7 Essential Devices For Hand Arthritis: Regain Control of Your Life

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Dr. Diana Girnita is a double board-certified physician in rheumatology and internal medicine. With a PhD in immunology (on top of her MD), and training at Harvard and top universities, she founded Rheumatologist OnCall, offering integrative medicine to broaden rheumatology access. Here’s what she has to say about things that make life easier:

Get your hands on these…

The seven devices that Dr. Girnita recommends are:

  • Hand grip strengthener: helps build grip strength with a spring-loaded mechanism. Regular use can improve strength and reduce pain.
  • Finger exerciser: different device; similar principle: it strengthens hand and finger muscles using resistance, enhancing hand function.
  • Moisturizing paraffin bath: a heated paraffin wax bath that soothes hands, providing heat therapy and moisturizing the skin.
  • Weighted silverware: weighted utensils (knives, forks, spoons) make gripping easier and provide stability for eating.
  • Foam tubing grips: foam covers to make kitchen tools, toothbrushes, and hairbrushes easier to grip.
  • Electric can-opener: reduces strain in opening cans, making meal preparation more accessible.
  • Compression gloves: provide gentle compression to reduce swelling and pain, improving hand flexibility and circulation.
  • Door knob cover grips: make it easier to turn doorknobs by providing a larger surface to grip.
  • Wider-grip pens: ergonomically designed pens with a larger diameter and softer grip reduce hand strain while writing.

This writer, who does not have arthritis but also does not have anything like the grip strength she used to, also recommends a jar opener like this one.

As a bonus, if you spend a lot of time writing at a computer, an ergonomic split keyboard like this one goes a long way to avoiding carpal tunnel syndrome, and logically must be better for arthritis than a regular keyboard; another excellent thing to have (that again this writer uses and swears by) is an ergonomic vertical mouse like this one (aligns the wrist bones correctly; the “normal” horizontal version is woeful for the carpal bones). These things are both also excellent to help avoid worsening peripheral neuropathy (something that troubles this writer’s wrists if she’s not careful, due to old injuries there).

For more on the seven things otherwise listed above, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

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  • What’s the difference between vegan and vegetarian?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    What’s the difference? is a new editorial product that explains the similarities and differences between commonly confused health and medical terms, and why they matter.

    Vegan and vegetarian diets are plant-based diets. Both include plant foods, such as fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains.

    But there are important differences, and knowing what you can and can’t eat when it comes to a vegan and vegetarian diet can be confusing.

    So, what’s the main difference?

    Creative Cat Studio/Shutterstock

    What’s a vegan diet?

    A vegan diet is an entirely plant-based diet. It doesn’t include any meat and animal products. So, no meat, poultry, fish, seafood, eggs, dairy or honey.

    What’s a vegetarian diet?

    A vegetarian diet is a plant-based diet that generally excludes meat, poultry, fish and seafood, but can include animal products. So, unlike a vegan diet, a vegetarian diet can include eggs, dairy and honey.

    But you may be wondering why you’ve heard of vegetarians who eat fish, vegetarians who don’t eat eggs, vegetarians who don’t eat dairy, and even vegetarians who eat some meat. Well, it’s because there are variations on a vegetarian diet:

    • a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet excludes meat, poultry, fish and seafood, but includes eggs, dairy and honey
    • an ovo-vegetarian diet excludes meat, poultry, fish, seafood and dairy, but includes eggs and honey
    • a lacto-vegetarian diet excludes meat, poultry, fish, seafood and eggs, but includes dairy and honey
    • a pescatarian diet excludes meat and poultry, but includes eggs, dairy, honey, fish and seafood
    • a flexitarian, or semi-vegetarian diet, includes eggs, dairy and honey and may include small amounts of meat, poultry, fish and seafood.

    Are these diets healthy?

    A 2023 review looked at the health effects of vegetarian and vegan diets from two types of study.

    Observational studies followed people over the years to see how their diets were linked to their health. In these studies, eating a vegetarian diet was associated with a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease (such as heart disease or a stroke), diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), dementia and cancer.

    For example, in a study of 44,561 participants, the risk of heart disease was 32% lower in vegetarians than non-vegetarians after an average follow-up of nearly 12 years.

    Further evidence came from randomised controlled trials. These instruct study participants to eat a specific diet for a specific period of time and monitor their health throughout. These studies showed eating a vegetarian or vegan diet led to reductions in weight, blood pressure, and levels of unhealthy cholesterol.

    For example, one analysis combined data from seven randomised controlled trials. This so-called meta-analysis included data from 311 participants. It showed eating a vegetarian diet was associated with a systolic blood pressure (the first number in your blood pressure reading) an average 5 mmHg lower compared with non-vegetarian diets.

    It seems vegetarian diets are more likely to be healthier, across a number of measures.

    For example, a 2022 meta-analysis combined the results of several observational studies. It concluded a vegetarian diet, rather than vegan diet, was recommended to prevent heart disease.

