3 Health Things A Lot Of People Are Getting Wrong (Don’t Make These Mistakes)
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It’s time for our weekly health news roundup, and this week we’re putting the spotlight on…
Don’t Dabble In dubious diabetes Drugs
Diabetes drugs are in hot demand, both for actual diabetics and also for people who want to lose weight and/or generally improve their metabolic health. However, there are a lot of claims out there for products that simply do not work and/or are outright fakes, as well as claims for supplements that are known to have a real hypoglycemic effect (such as berberine) but the supplements in question are not regulated, so it can be hard to control for quality, to ensure you are really getting what it says on the label.
As for the prescription drugs specifically (such as metformin, or GLP-1 RAs): there are online black market and gray market pharmacies who offer to sell you prescription drugs either…
- no questions asked (black market), or
- basic questions asked (e.g. “are you diabetic?”), and a doctor with flexible morals will rubber-stamp the prescription on the basis of your answers (gray market).
The problem with these is that once again they may be fakes and there is practically no accountability (these sorts of online pharmacies come and go as quickly as street vendors). Furthermore, even if they are real, self-medicating in this fashion without the requisite expert knowledge can result in messing up dosages, which can cause all sorts of issues, not least of all, death.
Read in full: The dangers of fraudulent diabetes products and how to avoid them
Related: Metformin For Weight-Loss & More
There is no “just the flu”
It’s easy, and very socially normal, to dismiss flu—which has killed millions—as “just the flu”.
However, flu deaths have surpassed COVID deaths all so recently this year (you are mindful that COVID is still out and killing people, yes? Governments declaring the crisis over doesn’t make the virus pack up and retire), and because it’s peaking a little late (it had seemed to be peaking just after new year, which would be normal, but it’s enjoying a second larger surge now), people are letting their guard down more.
Thus, getting the current flu vaccination is good, if available (we know it’s not fun, but neither is being hospitalized by flu), and either way, taking care of all the usual disease-avoidance and immune-boosting strategies (see our “related” link for those).
Read in full: Report indicates this flu season is the worst in a decade
Related: Why Some People Get Sick More (And How To Not Be One Of Them)
The hospital washbasins that give you extra bugs
First they came for the hand-dryer machines, and we did not speak up because those things are so noisy.
But more seriously: just like hand-dryer machines are now fairly well-known to incubate and spread germs at impressive rates, washbasins have come under scrutiny because the process goes:
- Person A has germs on their hands, and washes them (yay)
- The germs are now in the washbasin (soap causes them to slide off, but doesn’t usually kill them)
- Person B has germs on their hands, and washes them
- The splashback from the water hitting the washbasin distributes person A’s germs onto person B
- Not just their hands, which would be less of a problem (they are getting washed right now, after all), but also their face, because yes, even with flow restrictors, the splashback produces respirable-sized bioaerosols that travel far and easily
In other words: it’s not just the visible/tangible splashback you need to be aware of, but also, that which you can’t see or feel, too.
Read in full: Researchers warn about germ splashback from washbasins
Related: The Truth About Handwashing
Take care!
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The Dangers Of Fires, Floods, & Having Your Hair Washed
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It’s a dangerous business, going out of your door… And this week’s news round-up looks at 5 reasons why that might be:
Superspreading like wildfire
Environmental health risks are a big topic these days, with our changing climate. As for wildfires? Some of the risks are obvious: burning to death or choking to death in the smoke—but even upon surviving the seemingly worst, more threats remain that themselves can still kill.
Those threats include that both burns and smoke inhalation can cause acute and chronic changes in the immune system. Specifically: changes for the worse. The mechanisms by which this happens depend on the nature of any burns received, and in the case of smoke, what exactly was in the smoke. Now, there is no kind of smoke that is healthy to inhale, but definitely some kinds are a lot worse than others, and let’s just say, people’s homes contain a lot of plastic.
Additionally, if you think someone coughing near you spreads germs, imagine how far germs can be spread by miles-high, miles-wide billowing hot air.
In short, there’s a lot going on and none of it is good, and we’ve barely had room to summarise here, so…
Read in full: Wildfires ignite infection risks by weakening the body’s immune defenses and spreading bugs in smoke
Related: What’s Lurking In Your Household Air?
A flood of diseases
*record scratch*
Environmental health risks are a big topic these days, with our changing climate. As for floods? Some of the risks are obvious: drowning to death or having your house washed away—but even upon surviving the seemingly worst, more threats remain that themselves can still kill.
