What families should know about whooping cough

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Ro White – Public Good News

What you need to know

  • Whooping cough is a bacterial respiratory illness that can cause long-term symptoms and even death.
  • Two types of vaccines protect against it: The DTap vaccine is given to babies and children up to 6 years old, while the Tdap vaccine is given to children 7 years and older and adults.
  • If you or your child has symptoms of whooping cough, isolate them from vulnerable family members and seek treatment early to reduce the risk of serious illness.

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, is a highly contagious respiratory illness that’s particularly dangerous for babies. Cases are now at least four times as high as they were at this time last year. Fortunately, vaccines are extremely effective at preventing the disease across age groups.

Read on to learn about the symptoms and risks of whooping cough, who should get vaccinated, and what to do when symptoms appear.

What are the symptoms of whooping cough?

Early symptoms of whooping cough typically appear five to 10 days after exposure and may include a runny or stuffy nose, a low fever, and a mild cough. One to two weeks later, some people may experience extreme coughing fits that can cause shortness of breath, trouble sleeping, vomiting, fatigue, and rib fractures. These fits usually last one to six weeks, but they can last up to 10 weeks after infection. 

About one in three babies under 1 year old who contract whooping cough require hospitalization, as they may experience life-threatening pauses in breathing (called apnea), pneumonia, and other complications. Children and adults who have asthma or are immunocompromised are also more likely to develop severe symptoms.

Which vaccines protect against whooping cough, and who is eligible?

Two types of vaccines protect against whooping cough: The DTap vaccine is given to babies and children up to 6 years old, while the Tdap vaccine is given to children 7 years and older and adults. Both vaccines protect against infections from diptheria, tetanus, and pertussis.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that pregnant people receive a single dose of the Tdap vaccine between 27 and 36 weeks of pregnancy, as this lowers the risk of whooping cough in babies younger than 2 months old by 78 percent.

Multiple doses are required for the best protection. Learn more about DTaP and Tdap vaccine schedules from the CDC, and talk to your health care provider about how many doses you and your children need.

What should families do when whooping cough symptoms appear?

If you or your child has symptoms of whooping cough, isolate the infected person from vulnerable family members. It’s also important to seek treatment early to reduce the risk of serious illness. Health care providers typically prescribe antibiotics to those recovering at home.

Over-the-counter cough and cold medicine is not recommended for children under 4 years old. However, limiting smoke, dust, and chemical fumes at home and using a humidifier can reduce coughing. If you are caring for someone with whooping cough who exhibits pauses in breathing or develops gray or blue skin, call 911 immediately.

For more information, talk to your health care provider.

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  • What Weston Price Got Right (And Wrong)

    The 10almonds Team

    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.

    Weston Price: What Stood The Test of Time?

    This is Dr. Weston Price, a dentist. You may guess from the photo, or perhaps already knew, his work is not new in 2023. We usually feature current health experts here, but we’re taking a day to do a blast from the past, because his ideas endure today, and inform a lot of people’s health views. So, he’s a good one to at least know about.

    What was his deal?

    Dr. Price (1870–1948) wanted to study focal infection theory—the idea that repairing root canals allowed bacterial infections that caused everything from heart disease to arthritis. His solution was that the teeth should be extracted instead.

    This theory was popular in the 1920s, was challenged in the 1930s, ignored in the 1940s (the world was a bit busy), and by broad medical consensus anyway, rejected in the 1950s. But, while it was being challenged in the 1930s, Dr. Price decided to find more evidence for its support.

    The result was his famous world tour of peoples living traditional lifestyles without the influence of “modern” diet. His findings, and the conclusions he drew from them, extended to far more than just dental health.

    What did he find?

    Dr. Price found that people living traditional lifestyles, with their traditional diets based on locally-sourced foods, had much better overall health. Of course, he was a dentist and not a general practitioner, so aside from examining their teeth, he largely relied on self-reported diagnoses of illness, or lack thereof.

    In short: he found that people in places without modern medical institutions had fewer diagnoses of disease. From this, he concluded that incidence of disease was much lower.

    There was also an unexamined element of survivorship bias—an undiagnosed disease is more likely to be fatal, and he questioned only living people, which skewed the stats rather. Nor did he examine infant mortality rate nor adult life expectancy, both of which were not great.

