5HT #109: eye freckles + mastic gum + 3 more healthyish things

I recently told y’all about the early preventive tests I do, and one of them is an eye exam.

I basically spend every waking hour looking at a screen. 🫠 So when I walked into EyeJoy here in Austin for my first exam in a decade, I was braced for a reckoning. Surely, after 10+ years of staring at pixels, my retinas were cooked, and I’d be leaving with glasses.

Turns out, my eyes are fine 👀. 

My eyesight is 20/20. It used to be 30/20, so technicallyyy I’ve been downgraded a tiny bit 🤏, but still, I don’t need glasses anytime soon.

Tbh, I was surprised by how wrong my dread was. After looking into it, screen time panic is mostly just vibes. Sure, staring at a monitor all day can cause dryness, fatigue, headaches, and eye strain. But the consensus is it’s unlikely to permanently damage your eyes.

For the record, kids are a little different. More near work and less time outdoors are linked to nearsightedness, so balancing screentime with your littles is still recommended.

Despite my solid vision, there was one finding I wasn’t expecting: eye freckles. Basically, eye freckles, aka choroidal nevi, are pigmented spots on the eye and suuuper common (like 1 in 10 adults common). And I’ve got ‘em.

Choroidal nevi are technically the most common intraocular tumor, which sounds terrifying until you learn most are benign, symptomless, and just sit there minding their own business. The estimated risk of one turning into melanoma is low—about 1 in 8,845 per year—like low low low. (Still, they’re worth monitoring because some freckles do misbehave. My optometrist recommended photographing mine and tracking any changes over time.)

Okay, so my question is: how often should you go to the eye doctor?

The two professionals who do this for a living actually disagree. 

After 40, everyone starts to converge: every few years becomes every 1–2 years as age and risk factors go up. 

Admittedly, a decade was probablyyy too long for me to go 🫣. But IMO, annual is probably overkill if you’re young-ish, symptom-free, and low-risk. Not medical advice, obviously. My new plan is probably every 2–3 years, especially now that I’ve got those li’l eye freckles to monitor.

Plus, the real reason to go though isn’t just your prescription. A comprehensive eye exam can catch early signs of eye disease and sometimes reveal clues about larger health issues like diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. Pretty cool.

So, if you’re like me and have been avoiding an eye exam for the better part of a decade, consider this your sign to finally get it on the calendar. A little foresight goes a long way 😉.

I tend to get pretty obsessed with things, which is partly why last year I undertook a rigorous, science-driven challenge to identify the protein bars actually worth your time and money. 

And by “rigorous, science-driven challenge,” I mean I ate 25+ of the most talked-about protein bars in the name of research. (It’s a hard job, but someone had to do it.)

And my latest obsession, The Lineage Protein Bar, just overtook the #1 spot. 🥇😱

If you read my original protein bar challenge, you know I’m a tough critic, so I don’t share this lightly! After running the numbers, here’s how my new fave took over #1.

The Lineage Protein Bar
🏆 Best Protein Bar for Humans

Snack stats:

Gut reaction: So good, right size, right texture, right flavor. Tastes like a protein fudgesicle. Feels like real food. Packing 20g of high-quality protein, the macros and ingredients in these bars are as good as it gets. 

How does it taste? For my original challenge, I mostly stuck to each brand’s peanut butter and chocolate flavor, or the closest equivalent, to keep things consistent. So I’ll focus on Lineage’s Chocolate flavor, which was delicious. It had the perfect amount of sweetness and a satisfying texture. Think Tootsie Roll (but healthy). And no, there’s no weird beef tallow flavor. You've got your raw honey & coconut nectar for sweetness and your organic cacao for flavor.

Bottom line: The protein bar war has been won. If you want a healthyish-approved protein bar you can eat consistently and feel good about, Lineage Provisions gets my full reco. 

Annnd they're extending their discount to 5HTers for 15% off protein bars (!!) while supplies last! They also have a new Cookie Dough flavor, which sounds 👌. (Remember, they sold out in 2.5 days when they first launched, so stock up while you can!)