Those threats include increases in deaths from infectious and parasitic diseases, and respiratory diseases in general. Simply, a place that has been waterlogged, even if it seems “safe” now, is not a healthy place to be, due to bacteria, viruses, fungi, and more. In fact, it even increases all-cause mortality, because being healthy in such a place is simply harder:
Read in full: Linked to higher mortality rates, large floods emerge as an urgent public health concern
Related: Dodging Dengue In The US
Don’t lose your head
Visiting the hairdresser is not something that most people consider a potential brush with death—your hairdresser is probably not Sweeney Todd, after all. However…
There is an issue specifically with getting your hair washed there. Backwash basins—the sink things into which one rests one’s head at a backwards tilt—create an awkward angle for the cervical vertebrae and a sudden reduction in blood flow to the brain can cause a stroke, with the risk being sufficiently notable as to have its own name in scientific literature: beauty parlor stroke syndrome (BPSS).
❝While research suggests BPSS is most likely to occur in women over 50—and previous history of narrowing or thinning of blood vessels and arthritis of the spinal column in the neck are particular risk factors—it could happen to anyone regardless of age or medical history.❞
Read in full: The hidden health risk of having your hair washed
Related: Your Stroke Survival Plan
The smartwatch wristbands that give you cancer
It’s about the PFAS content. The article doesn’t discuss cancer in detail, just mentioning the increased risk, but you can read about the link between the two in our article below.
Basically, if your smartwatch wristband is a) not silicone and b) waterproof anyway, especially if it’s stain-resistant (as most are designed to be, what with wearing it next to one’s skin all the time while exercising, and not being the sort of thing one throws in the wash), then chances are it has PFAS levels much higher than normally found in consumer goods or clothing.
You can read more about how to identify the risks, here:
Read in full: Smartwatch bands can contain high levels of toxic PFAS, study finds
Related: PFAS Exposure & Cancer: The Numbers Are High
The cows giving milk with a little extra
Bird flu (HPAI) is now not the only flu epidemic amongst cattle in the US, and not only that, but rather than “merely” colonizing the lungs and upper respiratory tracts, in this case the virus (IAV) is thriving in the mammary glands, meaning that yes, it gets dispensed into the milk, and so far scientists are simply scrambling to find better ways to vaccinate the cattle, in the hopes that the milk will not be so risky because yes, it is currently a “reservoir and transmission vector” for the virus.
There are, however, barriers to creating those vaccines:
Read in full: Unexpected viral reservoir: influenza A thrives in cattle mammary glands
Related: Cows’ Milk, Bird Flu, & You
Take care!
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Peanuts vs Macadamias – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing peanuts to macadamias, we picked the peanuts.
Why?
In terms of macros, peanuts have more than 3x the protein while macadamias have a lot more fat. It’s mostly healthy monounsaturated fat, but all the same, we’ll prioritize the protein over the fat, which becomes the deciding factor since they are approximately equal on carbs and fiber. So, a subjective win for peanuts in this category.
In the category of vitamins, peanuts have a lot more of vitamins B3, B5, B6, B9, E, and choline, while macadamias have slightly more of vitamins B1, B2, and C. A clear and convincing win for peanuts.
When it comes to minerals, peanuts have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while macadamias have more manganese. An overwhelming win for peanuts.
Adding up the sections with their various degrees of win for peanuts, makes for an overall absolute win for peanuts, but by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts
Enjoy!
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Metabolical – by Dr. Robert Lustig
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The premise of this book itself is not novel: processed food is bad, food giants lie to us, and eating better makes us less prone to disease (especially metabolic disease).
What this book does offer that’s less commonly found is a comprehensive guide, a walkthrough of each relevant what and why and how, with plenty of good science and practical real-world examples.
In terms of unique selling points, perhaps the greatest strength of this book is its focus on two things in particular that affect many aspects of health: looking after our liver, and looking after our gut.
The style is… A little dramatic perhaps, but that’s just the style; there’s no hyperbole, he is stating well-established scientific facts.
Bottom line: very much of chronic disease would be a lot less diseasey if we all ate with these aspects of our health in mind. This book’s a comprehensive guide to that.
Click here to check out Metabolical, and let food be thy medicine!
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People on Ozempic may have fewer heart attacks, strokes and addictions – but more nausea, vomiting and stomach pain
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Ozempic and Wegovy are increasingly available in Australia and worldwide to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity.
The dramatic effects of these drugs, known as GLP-1s, on weight loss have sparked huge public interest in this new treatment option.
However, the risks and benefits are still being actively studied.
In a new study in Nature Medicine, researchers from the United States reviewed health data from about 2.4 million people who have type 2 diabetes, including around 216,000 people who used a GLP-1 drug, between 2017 and 2023.
The researchers compared a range of health outcomes when GLP-1s were added to a person’s treatment plan, versus managing their diabetes in other ways, often using glucose-lowering medications.
Overall, they found people who used GLP-1s were less likely to experience 42 health conditions or adverse health events – but more likely to face 19 others.
myskin/Shutterstock What conditions were less common?