    Was it all useless, then?

    Actually no! He did hit upon some observations that have stood the test of time:

    • He correctly concluded that modern diets with sugar and white flour were ruinous to the health.
    • He correctly concluded that locally-sourced food, and grass-fed in the case of pastoral farming, tended to have much more nutritional value than the mass-produced results of intensive farming.
    • He correctly concluded that many modern preservation methods robbed foods of their nutrients.
    • He correctly concluded that many grains and seeds are more nutritions when fermented/soaked/sprouted.

    About that “locally-sourced food”: the reason locally-sourced food tends to be more nutritious is that it has required less in the way of preservation for a long trip around the world, and will also tend to be fresher.

    On the other hand, this does mean a lot of the foods that Dr. Price recommends are very much subject to availability. It may well be true that the Inuit people do not eat a lot of fruit and veg (which mostly do not grow there), but if you live in Nevada, maybe locally-sourced whale fat is just as difficult to find.

    One person’s “this fatty organ meat contains the vitamin C we need” may be another person’s “that’s great; I have an apple tree in my garden though”.

    Want to learn more?

    Dr. Price’s most influential work is his magnum opus, “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”. It’s a fascinating book, but do be warned, it was written by a rich white man in 1939 and the writing is as racist as you might expect. Even when making favourable comparisons, the tone is very much “and here is what these savages are doing well”.

    If you don’t fancy reading all that, here are two other sources about Weston Price’s work and conclusions, presented for balance:

    Enjoy!

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  • How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

    The 10almonds Team

    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.

    Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

    Alzheimer’s is just one cause of dementia, but it’s a very notable one, not least of all because it’s

    • a) the most common cause of dementia, and
    • b) a measurably terminal disease.

    For that reason we’re focusing on Alzheimer’s today, although most of the advice will go for avoiding dementia in general.

    First, some things not everyone knows about Alzheimer’s:

    • Alzheimer’s is a terminal disease.
    • People who get a diagnosis at age 60 are typically given 4–8 years to live.
      • Some soldier on for as many as 20, but those are rare outliers.
    • Alzheimer’s begins 20 years or more before other symptoms start to develop.
      • This makes this information very relevant for younger people approaching 40, for example.
    • Alzheimer’s accounts for 60–80% of dementia, and affects around 6% of people over 60.
      • By the age of 65, that figure is 10%. By the age of 70, however, the percentage is still about the same—this is because of the mortality rate preventing the accumulation of Alzheimer’s patients over time.

    Want to know more? Read: 2023 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts And Figures Special Report ← this is a very comprehensive downloadablereference, by the way, including a lot of information about diagnosis, treatmentpathways, and earlyinterventions.

    Speaking of diagnosis…

    Know what the symptoms are… and aren’t!

    Forgetting your car keys can be frustrating. Forgetting them frequently can be worrying.

    But: there’s a difference between forgetting your car keys, and forgetting what car keys are used for. The latter is the kind of memory loss that’s more of a red flag for Alzheimer’s.

    Similarly: forgetting someone’s name can be embarrassing. Forgetting someone’s name, asking them, forgetting asking them, asking them again, forgetting again (lather rinse repeat) is more of a red flag for Alzheimer’s.

    There are other symptoms too, some of them less commonly known:

    ❝Difficulty remembering recent conversations, names or events; apathy; and depression are often early symptoms. Communication problems, confusion, poor judgment and behavioral changes may occur next. Difficulty walking, speaking, and swallowing are common in the late stages of the disease❞

    ~ Alzheimer’s Association

    If you or a loved one are experiencing worrying symptoms: when it comes to diagnosis and intervention, sooner is a lot better than later, so do talk to your doctor.

    As for reducing your risk? First, the obvious stuff:

    The usual 5 things that go for almost everything:

    How much do lifestyle changes alone make a difference?

