5 Vaginal Estrogen Myths
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Dr. Jennifer Roelands, gynecologist, explains:
Let’s get down to business
Here are the 5 myths busted:
- Vaginal estrogen causes cancer: vaginal estrogen does not increase cancer risk, including breast cancer; it doesn’t raise systemic hormone levels so your breasts won’t even know you’re taking it; even people with a history of breast cancer or blood clots can usually use it safely.
- Vaginal estrogen is only for older women: it’s useful for a wide range of people—including those who are postpartum, perimenopausal, those on certain medications, or with autoimmune or vulvar conditions—not just those in menopause.
- Vaginal estrogen is dangerous for your heart: vaginal estrogen doesn’t raise the risk of blood clots, stroke, or heart attack because it has minimal systemic absorption.
- Vaginal estrogen is hard to use: it comes in various user-friendly forms (e.g. cream, suppositories, ring, etc), and many can be applied easily without mess or complicated devices.
- You have to stop vaginal estrogen at a certain age: there’s no age limit; it can be safely used indefinitely to maintain vaginal and urinary health, including preventing infections and dryness.
Note: in some of these cases, Dr. Roelands compares the effects of topical vaginal estrogen with those of systemic HRT, mentioning multiple times that it’s safer because it’s not systemic. Now, that is true, but it’s worth noting that systemic HRT also does not increase cancer risk in most people, and it reduces (not increases) the risk of heart attack. Nothing is perfect though, and we will concede that it does increase thrombosis risk.
You can enjoy the video here:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
- HRT: A Tale Of Two Approaches ← explains how the “HRT causes cancer” myth came from a single methodologically flawed, since-refuted study that, as an extra consideration against it, didn’t even use modern bioidentical HRT that is even safer than ye olde Premarin and similar animal-derived estrogens.
- HRT & Your Heart ← explains how estrogen is, on balance, cardioprotective (including by improved lipids and vascular function), while still increasing thrombosis risk
- How Old Is Too Old For HRT? ← includes a simple test you can do to know whether it is too late for you or not
Take care!
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It Didn’t Start with You – by Mark Wolynn
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There is a trend in psychology to “blame the parents” for “childhood trauma” that can result in problems later in life. Sometimes fairly, sometimes not. This book’s mostly not about that.
It does touch on our own childhood trauma, if applicable. But mostly, it’s about epigenetic trauma inheritance. In other words, not just trauma that’s passed on in terms of “the cycle of abuse”, but trauma that’s passed on in terms of “this generation experienced trauma x, developed trauma response y, encoded it epigenetically, and passed it on to their offspring”.
So, how does one heal from a trauma one never directly experienced, and just inherited the response to it? That’s what most of this book is about, after establishing how epigenetic trauma inheritance works.
The author, a therapist, provides practical advice for how to do the things that can be done to rewrite the epigenetic code we inherited. Better late than never!
Bottom line: it is well-established that trauma is inheritable. But unlike one’s eye color or the ability to smell asparagus metabolites in urine, we can rewrite epigenetic things, to a degree. This book explains how.
Click here to check out It Didn’t Start With You, and put things to rest!
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JoyFull – by Radhi Devlukia-Shetty
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We haven’t done a recipe book in a little while, so here’s a good one!
The focus of this book is getting more plants and spices into your diet, and doing it deliciously.
Healthwise, there is nothing controversial here: the recipes are all plant-based, mostly whole-foods, and the items that aren’t whole foods are things like “vanilla extract”.
The recipes themselves (of which there are 125) are presented clearly and simply, one to a double-page (although sometimes there will be a suggested variation on the same double-page), ideal for use in a kitchen bookstand. For each recipe, there’s a clear photo of the end result, so you know what you’re working towards.
The ingredients are not too obscure, and can be acquired from more or less any large supermarket.
Bottom line: if you’re looking to expand your plant-based cooking repertoire in a way that’s not just substitutions, then this book provides an excellent variety.
Click here to check out JoyFull, and get a taste of Ayurvedic cooking!
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Meal Timings vs Osteoporosis Fracture Risk
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…and other items from this week’s health news:
Worse than smoking?
The following factors were found to have the following effects on osteoporotic fracture risk:
- skipping breakfast: 18% higher risk
- slow gait speed: 16% higher risk
- smoking: 11% higher risk
- late dinner: 8% higher risk
- regular exercise: 1% lower risk
- enough sleep: 5% lower risk
- daily alcohol consumption: 9% lower risk
That last one’s not a typo! But it also doesn’t mean that alcohol is protective against osteoporosis itself, or against fractures.