    There is also evidence vegans are more likely to have bone fractures than vegetarians. This could be partly due to a lower body-mass index and a lower intake of nutrients such as calcium, vitamin D and protein.

    But it can be about more than just food

    Many vegans, where possible, do not use products that directly or indirectly involve using animals.

    So vegans would not wear leather, wool or silk clothing, for example. And they would not use soaps or candles made from beeswax, or use products tested on animals.

    The motivation for following a vegan or vegetarian diet can vary from person to person. Common motivations include health, environmental, ethical, religious or economic reasons.

    And for many people who follow a vegan or vegetarian diet, this forms a central part of their identity.

    Woman wearing and pointing to her t-shirt with 'Go vegan' logo
    More than a diet: veganism can form part of someone’s identity. Shutterstock

    So, should I adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet?

    If you are thinking about a vegan or vegetarian diet, here are some things to consider:

    • eating more plant foods does not automatically mean you are eating a healthier diet. Hot chips, biscuits and soft drinks can all be vegan or vegetarian foods. And many plant-based alternatives, such as plant-based sausages, can be high in added salt
    • meeting the nutrient intake targets for vitamin B12, iron, calcium, and iodine requires more careful planning while on a vegan or vegetarian diet. This is because meat, seafood and animal products are good sources of these vitamins and minerals
    • eating a plant-based diet doesn’t necessarily mean excluding all meat and animal products. A healthy flexitarian diet prioritises eating more whole plant-foods, such as vegetables and beans, and less processed meat, such as bacon and sausages
    • the Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend eating a wide variety of foods from the five food groups (fruit, vegetables, cereals, lean meat and/or their alternatives and reduced-fat dairy products and/or their alternatives). So if you are eating animal products, choose lean, reduced-fat meats and dairy products and limit processed meats.

    Katherine Livingstone, NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Inhaled Eucalyptus’s Immunomodulatory and Antimicrobial Effects

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

    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

    ❝At the first hint of a cough or a cold, I resort to steam inhalation. Some people add herbs or aromatic oils to the boiling water. What do you recommend?❞

    First of all, please do be careful:

    Severe scalds sustained during steam inhalation therapy in an adult population: Analysis of patient outcomes and the financial burden to healthcare services

    Western science’s view is predominantly “this is popular and/but evidence for its usefulness is lacking”:

    Theoretical effectiveness of steam inhalation against SARS-CoV-2 infection: updates on clinical trials, mechanism of actions, and traditional approaches

    But! Traditional Chinese Medicine indicates shuanghuanglian, yuxingcao and qingkailing, which the China Food and Drug Administration has also approved:

    Chinese Medicine in Inhalation Therapy: A Review of Clinical Application and Formulation Development

    Indian scientists are also looking at modern scientific applications of certain Ayurvedic herbs:

    Promising phytochemicals of traditional Indian herbal steam inhalation therapy to combat COVID-19

    In terms of what is likely more available to you, there are several reasons to choose eucalyptus over popular alternatives:

    Immune-modifying and antimicrobial effects of Eucalyptus oil and simple inhalation devices

    For the sake of being methodical, here’s an example product on Amazon, though we’re sure you’d have no trouble finding this in your local pharmacy if you prefer.

    Take care!

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  • International Day of Women and Girls in Science

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, so we’ve got a bunch of content for the ladies out there. Let’s start with the statement Sima Bahous (the Executive Director of UN Women) made:

    ❝This year, the sixty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) will consider as its priority theme “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”.

    This is an unprecedented opportunity for the Commission to develop a definitive agenda for progress towards women’s full and equal participation and representation in STEM. Its implementation will require bold, coordinated, multi-stakeholder action.❞

    Read Her Full Statement Here!

    Here at 10almonds, we are just one newsletter, and maybe we can’t change the world (…yet), but we’re all for this!

    We’re certainly all in favour of education in the digital age, and more of our subscribers are women and girls than not (highest of fives from your writer today, also a woman—and I do bring most of the sciency content).

    Medical News Today asks “Why Are Women Less Likely To Survive Cardiac Arrest Than Men?”

    You can read the full article here, but the short version is:

    • People (bystanders and EMS professionals alike!) are less likely to intervene to give CPR when the patient is a woman (we appreciate that “your hands on an unknown woman’s chest” is a social taboo, but there’s a time and a place!)
    • People trained to give CPR (volunteers or professionals!) are often less confident about how to do so with female anatomy—training is almost entirely on “male” dummies.

    A quick take-away from this is: to give effective CPR, you need to be giving two-inch compressions!

    On a side note, do you want to learn how to correctly do chest compressions on female anatomy? This short (1:55) video could save a woman’s life!

    As a science-based health and productivity newsletter, we make no apologies if occasional issues sometimes have a slant to women’s health! Heaven help us, the bias in science at large is certainly the opposite:

    The list of examples is far too long for us to include here, but two that spring immediately to mind are:

    Maybe if women in STEM weren’t on the receiving end of rampant systemic misogyny, we’d have more women in science, and some answers by now!

