7 Healthy Gut Habits For Women Over 40 – by Lara West
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With regard to the titular 7 healthy gut habits for women over 40, a chapter is devoted to each one of those habits, and she goes into quite some detail in each category, more than you might expect.
As for the 7 things, we’ll not keep them a mystery; they are:
- Intermittent fasting
- Prebiotics & probiotics
- Mindful eating
- Understanding ingredients
- Movement
- Sleep
- Stress management
Of course, all of these things are good regardless of one’s age or gender, but West is writing with women over 40 in mind, and as such, she will focus on things that are especially relevant to those of us who are indeed women over 40.
You may be wondering: what if I’m a long way over 40, and menopause is a distant memory? In that case, 90% of this will still be relevant to you; the only parts that won’t be, are those that pertain specifically to the menopausal transitional phase itself, rather than the post-menopause state.
You may also be wondering: what if I’m a man, and menopause is just not in the cards for me? In that case, maybe about 70% of this will still be relevant to you, because of the broad applicability of most of the advice. That said, if it’s just for yourself, you’d probably do better with a book of which 100% is relevant to you, rather than this one.
The style is conversational pop-science, with personal anecdotes mixed in with references to science. It’s definitely on the light/easy-reading end of books that we’ve reviewed on the topic.
Bottom line: if you’re a woman over 40 who would like to improve your gut health, this book was written for you.
Click here to check out 7 Healthy Gut Habits For Women Over 40, and rediscover vitality!
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How to Prevent Dementia – by Dr. Richard Restak
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We’ve written about this topic here, we know. But there’s a lot more we can do to be on guard against, and pre-emptively strengthen ourselves against, dementia.
The author, a neurologist, takes us on a detailed exploration of dementia in general, with a strong focus on Alzheimer’s in particular, as that accounts for more than half of all dementia cases.
But what if you can’t avoid it? It could be that with the wrong genes and some other factor(s) outside of your control, it will get you if something else doesn’t get you first.
Rather than scaremongering, Dr. Restak tackles this head-on too, and discusses how symptoms can be managed, to make the illness less anxiety-inducing, and look to maintain quality of life as much as possible.
The style of the book is… it reads a lot like an essay compilation. Good essays, then organized and arranged in a sensible order for reading, but distinct self-contained pieces. There are ten or eleven chapters (depending on how we count them), each divided into few or many sections. All this makes for:
- A very “read a bit now and a bit later and a bit the next day” book, if you like
- A feeling of a very quick pace, if you prefer to sit down and read it in one go
Either way, it’s a very informative read.
Bottom line: if you’d like to better understand the many-headed beast that is dementia, this book gives a far more comprehensive overview than we could here, and also explains the prophylactic interventions available.
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Exercising With Less Soreness!
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An Ancient Sports Drink & Healing Potion, Now With Modern Science?
Ginseng has many health benefits, we talked about 8 of them in this previous edition of 10almonds:
…but we’ve somehow never yet done a Monday’s Research Review for it! We must do one, one of these days. For now though, it’s Saturday’s Life Hacks, and we’re here with…
Speeding up recovery after muscle damage
We talked about this topic before too:
Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise
…which gives very good advice (including some supplements that help), but was published before the latest science that we’re going to talk about today:
A team of researchers all so very recently found that ginseng also reduces muscular fatigue and, importantly, hastens recovery of muscle damage caused by exercise.
And that’s not all…
❝It should also be noted that, by reducing fatigue, taking ginseng on a regular basis may also help reduce the risk of injury, particularly in the case of muscles or ligaments, which can in turn improve athletic performance.❞
This means that it can be taken regularly and prophylactically, as they found:
❝taking ginseng systematically for a long time can mitigate the response of the biological markers, mainly creatine kinase (CK) and interleukin 6 (IL-6), responsible for exercise-induced muscle damage and inflammation.❞
You may be thinking “isn’t creatine good?” and yes, yes it is:
Creatine: Very Different For Young & Old People
…however, creatine kinase is not creatine. Creatine kinase (CK) is an enzyme that affects the creatine (to put it in few words, without getting into the fascinating biochemistry of this). Now, it’s necessary for us to have some CK (or else we wouldn’t be able to do what we need to with the creatine), but elevated levels often indicate some sort of problem going on:
Approach to asymptomatic creatine kinase elevation
…so ginseng keeping those things balanced is a good thing.