    They make a big difference. This 2022 population-based cohort study (so: huge sample size) looked at people who had 4–5 of the healthy lifestyle factors being studied, vs people who had 0–1 of them. They found:

    ❝A healthy lifestyle was associated with a longer life expectancy among men and women, and they lived a larger proportion of their remaining years without Alzheimer’s dementia.❞

    The numbers of years involved by the way ranged between 3 and 20 years, in terms of life expectancy and years without or with Alzheimer’s, with the average increase of healthy life years being approximately the same as the average increase in years. This is important, because:

    A lot of people think “well if I’m going to go senile, I might as well [unhealthy choice that shortens lifespan]”, but they misunderstand a critical factor:

    The unhealthy choices will reduce their healthy life years, and simply bring the unhealthy ones (and subsequent death) sooner. If you’re going to spend your last few years in ill-health, it’s better to do so at 90 than 50.

    The other thing you may already know… And a thing about it that not everyone considers:

    Keeping cognitively active is important. This much is broadly known by the general public, and to clinicians, this was the fourth “healthy factor” in the list of five (instead of the sleep that we put there, because we were listing the 5 things that go for most preventable health issues).

    Everyone leaps to mention sudoku at this point, so if that’s your thing, great, enjoy it! (This writer personally enjoys chess, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea; if it yours though, you can come join her on Chess.com and we’ll keep sharp together)

    But the more parts of your mental faculties you keep active, the better. Remember, brainpower (as with many things in health and life) is a matter of “use it or lose it” and this is on a “per skill” basis!

    What this means: doing sudoku (a number-based puzzle game) or chess (great as it may be) won’t help as much for keeping your language skills intact, for example. Given that language skills are one of the most impactful and key faculties to get lost to Alzheimer’s disease, neglecting such would be quite an oversight!

    Some good ways to keep your language skills tip-top:

    • Read—but read something challenging, if possible. It doesn’t have to be Thomas Scanlon’s What We Owe To Each Other, but it should be more challenging than a tabloid, for example. In fact, on the topic of examples:
      • This newsletter is written to be easy to read, while not shying away from complex ideas or hard science. Our mission is literally to “make [well-sourced, science-based] health and productivity crazy simple”.
      • But the academic papers that we link? Those aren’t written to be easy to read. Go read them, or at least the abstracts (in academia, an abstract is essentially an up-front summary, and is usually the first thing you’ll see when you click a link to a study or such). Challenge yourself!
    • Write—compared to reading/listening, producing language is a (related, but) somewhat separate skill. Just ask any foreign language learner which is more challenging: reading or writing!
      • Journaling is great, but writing for others is better (as then you’ll be forced to think more about it)
    • Learn a foreign language—in this case, what matters it that you’re practicing and learning, so in the scale of easy to hard, or doesn’t matter if it’s Esperanto or Arabic. Duolingo is a great free resource that we recommend for this, and they have a wide range of extensive courses these days.

    Now for the least obvious things…

    Social contact is important.

    Especially in older age, it’s easy to find oneself with fewer remaining friends and family, and getting out and about can be harder for everyone. Whatever our personal inclinations (some people being more introverted or less social than others), we are fundamentally a social species, and hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have built us around the idea that we will live our lives alongside others of our kind. And when we don’t, we don’t do as well.

    See for example: Associations of Social Isolation and Loneliness With Later Dementia

    If you can’t get out and about easily:

    • Online socialising is still socializing.
    • Online community is still community.
    • Online conversations between friends are still conversations between friends.

    If you don’t have much (or anyone) in the category of friends and family, join Facebook groups related to your interests, for example.

    Berries are surprisingly good

    ^This may read like a headline from 200,000 BCE, but it’s relevant here!

    Particularly recommended are:

    • blueberries
    • blackberries
    • raspberries
    • strawberries
    • cranberries

    We know that many of these berries seem to have a shelf-life of something like 30 minutes from time of purchase, but… Frozen and dried are perfectly good nutritionally, and in many cases, even better nutritionally than fresh.

    Read: Effect of berry-based supplements and foods on cognitive function: a systematic review

    Turmeric’s health benefits appear to include protecting against Alzheimer’s

    Again, this is about risk reduction, and turmeric (also called curcumin, which is not the same as cumin) significantly reduces the build-up of amyloid plaques in the brain. Amyloid plaques are part of the progression of Alzheimer’s.

    See for yourself: Protective Effects of Indian Spice Curcumin Against Amyloid Beta in Alzheimer’s Disease

    If you don’t like it as a spice (and even if you do, you probably don’t want to put it in your food every day), you can easily get it as a supplement in capsule form.

