of Service (“Terms”). If you do not agree to these Terms, please do not use the Website.

2. Use of the Website¶

2.1. Content: The content on this Website is provided for informational and educational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by users or authors of articles are my own and do not reflect the views of anybody else.

2.2. User Conduct: You agree not to use the Website for any unlawful, abusive, or unauthorized purpose. You are solely responsible for your interactions and communications on the Website.

2.3. Intellectual Property: All content and materials on this Website, including but not limited to text, images, graphics, and logos, are protected by intellectual property rights. You may not copy, distribute, modify, or create derivative works without prior written consent.

3. User Contributions¶

3.1. Comments and Posts: Users may contribute comments and posts to the Website. By posting, you grant me a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, and worldwide license to use, modify, and distribute your contributions.

3.2. Responsibility: You are solely responsible for your contributions, and you represent and warrant that they do not violate any third-party rights, laws, or regulations.

4. Privacy and Data Protection¶

4.1. Data Collection: I may collect and process personal information as described in my Privacy Policy.

Privacy policy for noema

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This Privacy Policy outlines how noema collects and uses information. By using this blog, you consent to the practices described below.

1. Information I Collect¶

I only collect the minimum necessary information for the purpose of enabling comments on my blog posts. This information includes:

Identity: When you log in and post comments, your chosen identity (username) is collected solely for the purpose of displaying your comments.

2. Use of Information¶

The identity you provide is used solely to identify your comments on my blog posts. I do not use this information for any other purpose, and I do not share, sell, or grant access to any personal data.

3. Third-Party Services¶

I do not use any third-party services that would require access to your personal data.

4. Data Security¶

I take reasonable measures to protect the information you provide. However, please note that no method of data transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure.

5. Changes to this Privacy Policy¶

I may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page.

6. Contact Me¶

If you have any questions or concerns about my Privacy Policy, please contact me at sara@sindro.me.

By using this blog, you agree to the terms outlined in this Privacy Policy.

Sincerely,
Sara Lo Russo
noema.sindro.me
sara@sindro.me

Last updated: 2026-04-21

The Fine Print

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The usual stack of legal pages. Here for when you need them.

Privacy Policy ¶

What I collect (very little) and what I do with it (almost nothing).

Terms of Service ¶

Basic ground rules, plus a clear note that nothing here is medical advice.

Data Deletion ¶

How to remove your comments and associated data.

Questions? sara@sindro.me.

Intermittent fasting: what actually works

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract. “Intermittent fasting” has entered public discourse as a single category, but very different practices live under the same label — from daily 16:8 to the five-days-a-month fasting-mimicking diet. On the daily protocols the literature is by now clear: at equal calories, they don’t drive more weight loss than a classic diet, and the “extra” metabolic benefits are small or extrapolated from mice. The case that holds up clinically is the FMD: five days a month of heavily reduced intake, with replicated human data on insulin sensitivity, inflammatory markers, and cardiometabolic profile. The molecular rationale runs through mTOR — the amino-acid and insulin sensor that periodic fasting modulates over a long enough stretch, while sixteen hours of daily fasting modulates only briefly. A disproportionate enthusiasm remains: 16:8 autophagy, white-fat browning, “demonstrated” longevity are still mostly rodent stories. Here I try to separate the solid case (FMD, early time-restricted eating for specific profiles) from the noise.

When an idea actually works in medicine and nutrition, it usually doesn’t need evangelists. When it does, it’s worth looking carefully.

Intermittent fasting reached the general public around 2012-2013 with Michael Mosley’s The Fast Diet and the 5:2 protocol, and from there it never stopped: 16:8, 18:6, 20:4, OMAD, alternate-day fasting, fasting-mimicking diet, prolonged fasts of three, five, seven days. Every variant has its book, its influencer, its biological rationale told as if it were the answer.

Yet if you go back to the basic question — which intermittent fasting does something unique that a good normal diet doesn’t? — the answer that emerges from the better literature of the last ten years is one and specific: the protocol with the most convincing clinical data isn’t 16:8, but the fasting-mimicking diet developed by Valter Longo’s lab at USC. Five days a month, not sixteen hours a day. It’s a different thing, and it has to be told as such.

An honest routine: few actives, right doses, consistency

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract. A rational skincare routine is much shorter than the cosmetics industry’s narrative suggests. Three products can do 80% of the job; five cover almost every real need. Here I lay out a practical synthesis: the minimal routine for those without specific concerns, the complete routine for anyone targeting photo-ageing or dyschromia, the order of application, the most common mistakes, and when it makes sense to move from the bathroom mirror to the aesthetic-medicine chair. Third and final part of a series, in continuity with Skincare: actives, concentrations and medical grade — the second part, devoted to the actives applied at home and to the real difference between over-the-counter and medical grade products.