The study
We’ve talked a lot about the findings and what they mean, but if you’d like to read the paper for yourself, you can read it here:
Effect of Ginseng Intake on Muscle Damage Induced by Exercise in Healthy Adults
Where to get ginseng
If you’d like to take ginseng as a supplement, then there are many ways to do so, with the most common being capsules or ginseng tea, which has an interesting and distinctive taste, and is very refreshing. Here are examples on Amazon, for your convenience:
Enjoy!
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Psychology Sunday: Family Estrangement & How To Fix It
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Estrangement, And How To Heal It
We’ve written before about how deleterious to the health loneliness and isolation can be, and what things can be done about it. Today, we’re tackling a related but different topic.
We recently had a request to write about…
❝Reconciliation of relationships in particular estrangement mother adult daughter❞
And, this is not only an interesting topic, but a very specific one that affects more people than is commonly realized!
In fact, a recent 800-person study found that more than 43% of people experienced family estrangement of one sort or another, and a more specific study of more than 2,000 mother-child pairs found that more than 11% of mothers were estranged from at least one adult child.
So, if you think of the ten or so houses nearest to you, probably at least one of them contains a parent estranged from at least one adult child. Maybe it’s yours. Either way, we hope this article will give you some pause for thought.
Which way around?
It makes a difference to the usefulness of this article whether any given reader experiencing estrangement is the parent or the adult child. We’re going to assume the reader is the parent. It also makes a difference who did the estranging. That’s usually the adult child.
So, we’re broadly going to write with that expectation.
Why does it happen?
When our kids are small, we as parents hold all the cards. It may not always feel that way, but we do. We control our kids’ environment, we influence their learning, we buy the food they eat and the clothes they wear. If they want to go somewhere, we probably have to take them. We can even set and enforce rules on a whim.
As they grow, so too does their independence, and it can be difficult for us as parents to relinquish control, but we’re going to have to at some point. Assuming we are good parents, we just hope we’ve prepared them well enough for the world.
Once they’ve flown the nest and are living their own adult lives, there’s an element of inversion. They used to be dependent on us; now, not only do they not need us (this is a feature not a bug! If we have been good parents, they will be strong without us, and in all likelihood one day, they’re going to have to be), but also…
We’re more likely to need them, now. Not just in the “oh if we have kids they can look after us when we’re old” sense, but in that their social lives are growing as ours are often shrinking, their family growing, while ours, well, it’s the same family but they’re the gatekeepers to that now.
If we have a good relationship, this goes fine. However, it might only take one big argument, one big transgression, or one “final straw”, when the adult child decides the parent is more trouble than they’re worth.
And, obviously, that’s going to hurt. But it’s pretty much how it pans out, according to studies:
Here be science: Tensions in the Parent and Adult Child Relationship: Links to Solidarity and Ambivalence
How to fix it, step one
First, figure out what went wrong.
Resist any urge to protect your own feelings with a defensive knee-jerk “I don’t know; I was a good, loving parent”. That’s a very natural and reasonable urge and you’re quite possibly correct, but it won’t help you here.
Something pushed them away. And, it will almost certainly have been a push factor from you, not a pull factor from whoever is in their life now. It’s easy to put the blame externally, but that won’t fix anything.
And, be honest with yourself; this isn’t a job interview where we have to present a strength dressed up as a “greatest weakness” for show.
You can start there, though! If you think “I was too loving”, then ok, how did you show that love? Could it have felt stifling to them? Controlling? Were you critical of their decisions?
It doesn’t matter who was right or wrong, or even whether or not their response was reasonable. It matters that you know what pushed them away.
How to fix it, step two
Take responsibility, and apologize. We’re going to assume that your estrangement is such that you can, at least, still get a letter to them, for example. Resist the urge to argue your case.