Cardiometabolic conditions
GLP-1 use was associated with fewer serious cardiovascular and coagulation disorders. This includes deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, stroke, cardiac arrest, heart failure and myocardial infarction.
Neurological and psychiatric conditions
GLP-1 use was associated with fewer reported substance use disorders or addictions, psychotic disorders and seizures.
Infectious conditions
GLP-1 use was associated with fewer bacterial infections and pneumonia.
What conditions were more common?
Gastrointestinal conditions
Consistent with prior studies, GLP-1 use was associated with gastrointestinal conditions such as nausea, vomiting, gastritis, diverticulitis and abdominal pain.
Other adverse effects
Increased risks were seen for conditions such as low blood pressure, syncope (fainting) and arthritis.
People who took Ozempic were more likely to experience stomach upsets than those who used other type 2 diabetes treatments. Douglas Cliff/Shutterstock How robust is this study?
The study used a large and reputable dataset from the US Department of Veterans Affairs. It’s an observational study, meaning the researchers tracked health outcomes over time without changing anyone’s treatment plan.
A strength of the study is it captures data from more than 2.4 million people across more than six years. This is much longer than what is typically feasible in an intervention study.
Observational studies like this are also thought to be more reflective of the “real world”, because participants aren’t asked to follow instructions to change their behaviour in unnatural or forced ways, as they are in intervention studies.
However, this study cannot say for sure that GLP-1 use was the cause of the change in risk of different health outcomes. Such conclusions can only be confidently made from tightly controlled intervention studies, where researchers actively change or control the treatment or behaviour.
The authors note the data used in this study comes from predominantly older, white men so the findings may not apply to other groups.
Also, the large number of participants means that even very small effects can be detected, but they might not actually make a real difference in overall population health.
Observational studies track outcomes over time, but can’t say what caused the changes. Jacob Lund/Shutterstock Other possible reasons for these links
Beyond the effect of GLP-1 in the body, other factors may explain some of the findings in this study. For example, it’s possible that:
- people who used GLP-1 could be more informed about treatment options and more motivated to manage their own health
- people who used GLP-1 may have received it because their health-care team were motivated to offer the latest treatment options, which could lead to better care in other areas that impact the risk of various health outcomes
- people who used GLP-1 may have been able to do so because they lived in metropolitan centres and could afford the medication, as well as other health-promoting services and products, such as gyms, mental health care, or healthy food delivery services.
Did the authors have any conflicts of interest?
Two of the study’s authors declared they were “uncompensated consultants” for Pfizer, a global pharmaceutical company known for developing a wide range of medicines and vaccines. While Pfizer does not currently make readily available GLP-1s such as Ozempic or Wegovy, they are attempting to develop their own GLP-1s, so may benefit from greater demand for these drugs.
This research was funded by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, a government agency that provides a wide range of services to military veterans.
No other competing interests were reported.
Diabetes vs weight-loss treatments
Overall, this study shows people with type 2 diabetes using GLP-1 medication generally have more positive health outcomes than negative health outcomes.
However, the study didn’t include people without type 2 diabetes. More research is needed to understand the effects of these medications in people without diabetes who are using them for other reasons, including weight loss.
While the findings highlight the therapeutic benefits of GLP-1 medications, they also raise important questions about how to manage the potential risks for those who choose to use this medication.
The findings of this study can help many people, including:
- policymakers looking at ways to make GLP-1 medications more widely available for people with various health conditions
- health professionals who have regular discussions with patients considering GLP-1 use
- individuals considering whether a GLP-1 medication is right for them.
Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland and Emily Burch, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Lecturer, Southern Cross University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Reflexology: What The Science Says
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How Does Reflexology Work, Really?
In Wednesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your opinion of reflexology, and got the above-depicted, below-described set of responses:
- About 63% said “It works by specific nerves connecting the feet and hands to various specific organs, triggering healing remotely”
- About 26% said “It works by realigning the body’s energies (e.g. qi, ki, prana, etc), removing blockages and improving health“
- About 11% said “It works by placebo, at best, and has no evidence for any efficacy beyond that”
So, what does the science say?
It works by realigning the body’s energies (e.g. qi, ki, prana, etc), removing blockages and improving health: True or False?
False, or since we can’t prove a negative: there is no reliable scientific evidence for this.
Further, there is no reliable scientific evidence for the existence of qi, ki, prana, soma, mana, or whatever we want to call it.
To save doubling up, we did discuss this in some more detail, exploring the notion of qi as bioelectrical energy, including a look at some unreliable clinical evidence for it (a study that used shoddy methodology, but it’s important to understand what they did wrong, to watch out for such), when we looked at [the legitimately very healthful practice of] qigong, a couple of weeks ago:
Qigong: A Breath Of Fresh Air?