    Lower your homocysteine levels

    Lower our what now? Homocysteine is an amino acid used for making certain proteins, and it’s a risk factor for Alzheimer’s.

    Foods high in folate (and possible other B-vitamins) seem to lower homocysteine levels. Top choices include:

    • Leafy greens
    • Cruciferous vegetables
    • Tomatoes

    Get plenty of lutein

    We did a main feature about specifically this a little while ago, so we’ll not repeat our work here, but lutein is found in, well, the same things we just listed above, and lower levels of lutein are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not a proven causative factor—we don’t know entirely what causes Alzheimer’s, just a lot of factors that have a high enough correlation that it’d be remiss to ignore them.

    Catch up on our previous article: Brain Food? The Eyes Have It

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  • What Does “Balance Your Hormones” Even Mean?

    The 10almonds Team

    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.

    Hormonal Health: Is It Really A Balancing Act?

    Have you ever wondered what “balancing your hormones” actually means?

    The popular view is that men’s hormones look like this:

    Testosterone (less) ⟷ Testosterone (more)

    …And that women’s hormones look more like this:

    ♀︎ Estrogen ↭ Progesterone ⤵︎

    ⇣⤷ FSH ⤦ ↴ ☾ ⤹⤷ Luteinizing Hormone ⤦

    DHEA ↪︎ Gonadotrophin ⤾

    ↪︎ Testosterone? ⥅⛢

    Clear as mud, right?

    But, don’t worry, Supplements McHerbal Inc will sell you something guaranteed to balance your hormones!

    How can a supplement (or dietary adjustment) “balance” all that hotly dynamic chaos, and make everything “balanced”?

    The truth is, “balanced” in such a nebulous term, and this is why you will not hear endocrinologists using it. It’s used in advertising to mean “in good order”, and “not causing problems”, and “healthy”.

    In reality, our hormone levels depend on everything from our diet to our age to our anatomy to our mood to the time of the day to the phase of the moon.

    Not that the moon has an influence on our physiology at all—that’s a myth—but you know, 28 day cycle and all. And, yes, half the hormones affect the levels of the others, either directly or indirectly.

    Trying to “balance” them would be quite a game of whack-a-mole, and not something that a “cure-all” single “hormone-balancing” supplement could do.

    So why aren’t we running this piece on Friday, for our “mythbusting” section? Well, we could have, but the more useful information is yet to come and will take up more of today’s newsletter than the myth-busting!

    What, then, can we do to untangle the confusion of these hormones?

    Well first, let’s understand what they do, in the most simple terms possible:

    • Estrogen—the most general feminizing hormone from puberty onwards, busiest in the beginning of the menstrual cycle, and starts getting things ready for ovulation.
    • Progesterone—secondary feminizing hormone, fluffs the pillows for the oncoming fertilized egg to be implanted, increases sex drive, and adjusts metabolism accordingly. Busiest in the second half of the menstrual cycle.
    • Testosterone—is also present, contributes to sex drive, is often higher in individuals with PCOS. If menopause is untreated, testosterone will also rise, because there will be less estrogen
      • (testosterone and estrogen “antagonize” each other, which is the colorfully scientific way of saying they work against each other)
      • DHEA—Dehydroepiandrosterone, supports production of testosterone (and estrogen!). Sounds self-balancing, but in practice, too much DHEA can thus cause elevated testosterone levels, and thus hirsutism.
    • Gonadotrophin—or more specifically human chorionic gonadotrophin, HcG, is “the pregnancy hormone“, present only during pregnancy, and has specific duties relating to such. This is what’s detected in (most) pregnancy test kits.
    • FSH—follicle stimulating hormone, is critical to ovulation, and is thus essential to female fertility. On the other hand, when the ovaries stop working, FSH levels will rise in a vain attempt to encourage the ovulation that isn’t going to happen anymore.
    • Luteinizing hormone—says “go” to the new egg and sends it on its merry way to go get fertilized. This is what’s detected by ovulation prediction kits.

