Boneless Lamb Roast Recipe, Spotlight on Provençal Rosemary and Wild Flowering Thyme, Vitamin C for Brain Health and The Magic of Exercise
Looking for a holiday dish that’s a real crowd-pleaser? My richly seasoned lamb roast is a tasty choice and not complicated to cook. You’ll also read about a surprising benefit of vitamin C and get encouragement to stay physically active.
Boneless Lamb Roast Recipe
More lamb favorites from my recipe collection
Lamb-Stuffed Eggplant
Sweet and Savory Lamb Boreks
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight
Provençal Rosemary and Wild Flowering Thyme
The evergreen freshness of rosemary is a direct result of the local terroir: The dry, sunny climate and limestone-rich soil in the south of France are perfect for cultivating aromatic rosemary. The needles for my Provençal Rosemary are cut and dried at their peak for maximum flavor. From roasted chicken to leg of lamb, in both marinades and dry rubs, rosemary is a wonderful seasoning for many proteins. Rich in essential oils, rosemary gets its flavor from eucalyptol and alpha-pinene, aromatic compounds that impart notes of pine and citrus and hints of mint and tea.
Wild Flowering Thyme, also called hyssop thyme and known for its bright purple flowers, grows wild in the Hatay Province of Turkey. Unlike common garden-variety thyme, it’s found primarily in the Middle East, where it’s the defining ingredient in za’atar, the region’s famed spice blend. For my thyme, local villagers forage the plants, which are then sun-dried and cut into small pieces. The result is a beautiful floral, herbaceous flavor and aroma with subtle notes of lemon, lavender, and wildflowers, a hint of pine, and a warm, slightly peppery finish. A member of the mint family, it has a bright, refreshing taste.
For Your Best Health
Vitamin C for Brain Health
A study of more than 2,000 older adults, led by Haruka Nagaya of Hirosaki University in Japan and published in the open-access journal PLOS One, found a new way in which diet may influence how the brain ages. People with lower levels of vitamin C in their blood tended to have less gray matter and weaker connections within the default mode network, an important brain network involved in memory and attention.
“This finding generates the exciting hypothesis that a diet rich in vitamin C might play a supportive role in maintaining brain health and mitigating age-related cognitive decline in older adults,” said study coauthor Tomohiro Shintaku, MD, PhD, assistant professor at Hirosaki University. “What I found most fascinating about this research is that we were able to detect these subtle but significant associations between a single nutritional factor and large-scale brain networks by utilizing a robust, community-based cohort of over 2,000 older adults. It truly highlights the potential impact of our everyday dietary habits on our brain structures.”
The researchers emphasized that the results are based on an observational study, meaning they can’t determine whether vitamin C directly causes these differences in brain structure or function. More research will be needed to uncover the biological mechanisms responsible.
Fitness Flash
The Magic of Exercise
A lab study done by researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore have uncovered a molecular “switch” that, if replicated in humans, may help explain why exercise keeps aging muscles healthy: Exercise helps correct an important imbalance that develops inside aging muscle cells. The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Healthy muscles support movement and play important roles in metabolism, blood sugar regulation, and overall health. Beginning in middle age, muscle strength and function gradually decline, increasing the risk of falls, fractures, and slower recovery after illness or injury. One of the key regulators of muscle health is a growth pathway called mTORC1, which helps control protein production and muscle maintenance. In aging muscles, this pathway can become excessively active. When that happens, muscles focus more on building new proteins while becoming less efficient at removing damaged ones. Over time, these damaged proteins accumulate inside muscle cells, placing them under stress and contributing to the gradual loss of strength associated with aging.
The researchers identified the DEAF1 gene as an important factor behind this process. According to the study, DEAF1 levels rise in aging muscles. As DEAF1 increases, it drives mTORC1 activity higher, disrupting the normal balance between protein production and protein removal.
“Exercise can reverse this process, correcting the imbalance,” explained Assistant Professor Tang Hong-Wen from the Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Program at Duke-NUS, the study’s lead author. “Physical activity activates certain proteins that lower DEAF1 levels, bringing the growth pathway back into balance. This allows aging muscles to clear out damaged proteins, rebuild themselves properly, and help them stay stronger and more resilient.”
The researchers also found that, in some older muscles, exercise alone may not be enough to fully restore the muscle’s repair capacity. This may help explain why some older adults experience greater benefits from exercise than others.
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