By this point in the series we have dismantled a lot. Most of the heavily marketed aesthetic-medicine treatments don’t have the evidence the marketing suggests. Most of the trendy skincare ingredients don’t do what they promise. Most of the routines described by magazines and social channels are oversized, underdosed, or both.

One practical question remains. So what do I put on, in what order, how often?

The honest answer is short. Three or four products, used consistently for months, do the job most people are after when they walk into a beauty store with a shopping list of thirteen items. Adding products rarely improves the result — more often it makes it worse, irritating skin that would have responded better to less.

This third part is the practical synthesis of the first two. Nothing new, but everything pulled together.

Skincare: actives, concentrations, and medical grade

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract. Almost all mass-market skincare is under-dosed, unstable, or poorly formulated. Almost all medical grade skincare costs more — but not always for the right reasons. Here I draw the line on what “active” really means in a cosmetic (concentration, pH, vehicle, penetration, stability), which pillars of the dermatological literature actually hold up (retinoids, vitamin C as L-ascorbic acid, niacinamide, azelaic acid, AHA/BHA), and which are the more recent fashions selling mostly stand-in ingredients: cosmetic peptides, bakuchiol as “natural retinol”, snail mucin, plant stem cells. And why — beyond a certain marketing premium — medical grade products often have technical reasons to cost more. Second part of a three-part series, after Aesthetic medicine: what works, what is marketing.

In the cosmetics aisle of a pharmacy or in the pages of a skincare e-commerce site, ingredients turn up everywhere. Vitamin C, retinol, peptides, hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, ceramides, plant oils, botanical extracts. The promise is always the same — younger, firmer, brighter, more protected skin — and the vocabulary is almost identical between an eight-euro serum and a hundred-and-twenty-euro cream.

There is a problem, and it is hard to fit on a label. A cosmetic works — when it does work — because it contains a sufficient amount of a molecule with proven efficacy, formulated so that it stays stable, and delivered so that it crosses the stratum corneum enough to do something. Almost the entire mass-market skincare industry trades on the perception of efficacy — pleasant texture, fragrance, bottle design, marketing claims — more than on actual efficacy. It is not a scam: it is a sector with an enormous grey area between “contains an active ingredient” and “does what it promises”.

Aesthetic medicine: what works, what is marketing

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract. Aesthetic medicine is one of the medical fields where the gap between scientific evidence and advertising narrative is widest. Some treatments have thirty years of solid literature behind them; others were born yesterday and live on sponsored trials and photographic promises. Here I draw the line, one by one, between what has real clinical foundations (botulinum toxin, hyaluronic acid fillers, some lasers, peels), what has an interesting biological rationale but evidence still being built (Profhilo, polynucleotides such as Plinest, new-generation biostimulators like Ellansé and Juvelook), and what travels almost entirely on marketing (HIFU as a “lift”, injectable vitamin cocktails, mesotherapy, carboxytherapy). First of a three-part series, written for those who want to understand before they choose; the second part is Skincare: actives, concentrations and medical grade.

When you walk into an aesthetic-medicine clinic, you are usually handed a menu. Toxin, fillers, biostimulators, skinboosters, polynucleotides, injectable vitamins, next-generation lasers, scalpel-free lifts, peels, microneedling, PRP. Prices change, names change every year, the promises do not: “natural rejuvenation”, “skin quality”, “collagen stimulation”, “lifting effect”. But behind this menu — almost always presented in identical language — lies an enormous gap in scientific evidence. Some treatments have thirty years of independent literature, randomised trials, well-documented safety profiles. Others have a handful of studies, often manufacturer-sponsored, and a mechanistic rationale that sounds convincing — but is not yet clinical evidence. Others still are pure narrative, propped up by before-and-after photos and the perceived authority of whoever is offering them.

There are two mirror-image mistakes when discussing aesthetic medicine. The first is wholesale rejection — “it’s all vanity, it’s all marketing, it’s all dangerous”. This is wrong because many treatments really do work, have medical as well as aesthetic indications, and improve the quality of life of those who choose them with awareness. The second is blind enthusiasm — “if it’s new it’s better, if it costs more it’s better, if everyone is doing it, it must mean something”. This is wrong because aesthetic medicine is one of the fields where marketing innovation systematically precedes clinical innovation, and where many technologies we now consider obsolete are still on sale.

Peptides: the chaotic frontier

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract. BPC-157, TB-500, CJC-1295, Epithalon, MOTS-c: molecules that biohackers inject at home citing mouse preclinical data and before/after photos, without the trials we would take for granted for any other drug. Here I examine one by one what the literature actually says — the leap from mouse to human, the quality of substances on the grey market, the longevity clinics that exploit regulatory arbitrage to sell in Dubai what FDA and EMA have blocked. Follow-up to Living Forever.