Here’s a very good format for an apology; please consider using this template:
The 10-step (!) apology that’s so good, you’ll want to make a note of it
You may have to do some soul-searching to find how you will avoid making the same mistake in the future, that you did in the past.
If you feel it’s something you “can’t change”, then you must decide what is more important to you. Only you can make that choice, but you cannot expect them to meet you halfway. They already made their choice. In the category of negotiation, they hold all the cards now.
How to fix it, step three
Now, just wait.
Maybe they will reply, forgiving you. If they do, celebrate!
Just be aware that once you reconnect is not the time to now get around to arguing your case from before. It will never be the time to get around to arguing your case from before. Let it go.
Nor should you try to exact any sort of apology from them for estranging you, or they will at best feel resentful, wonder if they made a mistake in reconnecting, and withdraw.
Instead, just enjoy what you have. Many people don’t get that.
If they reply with anger, maybe it will be a chance to reopen a dialogue. If so, family therapy could be an approach useful for all concerned, if they are willing. Chances are, you all have things that you’d all benefit from talking about in a calm, professional, moderated, neutral environment.
You might also benefit from a book we reviewed previously, “Parent Effectiveness Training”. This may seem like “shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted”, but in fact it’s a very good guide to relationship dynamics in general, and extensively covers relations between parents and adult children.
If they don’t reply, then, you did your part. Take solace in knowing that much.
Some final thoughts:
At the end of the day, as parents, our kids living well is (hopefully) testament to that we prepared them well for life, and sometimes, being a parent is a thankless task.
But, we (hopefully) didn’t become parents for the plaudits, after all.
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How anti-vaccine figures abuse data to trick you
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The anti-vaccine movement is nearly as old as vaccines themselves. For as long as humans have sought to harness our immune system’s incredible ability to recognize and fight infectious invaders, critics and conspiracy theorists have opposed these efforts.
Anti-vaccine tactics have advanced since the early days of protesting “unnatural” smallpox inoculation, and the rampant abuse of scientific data may be the most effective strategy yet.
Here’s how vaccine opponents misuse data to deceive people, plus how you can avoid being manipulated.
Misappropriating raw and unverified safety data
Perhaps the oldest and most well-established anti-vaccine tactic is the abuse of data from the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration maintain VAERS as a tool for researchers to detect early warning signs of potential vaccine side effects.
Anyone can submit a VAERS report about any symptom experienced at any point after vaccination. That does not mean that these symptoms are vaccine side effects.
VAERS was not designed to determine if a specific vaccine caused a specific adverse event. But for decades, vaccine opponents have misinterpreted, misrepresented, and manipulated VAERS data to convince people that vaccines are dangerous.
Anyone relying on VAERS to draw conclusions about vaccine safety is probably trying to trick you. It isn’t possible to determine from VAERS data alone if a vaccine caused a specific health condition.
VAERS isn’t the only federal data that vaccine opponents abuse. Originally created for COVID-19 vaccines, V-safe is a vaccine safety monitoring system that allows users to report—via text message surveys—how they feel and any health issues they experience up to a year after vaccination. Anti-vaccine groups have misrepresented data in the system, which tracks all health experiences, whether or not they are vaccine-related.
The U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) has also become a target of anti-vaccine misinformation. Vaccine opponents have falsely claimed that DMED data reveals massive spikes in strokes, heart attacks, HIV, cancer, and blood clots among military service members since the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. The spike was due to an updated policy that corrected underreporting in the previous years
Misrepresenting legitimate studies
A common tactic vaccine opponents use is misrepresenting data from legitimate sources such as national health databases and peer-reviewed studies. For example, COVID-19 vaccines have repeatedly been blamed for rising cancer and heart attack rates, based on data that predates the pandemic by decades.
A prime example of this strategy is a preliminary FDA study that detected a slight increase in stroke risk in older adults after a high-dose flu vaccine alone or in combination with the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine. The study found no “increased risk of stroke following administration of the COVID-19 bivalent vaccines.”