So, what does it mean? It means that binge-drinking is more likely to result in someone falling over and breaking something, than moderate daily drinking.
Note: the term “binge-drinking” is popularly associated with young people getting intentionally drunk at the weekend, but please understand that if you don’t drink for months and then have several drinks on some special occasion (e.g. Christmas, New Year’s Eve, a wedding), etc, then that is binge-drinking.
So, what’s this about skipping breakfast and the late dinner? We are hypothesizing here, but in all likelihood it has to do with being rushed and frazzled and lacking energy in the morning—which again, makes you more likely to fall over and break something.
Similarly, that about regular exercise yielding a meager 1% lower risk… Actually, taking into account the confidence interval, an argument could be made for 0%. However, that 0% change to risk isn’t because exercise doesn’t make a difference—it’s because (and partly depending on what kind of exercise it is), while exercise does typically make people more robust, you’re also more likely to fall over while playing tennis than you are to fall over while watching TV. So, looking at nearly a million people’s data, those two sides of exercise cancel each other out.
In short: it’s not just about how strong your bones are or aren’t; it’s also about how likely you are to do something that can result in a fracture.
Read in full: Late dinners and missed breakfasts tied to higher osteoporosis risk
Related: Fall Special ← this is about how to not fall, and how to make it less likely you’ll be injured by a fall if you do
Do you know the early symptoms of prostate cancer?
No, you don’t. But don’t worry, neither does anyone else, because prostate cancer has no symptoms in its early stages.
What is cause for concern, however, is that most people don’t know that (or at least: 80% of Americans polled didn’t know that), and thus that it needs to be diagnosed with a blood test.
In the US, it’s recommended to get tested at age 50 (assuming you have a prostate to test), though earlier can be good especially if you have a family history of it, and/or otherwise are aware of a genetic risk factor (such from having done a health genomics test which revealed it).
Since prostate cancer typically progresses very slowly, it’s considered very treatable if caught early.
But that doesn’t mean “don’t worry”; it means “do catch it early”!
Read in full: Most Americans unaware that early prostate cancer shows no symptoms
Related: Prostate Health: What You Should Know ← this also covers the Prostate Screening Episwitch (PSE) test, which is 94% accurate, unlike the usual go-to, the Prostate-Specific Androgen (PSA) test, which is so inaccurate that even its original creator has called it “a profit-driven health disaster” that is “no better than a coin toss”.
Depression, according to the brain cells
Sometimes, arguments are made for depression being a purely psychological thing, and not physical. We reviewed such a book a while back ← it wasn’t good
However, researchers (Dr. Anjali Chawla et al.) have identified two specific brain cell types altered in people with depression. Specifically, a subtype of excitatory neurons linked to mood and stress regulation, and a subtype of microglia that manage neuroinflammation.
Most notably (and showing a clear long-term effect), many genes functioned differently in these cells in depressed people, indicating disruptions in mood regulation and inflammatory systems, respectively.
Dr. Chawla and her team now plan to study more comprehensively how these cellular changes affect brain function, and explore treatment options with this new information in mind.
Read in full: Research sheds new light on depression’s biological roots
Related: The Brain As A Work-In-Progress
Take care!
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Tinnitus: Quieting The Unwanted Orchestra In Your Ears
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Tinnitus—When a “minor” symptom becomes disruptive
Tinnitus (typically: ringing in the ears) is often thought of less as a condition in and of itself, and more a symptom related to other hearing-related conditions. Paradoxically, it can be associated with hearing loss as well as with hyperacusis (hearing supersensitivity, which sounds like a superpower, but can be quite a problem too).
More than just ringing
Tinnitus can manifest not just as ringing, but also as whistling, hissing, pulsing, buzzing, hooting, and more.
For those who don’t suffer from this, it can seem very trivial; for those who do… Sometimes it can seem trivial too!
But sometimes it’s hard to carry on a conversation when at random moments it suddenly sounds like someone is playing a slide-whistle directly into your earhole, or like maybe a fly got stuck in there.
It’s distracting, to say the least.
What causes it?
First let’s note, tinnitus can be acute or chronic. So, some of these things may just cause tinnitus for a while, whereas some may give you tinnitus for life. In some cases, it depends on how long the thing in question persisted for.
A lot of things can cause it, but common causes include:
- Noise exposure (e.g. concerts, some kinds of industrial work, war)
- High blood pressure
- Head/neck injuries
- Ear infection
- Autoimmune diseases (e.g. Type 1 Diabetes, Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis)
So what can be done about it?