On the biohacker catalogue, peptides occupy a peculiar position: more sophisticated than pharmacy supplements, more accessible than prescription drugs, wrapped in a scientific vocabulary that makes them seem like serious medicine without actually being so — not yet, perhaps never. It is a grey zone populated by real molecules, real literature, and claims that run much faster than the literature.

There are three mirror-image mistakes when discussing peptides. The first is to dismiss them as quackery: many have solid biological foundations, some have interesting preclinical literature, one or two are approaching serious clinical trials. The second is to treat them as finished drugs: none of the peptides on the grey market have the clinical documentation we would take for granted in any other therapeutic context. The third, more insidious, is to confuse mechanistic plausibility with clinical evidence. “It makes sense how it would work” is not the same thing as “we know it does good, in whom, at what doses, for how long, without which risks”. That distinction is everything.

This article tries to stand in that middle ground. To describe what they really are, where the claims come from, where the science stops and the marketing begins, and which peptides — today — have some basis to reason from, and which travel almost exclusively on anecdotes and before-and-after photos.

Living Forever

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract. Two parallel literatures circulate on longevity: the one from laboratories — slow, full of caveats — and the one from the market, which sells certainties where research offers well-characterised uncertainties. Here I lay out where solid data exist (caloric restriction, sleep, exercise, rapamycin in mice), where there is much marketing with little evidence (peptides, NAD+, premium clinics), and why the promise of an indefinitely upgradable body confuses mechanistic plausibility with biological control. The most dangerous thing is not ignorance: it is certainty.

The longevity industry thrives on a simple promise: that the body, like software, can be upgraded indefinitely. Biology, unfortunately, has other plans.

I have worked with data long enough to know that the most dangerous thing is not ignorance. It is certainty.

Years spent in the lab studying how genetics, epigenetics, and maternal care shape behaviour, stress resilience, and neuropsychiatric vulnerability in animal models teach you one fundamental thing: biological systems cannot be controlled, they have to be negotiated with. You touch one variable and all the others move — often in ways you had not anticipated, sometimes in ways you cannot even measure correctly. Then you step out of the lab, navigate the healthcare system from the other side — as a mother, as a patient, as someone trying to build an overall picture while the system hands you back fragments — and you realise that this complexity does not disappear just because someone has built a two-million-dollar protocol on top of it.

This article is not a defence of the healthcare status quo, which has its own enormous and well-documented failings. It is an invitation to look more honestly at what we actually know — and at what is being sold to us as if we knew it.

Honest medicine

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract. I’m Sara Lo Russo, a biologist and behavioural neuroscientist. I’ve spent a decade between the lab, clinical nutrition practice and science writing, and this site exists because I wanted an Italian voice on longevity, neuroscience and nutrition that stays anchored to the literature — not to marketing. Articles are structured the way a good study is: a plain-language introduction anyone can follow, then progressively more technical sections for readers who want the mechanisms and the citations.

Where I come from¶

Master’s degree in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, with a thesis in behavioural neuroscience on the role of genetic background in maternal behaviour and stress resilience. Co-author of five peer-reviewed publications in international journals — Biomedicines, Neuroscience, Developmental Psychobiology and two in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (one, the other) — on how genetics, epigenetics and maternal care shape behaviour and neuropsychiatric vulnerability in murine models (laboratory mice and rats).

Preclinical research at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome and at the FutureNeuro Centre of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in Dublin. Years of clinical nutrition consulting with adult patients, including complex contexts: chronic disease, eating disorders, ketogenic diet therapy for epilepsy. Italian secondary-school teaching qualification in Mathematics and Science.

The full picture — publications, roles, training — lives in my curriculum.

What I want to do here¶

I want an integrated, honest medicine, grounded in research rather than in marketing. That means writing about longevity, neuroscience, nutrition and brain health while taking the time to cite the studies, to separate what we know from what we tell ourselves, and to openly state what we don’t yet know.

noema

Data Deletion from noema

Your Data Privacy Matters to Me¶

Types of Information Collected¶

Managing and Deleting Your Comments¶

Requesting Data Deletion¶

Terms of service for noema

1. Acceptance of Terms¶

2. Use of the Website¶

3. User Contributions¶

4. Privacy and Data Protection¶

Privacy policy for noema

1. Information I Collect¶

2. Use of Information¶

3. Third-Party Services¶

4. Data Security¶

5. Changes to this Privacy Policy¶

6. Contact Me¶

The Fine Print

Privacy Policy¶

Terms of Service¶

Data Deletion¶

Intermittent fasting: what actually works

An honest routine: few actives, right doses, consistency

Skincare: actives, concentrations, and medical grade

Aesthetic medicine: what works, what is marketing

Peptides: the chaotic frontier

Living Forever

Honest medicine

Where I come from¶

What I want to do here¶

Privacy Policy ¶

Terms of Service ¶

Data Deletion ¶