As for reflexology specifically: in terms of blockages of qi causing disease (and thus being a putative therapeutic mechanism of action for attenuating disease), it’s an interesting hypothesis but in terms of scientific merit, it was pre-emptively supplanted by germ theory and other similarly observable-and-measurable phenomena.
We say “pre-emptively”, because despite orientalist marketing, unless we want to count some ancient pictures of people getting a foot massage and say it is reflexology, there is no record of reflexology being a thing before 1913 (and that was in the US, by a laryngologist working with a spiritualist to produce a book that they published in 1917).
It works by specific nerves connecting the feet and hands to various specific organs, triggering healing remotely: True or False?
False, or since we can’t prove a negative: there is no reliable scientific evidence for this.
A very large independent review of available scientific literature found the current medical consensus on reflexology is that:
- Reflexology is effective for: anxiety (but short lasting), edema, mild insomnia, quality of sleep, and relieving pain (short term: 2–3 hours)
- Reflexology is not effective for: inflammatory bowel disease, fertility treatment, neuropathy and polyneuropathy, acute low back pain, sub acute low back pain, chronic low back pain, radicular pain syndromes (including sciatica), post-operative low back pain, spinal stenosis, spinal fractures, sacroiliitis, spondylolisthesis, complex regional pain syndrome, trigger points / myofascial pain, chronic persistent pain, chronic low back pain, depression, work related injuries of the hip and pelvis
Source: Reflexology – a scientific literary review compilation
(the above is a fascinating read, by the way, and its 50 pages go into a lot more detail than we have room to here)
Now, those items that they found it effective for, looks suspiciously like a short list of things that placebo is often good for, and/or any relaxing activity.
Another review was not so generous:
❝The best evidence available to date does not demonstrate convincingly that reflexology is an effective treatment for any medical condition❞
~ Dr. Edzard Ernst (MD, PhD, FMedSci)
Source: Is reflexology an effective intervention? A systematic review of randomised controlled trials
In short, from the available scientific literature, we can surmise:
- Some researchers have found it to have some usefulness against chiefly psychosomatic conditions
- Other researchers have found the evidence for even that much to be uncompelling
It works by placebo, at best, and has no evidence for any efficacy beyond that: True or False?
Mostly True; of course reflexology runs into similar problems as acupuncture when it comes to testing against placebo:
How Does One Test Acupuncture Against Placebo Anyway?
…but not quite as bad, since it is easier to give a random foot massage while pretending it is a clinical treatment, than to fake putting needles into key locations.
However, as the paper we cited just above (in answer to the previous True/False question) shows, reflexology does not appear to meaningfully outperform placebo—which points to the possibility that it does work by placebo, and is just a placebo treatment on the high end of placebo (because the placebo effect is real, does work, isn’t “nothing”, and some placebos work better than others).
For more on the fascinating science and useful (applicable in daily life!) practicalities of how placebo does work, check out:
How To Leverage Placebo Effect For Yourself
Take care!
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How To Unchoke Yourself If You Are Dying Alone
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The first things that most people think of, won’t work. This firefighter advises on how to actually do it:
Steps to take
Zero’th step: he doesn’t mention this, but try coughing first. You might think coughing will be a natural reaction anyway, but that tends only to happen automatically with small partial obstructions, not a complete blockage. Either way, try to cough forcefully to see if it dislodges whatever you’re choking on. If that doesn’t work…
Firstly: don’t rely on calling for help if you’re alone and cannot speak; you’re unlikely to be able to communicate and you will just waste time (when you don’t have time to waste). Even if you call emergency services and they trace your location, chances are that, at most, a cop car will show up some hours later to see what it was about. They will not dispatch an ambulance on the strength of “someone called and said nothing”.
Secondly, it is probable that will not be able to perform an abdominal thrust (also called Heimlich maneuvre in the US) on yourself the way you could on another person, and hitting your chest with your hand will produce insufficient force even if you’re quite strong. Nor are you likely to be able to slap yourself on the back to way you might another person.
Instead, he advises:
- Find a sturdy object: use a chair, table, countertop, or another firm surface that has an edge.
- Use gravity to perform self-Heimlich: position yourself with the edge of the object just below your sternum (he says ribcage, but the visuals show he clearly means the bottom of the sternum, where the diaphragm is, not the lower ribs). Fall onto the object forcefully to create pressure and dislodge the obstruction. This will not be fun.
- If it doesn’t work indoors: move to a visible outdoor location like your yard or a neighbor’s lawn. Falling visibly on the ground will likely alert someone to call for help.
While doing the above, remain as calm as possible, as this will not only increase the length of time you have before passing out, but will also help avoid your throat muscles tightening even more, worsening the choking.
After doing the above, seek medical attention now that you can communicate; you’ve probably broken some ribs and you might have organ damage.
For more on all this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
How To Survive A Heart Attack When You’re Alone ← very different advice for this scenario!
Take care!
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