    ❗️NOT-SO-FUN FACT:

    Women make up only 28% of the workforce in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and men vastly outnumber women majoring in most STEM fields in college. The gender gaps are particularly high in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paid jobs of the future, like computer science and engineering.

    Source: AAUW

    The US census suggests change is happening, but is a very long way from equality!

    WHAT OUR SUBSCRIBERS SAY:

    ❝Women are slowly gaining more of a place in academia, and slowly making more of a difference when they get there, and start doing research that reflects ourselves. But I still think that it’s a struggle to get there, and it’s a struggle to be heard and be respected.

    It’s a matter of pride, it’s a matter of proving yourself, being in STEM, and [women in STEM] still report being extremely disrespected, not taken seriously all, despite being very very good.

    It’s worth noting as well, that we’ve had women in STEM for a while and there are so many things we appreciate nowadays that they were a part of, but they were never given credit for—it’s still a problem today and something we need to more actively fight.❞

    Isabella F. Lima, Occupational Psychologist

    Are you a woman in STEM, and have a story to tell? We’d love to hear it! Just reply to this email 🙂

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  • Chaat Masala Spiced Potato Salad With Beans

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    This is an especially gut-healthy dish; the cooked-and-cooled potatoes are not rich with resistant starches (that’s good), the beans bring protein (as well as more fiber and micronutrients), and many of the spices bring their own benefits. A flavorful addition to your table!

    You will need

    • 1 lb new potatoes, boiled or steamed, with skin on, quartered, cooled ← this is a bit of a “mini recipe”, but we expect you can handle it
    • 5 oz blanched broad beans
    • 2 oz sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
    • ¼ bulb garlic, crushed
    • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
    • 2 tsp amchoor
    • 2 tsp ground cumin
    • 2 tsp ground coriander
    • 1 tsp ground ginger
    • 1 tsp ground asafoetida
    • 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 tsp red chili powder
    • 1 tsp ground turmeric
    • ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
    • Juice of ½ lemon

    And then…

    • To garnish: finely chopped cilantro, or if you have the “cilantro tastes like soap” gene, then substitute with parsley
    • To serve: a nice chutney; you can use our Spiced Fruit & Nut Chutney recipe

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Mix all the ingredients from the main section, ensuring an even distribution on the spices.

    2) Add the garnish, and serve with the chutney. That’s it. There was more work in the prep (and potentially, finding all the ingredients) today.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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  • Cross That Bridge – by Samuel J. Lucas

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Books of this genre usually have several chapters of fluff before getting to the point. You know the sort:

    1. Let me tell you about some cherry-picked celebrity stories that overlook survivorship bias
    2. Let me tell you my life story, the bad parts
    3. My life story continued, the good parts now
    4. What this book can do for you, an imaginative pep talk that keeps circling back to me

    …then there will be two or three chapters of the actual advertised content, and then a closing chapter that’s another pep talk.

    This book, in contrast, throws that out of the window. Instead, Lucas provides a ground-up structure… within which, he makes a point of giving value in each section:

    • exercises
    • summaries
    • actionable advice

    For those who like outlines, lists, and overviews (as we do!), this is perfect. There are also plenty of exercises to do, so for those who like exercises, this book will be great too!

    Caveat: occasionally, the book’s actionable advices are direct but unclear, for example:

    • Use the potential and power of tea, to solve problems

    Context: there was no context. This was a bullet-pointed item, with no explanation. It was not a callback to anything earlier; this is the first (and only) reference to tea.

    However! The book as a whole is a treasure trove of genuine tips, tools, and voice-of-experience wisdom. Occasional comments may leave you scratching your head, but if you take value from the rest, then the book was already more than worth its while.

    Get Your Copy of Cross That Bridge on Amazon Today!

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  • Watermelon vs Grapes – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing watermelon to grapes, we picked the watermelon.

    Why?

    It was close! And certainly both are very healthy.

    Both fruits are (like most fruits) good sources of water, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Any sugar content (of which grapes are slightly higher) is offset by their fiber content and polyphenols.

    See: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    While both are good sources of vitamins A and C, watermelon has about 10x as much vitamin A, and about 6x as much vitamin C (give or take individual plants, how they were grown, etc, but the overall balance is clearly in watermelon’s favor).

    When it comes to antioxidants, both fruits are good, but again watermelon is the more potent source. Grapes famously contain resveratrol, and they also contain quercetin, albeit you’d have to eat quite a lot of grapes to get a large portion.

    Now, having to eat a lot of grapes might not sound like a terrible fate (who else finds that the grapes are gone by the time the groceries are put away?), but we are comparing the fruits here, and on a list of “100 best foods for quercetin”, for example, grapes took 99th place.

    Watermelon’s main antioxidant meanwhile is lycopene, and watermelon is one of the best sources of lycopene in existence (better even than tomatoes).

    We’ll have to do a main feature about lycopene sometime soon, so watch this space

    Take care!

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