Some TikTok trends give me the ick, but this one is genuinely great. 

Basically, the idea is to go on a walk 🚶and try to find something for every letter in the alphabet. 5HTer Webb K. said he plans to try this with his kiddos, and I will too.

So I've been chewing (er, masticating) tree sap at my desk 🌳 for two weeks now.

The sap is “mastic gum,” a hardened resin from the Pistacia lentiscus tree, which grows virtually nowhere on Earth except on the Greek island of Chios. The Ancient Greeks made it cool by chewing it to freshen their breath.

Now it’s hot because teenage boys on TikTok are buying it to chisel their jaws. The looksmaxxing pitch: chew something hard enough, and your jaw muscle swells into a chiseled edge.

Unfortunately for jaw maxxers, a 2024 randomized controlled trial of gum-chewing training found exactly zero change (!) in “masseter” thickness or jaw shape. Awkward 🐢. And even if it did work, a bigger masseter would widen the back of your jaw, not carve out the front. So, no, I would not chew mastic for your jawline 😬.

But for your mouth, though? Maybe! Small trials suggest mastic gum can reduce Streptococcus mutans (the cavity bug), plaque, and bad breath.

There’s also the gut angle: H. pylori is the stomach bug behind a lot of ulcers. Mastic wiped out 90% of H. pylori strains in a dish, and a randomized pilot found it helped clear the infection in real people. 

There’s even a six-month trial where mastic lowered triglycerides and insulin levels… buuut it was funded by the Chios mastic growers’ trade group, so take it with an Aegean grain of salt 🧂. (Dad joke!)

If you try it, know real mastic is protected-origin, like Champagne, and legally only comes from southern Chios. The one I’ve been using fwiw is Greco Gum.

The flavor's strange buuut I kinda learned to like it? Think licorice, pine, and a little Mediterranean herb garden. My daughters asked for some and immediately spat it out. 😂

It also does not quit. Normal gum dies in four minutes. Mastic keeps its flavor and springy resistance forever. That said, I didn’t feel anything dramatic in my gut or mouth, and at $40ish/tin, it’s more tool than treat. 

Ultimately, I’m not really a gum guy, but if I were, I’d continue chewing this for cleaner teeth, fresher breath, an upgrade over plastic gum.

Sooo, I recently did a thing 👀. I went through 100+ editions of 5HT, pulled 100 of my all-time favorite healthyish hacks, and plugged them into a handy dandy PDF. 🤠

It took loooooads of time, but it was totally worth it to get all of these in one place. We’re talking AM/PM routine hacks, strength hacks, stress relief hacks, longevity hacks, etc. It’s hacks on hacks on hacks. Plus, our Healthyish designer, Kim D., made it look 🔥🔥🔥. 

If you want in on this PDF, all you have to do is refer one person ☝️ to 5HT. (I mean I’d take more, but still!) Share your unique code (below) with that one friend who carries around an emotional support water bottle, that one family member who is always asking you about your sleep score, or that one coworker who starts meetings telling your team their latest peptide stack.

Refer one healthyish human, and I’ll send you the PDF.

Share this code so we know who’s spreading the serotonin → {{ rp_refer_url }}

Directions: Copy, paste, and fill in the prompt below to create a summer health bucket list. ☀️😎

👋 Who are you again? I’m Derek Flanzraich—founder of two venture-backed startups in Greatist (👍) and Ness (👎). I’ve worked with brands like GoodRx, Parsley, Midi, Ro, NOCD, and Peloton. I now run Healthyish Content, a premium health content & SEO agency (among other things).

Every Thursday (and now Sunday!), I share healthyish things I feel strongly about. (Disclaimer: I’m more your friend with health benefits. None of this is medical advice.) Also some links are affiliate links, but they influence my decisions zero.

Oh, you also feel strongly about some health things? Hit reply—I’d love to hear it.