Yet vaccine opponents used the study to falsely claim that COVID-19 vaccines were uniquely harmful, despite the data indicating that the increased risk was almost certainly driven by the high-dose flu vaccine. The final peer-reviewed study confirmed that there was no elevated stroke risk following COVID-19 vaccination. But the false narrative that COVID-19 vaccines cause strokes persists.
Similarly, the largest COVID-19 vaccine safety study to date confirmed the extreme rarity of a few previously identified risks. For weeks, vaccine opponents overstated these rare risks and falsely claimed that the study proves that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe.
Citing preprint and retracted studies
When a study has been retracted, it is no longer considered a credible source. A study’s retraction doesn’t deter vaccine opponents from promoting it—it may even be an incentive because retracted papers can be held up as examples of the medical establishment censoring so-called “truthtellers.” For example, anti-vaccine groups still herald Andrew Wakefield nearly 15 years after his study falsely linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism was retracted for data fraud.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought the lasting impact of retracted studies into sharp focus. The rush to understand a novel disease that was infecting millions brought a wave of scientific publications, some more legitimate than others.
Over time, the weaker studies were reassessed and retracted, but their damage lingers. A 2023 study found that retracted and withdrawn COVID-19 studies were cited significantly more frequently than valid published COVID-19 studies in the same journals.
In one example, a widely cited abstract that found that ivermectin—an antiparasitic drug proven to not treat COVID-19—dramatically reduced mortality in COVID-19 patients exemplifies this phenomenon. The abstract, which was never peer reviewed, was retracted at the request of its authors, who felt the study’s evidence was weak and was being misrepresented.
Despite this, the study—along with the many other retracted ivermectin studies—remains a touchstone for proponents of the drug that has shown no effectiveness against COVID-19.
In a more recent example, a group of COVID-19 vaccine opponents uploaded a paper to The Lancet’s preprint server, a repository for papers that have not yet been peer reviewed or published by the prestigious journal. The paper claimed to have analyzed 325 deaths after COVID-19 vaccination, finding COVID-19 vaccines were linked to 74 percent of the deaths.
The paper was promptly removed because its conclusions were unsupported, leading vaccine opponents to cry censorship.
Applying animal research to humans
Animals are vital to medical research, allowing scientists to better understand diseases that affect humans and develop and screen potential treatments before they are tested in humans. Animal research is a starting point that should never be generalized to humans, but vaccine opponents do just that.
Several animal studies are frequently cited to support the claim that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous during pregnancy. These studies found that pregnant rats had adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccines. The results are unsurprising given that they were injected with doses equal to or many times larger than the dose given to humans rather than a dose that is proportional to the animal’s size.
Similarly, a German study on rat heart cells found abnormalities after exposure to mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine opponents falsely insinuated that this study proves COVID-19 vaccines cause heart damage in humans and was so universally misrepresented that the study’s author felt compelled to dispute the claims.
The author noted that the study used vaccine doses significantly higher than those administered to humans and was conducted in cultured rat cells, a dramatically different environment than a functioning human heart.
How to avoid being misled
The internet has empowered vaccine opponents to spread false information with an efficiency and expediency that was previously impossible. Anti-vaccine narratives have advanced rapidly due to the rampant exploitation of valid sources and the promotion of unvetted, non-credible sources.
You can avoid being tricked by using multiple trusted sources to verify claims that you encounter online. Some examples of credible sources are reputable public health entities like the CDC and World Health Organization, personal health care providers, and peer-reviewed research from experts in fields relevant to COVID-19 and the pandemic.
Read more about anti-vaccine tactics:
- How vaccine opponents spread misinformation
- How misinformation tricks our brains
- How vaccine opponents use kids to spread misinformation
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Kate Middleton is having ‘preventive chemotherapy’ for cancer. What does this mean?
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Catherine, Princess of Wales, is undergoing treatment for cancer. In a video thanking followers for their messages of support after her major abdominal surgery, the Princess of Wales explained, “tests after the operation found cancer had been present.”
“My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy and I am now in the early stages of that treatment,” she said in the two-minute video.
No further details have been released about the Princess of Wales’ treatment.
But many have been asking what preventive chemotherapy is and how effective it can be. Here’s what we know about this type of treatment.