    Sooooooo…

    What, for most women, most often is meant by a “hormonal imbalance” is:

    • Low levels of E and/or P
    • High levels of DHEA and/or T
    • Low or High levels of FSH

    In the case of low levels of E and/or P, the most reliable way to increase these is, drumroll please… To take E and/or P. That’s it, that’s the magic bullet.

    Bonus Tip: take your E in the morning (this is when your body will normally make more and use more) take your P in the evening (it won’t make you sleepy, but it will improve your sleep quality when you do sleep)

    In the case of high levels of DHEA and/or T, then that’s a bit more complex:

    • Taking E will antagonize (counteract) the unwanted T.
    • Taking T-blockers (such as spironolactone or bicalutamide) will do what it says on the tin, and block T from doing the jobs it’s trying to do, but the side-effects are considered sufficient to not prescribe them to most people.
    • Taking spearmint or saw palmetto will lower testosterone’s effects
      • Scientists aren’t sure how or why spearmint works for this
      • Saw palmetto blocks testosterone’s conversion into a more potent form, DHT, and so “detoothes” it a bit. It works similarly to drugs such as finasteride, often prescribed for androgenic alopecia, called “male pattern baldness”, but it affects plenty of women too.

    In the case of low levels of FSH, eating leafy greens will help.

    In the case of high levels of FSH, see a doctor. HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) may help. If you’re not of menopausal age, it could be a sign something else is amiss, so it could be worth getting that checked out too.

    What can I eat to boost my estrogen levels naturally?

    A common question. The simple answer is:

    • Flaxseeds and soy contain plant estrogens that the body can’t actually use as such (too incompatible). They’ve lots of high-quality nutrients though, and the polyphenols and isoflavones can help with some of the same jobs when it comes to sexual health.
    • Fruit, especially peaches, apricots, blueberries, and strawberries, contain a lot of lignans and also won’t increase your E levels as such, but will support the same functions and reduce your breast cancer risk.
    • Nuts, especially almonds (yay!), cashews, and pistachios, contain plant estrogens that again can’t be used as bioidentical estrogen (like you’d get from your ovaries or the pharmacy) but do support heart health.
    • Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables support a lot of bodily functions including good hormonal health generally, in ways that are beyond the scope of this article, but in short: do eat your greens!

    Note: because none of these plant-estrogens or otherwise estrogenic nutrients can actually do the job of estradiol (the main form of estrogen in your body), this is why they’re still perfectly healthy for men to eat too, and—contrary to popular “soy boy” social myths—won’t have any feminizing effects whatsoever.

    On the contrary, most of the same foods support good testosterone-related health in men.

    The bottom line:

    • Our hormones are very special, and cannot be replaced with any amount of herbs or foods.
    • We can support our body’s natural hormonal functions with good diet, though.
    • Our hormones naturally fluctuate, and are broadly self-correcting.
    • If something gets seriously out of whack, you need an endocrinologist, not a homeopath or even a dietician.

    In case you missed it…

    We gave a more general overview of supporting hormonal health (including some hormones that aren’t sex hormones but are really important too), back in February.

    Check it out here: Healthy Hormones And How To Hack Them

    Want to read more?

    Anthea Levi, RD, takes much the same view:

    ❝For some ‘hormone-balancing’ products, the greatest risk might simply be lost dollars. Others could come at a higher cost.❞

    Read: Are Hormone-Balancing Products a Scam?

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  • We looked at over 166,000 psychiatric records. Over half showed people were admitted against their will

    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.

    Amy Corderoy – UNSW Sydney

    Picture two people, both suffering from a serious mental illness requiring hospital admission. One was born in Australia, the other in Asia.

    Hopefully, both could be treated on a voluntary basis, taking into account their individual needs, preferences and capacity to consent. If not, you might imagine they should be equally likely to receive treatment against their will (known colloquially as being “sectioned” or “scheduled”).

    However, our research published in British Journal of Psychiatry Open suggests this is not the case.

    In the largest study globally of its kind, we found Australians are more likely to be treated in hospital for their acute mental illness against their will if they are born overseas, speak a language other than English or are unemployed.

    What we did and what we found

    We examined more than 166,000 episodes of voluntary and involuntary psychiatric care in New South Wales public hospitals between 2016 and 2021. Most admissions (54%) included at least one day of involuntary care.