Different remedies will work (or not) for different people, depending on the cause and type of tinnitus.
Be warned also: some things that will work for one person’s tinnitus will make another person’s worse, so you might need to try a degree of experimentation and some of it might not be fun!
That in mind, here are some things you might want to try if you haven’t already:
- Earplugs or noise-canceling headphones—while tinnitus is an internal sound, not external, it often has to do with some part(s) of your ears being unduly sensitive, so giving them less stimulus may ease the tinnitus that occurs in reaction to external noise.
- A great option (that this writer uses personally and considers a life-changer) is silicon earplugs that live in a little case on a keyring when not in use—no more heart-racing fleeing from supermarket checkout boops or pedestrian crossing bips or traffic noises or babies crying or (etc)
- White noise—if you also have hyperacusis, a lower frequency range will probably not hurt the way a higher range might. If you don’t also have hyperacusis, you have more options here and this is a popular remedy. Either way, white noise outperforms “relaxing” soundscapes.
- Hearing aids—counterintuitively, for some people whose tinnitus has developed in response to hearing loss, hearing aids can help bring things “back to normal” and eliminate tinnitus in the process.
- Customized sound machines—if you have the resources to get fancy, science currently finds this to be best of all. They work like white noise, but are tailored to your specific tinnitus.
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How White Is Your Tongue?
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝So its normal to develop a white sort of coating on the tongue, right? It develops when I eat, and is able to (somewhat) easily be brushed off❞
If (and only if) there is no soreness and the coverage of the whiteness is not extreme, then, yes, that is normal and fine.
Your mouth has a microbiome, and it’s supposed to have one (helps keep the conditions in your mouth correct, so that food is broken down and/but your gums and teeth aren’t).
Read more: The oral microbiome: Role of key organisms and complex networks in oral health and disease
The whiteness you often see on a healthy tongue is, for the most part, bacteria and dead cells—harmless.
Cleaning the whiteness off with your brush is fine. You can also scrape off with floss is similar if you prefer. Or a tongue-scraper! Those can be especially good for people for whom brushing the tongue is an unpleasant sensation. Or you can just leave it, if it doesn’t bother you.
By the way, that microbiome is a reason it can be good to go easy on the mouthwash. Moderate use of mouthwash is usually fine, but you don’t want to wipe out your microbiome then have it taken over by unpleasantries that the mouthwash didn’t kill (unpleasantries like C. albicans).
There are other mouthwash-related considerations too:
Toothpastes and mouthwashes: which kinds help, and which kinds harm?
If you start to get soreness, that probably means the papillae (little villi-like things) are inflamed. If there is soreness, and/or the whiteness is extreme, then it could be a fungal infection (usually C. albicans, also called Thrush), in which case, antifungal medications will be needed, which you can probably get over the counter from your pharmacist.
Do not try to self-treat with antibiotics.
Antibiotics will make a fungal infection worse (indeed, antibiotic usage is often the reason for getting fungal growth in the first place) by wiping out the bacteria that normally keep it in check.
Other risk factors include a sugary diet, smoking, and medications that have “dry mouth” as a side effect.
Read more: Can oral thrush be prevented?
If you have any symptoms more exciting than the above, then definitely see a doctor.
Take care!
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Eat Real Food and Love It – by Kari McCloskey
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Half the battle of healthy eating is enjoying it—because once you do, it’s no longer a battle!
So that’s what this book focuses on. The author, a Registered Nutritionist, does indeed dispense nutritional advice, as you might expect, but also bids us pay attention to what nature’s foods do for us, and notice what less healthy foods take from us. She goes through these category by category, quite comprehensively, before moving on to the more “active” parts of the book.
There’s a lot about training our senses, and about taking a holistic approach to eating, as well as renewing not just our relationship with food, but also various other parts of our life that are inextricably linked to it (from sleep and exercise, to social considerations, and medical issues that healthier eating will help us to avoid or at least tame).
The style is… Joyful. Much like this reviewer, the author loves food, and it shows. She also (again much like this reviewer) cares deeply about the impact food has on her, and (for a third time: like this reviewer!) wants to share that joy and care with the reader. The priority is readability and helpfulness; scientific references are still provided wherever appropriate, though.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your eating but it seems like a chore, this book can help turn it into an excitingly enjoyable journey instead.
Click here to check out Eat Real Food And Love It, and eat real food and love it!
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