It’s not the same as preventing cancer
To prevent cancer developing, lifestyle changes such as diet, exercise and sun protection are recommended.
Tamoxifen, a hormone therapy drug can be used to reduce the risk of cancer for some patients at high risk of breast cancer.
Aspirin can also be used for those at high risk of bowel and other cancers.
How can chemotherapy be used as preventive therapy?
In terms of treating cancer, prevention refers to giving chemotherapy after the cancer has been removed, to prevent the cancer from returning.
If a cancer is localised (limited to a certain part of the body) with no evidence on scans of it spreading to distant sites, local treatments such as surgery or radiotherapy can remove all of the cancer.
If, however, cancer is first detected after it has spread to distant parts of the body at diagnosis, clinicians use treatments such as chemotherapy (anti-cancer drugs), hormones or immunotherapy, which circulate around the body .
The other use for chemotherapy is to add it before or after surgery or radiotherapy, to prevent the primary cancer coming back. The surgery may have cured the cancer. However, in some cases, undetectable microscopic cells may have spread into the bloodstream to distant sites. This will result in the cancer returning, months or years later.
With some cancers, treatment with chemotherapy, given before or after the local surgery or radiotherapy, can kill those cells and prevent the cancer coming back.
If we can’t see these cells, how do we know that giving additional chemotherapy to prevent recurrence is effective? We’ve learnt this from clinical trials. Researchers have compared patients who had surgery only with those whose surgery was followed by additional (or often called adjuvant) chemotherapy. The additional therapy resulted in patients not relapsing and surviving longer.
How effective is preventive therapy?
The effectiveness of preventive therapy depends on the type of cancer and the type of chemotherapy.
Let’s consider the common example of bowel cancer, which is at high risk of returning after surgery because of its size or spread to local lymph glands. The first chemotherapy tested improved survival by 15%. With more intense chemotherapy, the chance of surviving six years is approaching 80%.
Preventive chemotherapy is usually given for three to six months.
How does chemotherapy work?
Many of the chemotherapy drugs stop cancer cells dividing by disrupting the DNA (genetic material) in the centre of the cells. To improve efficacy, drugs which work at different sites in the cell are given in combinations.
Chemotherapy is not selective for cancer cells. It kills any dividing cells.
But cancers consist of a higher proportion of dividing cells than the normal body cells. A greater proportion of the cancer is killed with each course of chemotherapy.
Normal cells can recover between courses, which are usually given three to four weeks apart.
What are the side effects?
The side effects of chemotherapy are usually reversible and are seen in parts of the body where there is normally a high turnover of cells.
The production of blood cells, for example, is temporarily disrupted. When your white blood cell count is low, there is an increased risk of infection.
Cell death in the lining of the gut leads to mouth ulcers, nausea and vomiting and bowel disturbance.
Certain drugs sometimes given during chemotherapy can attack other organs, such as causing numbness in the hands and feet.
There are also generalised symptoms such as fatigue.
Given that preventive chemotherapy given after surgery starts when there is no evidence of any cancer remaining after local surgery, patients can usually resume normal activities within weeks of completing the courses of chemotherapy.
Ian Olver, Adjunct Professsor, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Adelaide
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Mung Beans vs Red Lentils – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing mung beans to red lentils, we picked the lentils.
Why?
Both are great! But the lentils win on overall nutritional density.
In terms of macros, they have approximately the same carbs and fiber, and are both low glycemic index foods. The deciding factor is that the lentils have slightly more protein—but it’s not a huge difference; both are very good sources of protein.
In the category of vitamins, mung beans have more of vitamins A, E, and K, while red lentils have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, C, and choline. An easy win for lentils.
When it comes to minerals, again both are great, but mung beans have more calcium and magnesium (hence the green color) while red lentils have more copper, iron, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Another clear win for lentils.
Polyphenols are also a worthy category to note here; both have plenty, but red lentils have more, especially flavonols, anthocyanidins, proanthocyanidins, and anthocyanins (whence the red color).
In short: enjoy both, because diversity is almost always best. But if you’re picking one, red lentils are the most nutritious of the two.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc
Take care!
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