    Being brought to hospital via legal means, such as by police or via a court order, was strongly linked to involuntary treatment.

    While our study does not show why this is the case, it may be due to mental health laws. In NSW, which has similar laws to most jurisdictions in Australia, doctors may treat a person on an involuntary basis if they present with certain symptoms indicating serious mental illness (such as hallucinations and delusions) which cause them to require protection from serious harm, and there is no other less-restrictive care available. Someone who has been brought to hospital by police or the courts may be more likely to meet the legal requirement of requiring protection from serious harm.

    The likelihood of involuntary care was also linked to someone’s diagnosis. A person with psychosis or organic brain diseases, such as dementia and delirium, were about four times as likely to be admitted involuntarily compared to someone with anxiety or adjustment disorders (conditions involving a severe reaction to stressors).

    However, our data suggest non-clinical factors contribute to the decision to impose involuntary care.

    Compared with people born in Australia, we found people born in Asia were 42% more likely to be treated involuntarily.

    People born in Africa or the Middle East were 32% more likely to be treated this way.

    Overall, people who spoke a language other than English were 11% more likely to receive involuntary treatment compared to those who spoke English as their first language.

    Some international researchers have suggested higher rates of involuntary treatment seen in people born overseas might be due to higher rates of psychotic illness. But our research found a link between higher rates of involuntary care in people born overseas or who don’t speak English regardless of their diagnosis.

    We don’t know why this is happening. It is likely to reflect a complex interplay of factors about both the people receiving treatment and the way services are provided to them.

    People less likely to be treated involuntarily included those who hold private health insurance, and those referred through a community health centre or outpatients unit.

    Our findings are in line with international studies. These show higher rates of involuntary treatment among people from Black and ethnic minority groups, and people living in areas of higher socioeconomic disadvantage.

    A last resort? Or should we ban it?

    Both the NSW and Australian mental health commissions have called involuntary psychiatric care an avoidable harm that should only be used as a last resort.

    Despite this, one study found Australia’s rate of involuntary admissions has increased by 3.4% per year and it has one of the highest rates of involuntary admissions in the world.

    Involuntary psychiatric treatment is also under increasing scrutiny globally.

    When Australia signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it added a declaration noting it would allow for involuntary treatment of people with mental illness where such treatments are “necessary, as a last resort and subject to safeguards”.

    However, the UN has rejected this, saying it is a fundamental human right “to be free from involuntary detention in a mental health facility and not to be forced to undergo mental health treatment”.

    Others question if involuntary treatment could ever be removed entirely.

    Where to from here?

    Our research not only highlights concerns regarding how involuntary psychiatric treatment is implemented, it’s a first step towards decreasing its use. Without understanding how and when it is used it will be difficult to create effective interventions to reduce it.

    But Australia is still a long way from significantly reducing involuntary treatment.

    We need to provide more care options outside hospital, ones accessible to all Australians, including those born overseas, who don’t speak English, or who come from disadvantaged communities. This includes intervening early enough that people are supported to not become so unwell they end up being referred for treatment via police or the criminal justice system.

    More broadly, we need to do more to reduce stigma surrounding mental illness and to ensure poverty and discrimination are tackled to help prevent more people becoming unwell in the first place.

    Our study also shows we need to do more to respect the autonomy of someone with serious mental illness to choose if they are treated. That’s whether they are in NSW or other jurisdictions.

    And legal reform is required to ensure more states and territories more fully reflect the principal that people who have the capacity to make such decisions should have the right to decline mental health treatment in the same way they would any other health care.

    If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

    Amy Corderoy, Medical doctor and PhD candidate studying involuntary psychiatric treatment, School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney

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

    Don’t Forget…

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  • When the Body Says No – by Dr. Gabor Maté

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    The 10almonds Team

    We know that chronic stress is bad for us because of what it does to our cortisol levels, so what is the rest of this book about?

    Dr. Gabor Maté is a medical doctor, heavily specialized in the impact of psychological trauma on long term physical health.

    Here, he examies—as the subtitle promises—the connection between stress and disease. As it turns out, it’s not that simple.

    We learn not just about the impact that stress has on our immune system (including increasing the risk of autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis), the cardiovascular system, and various other critical systems fo the body… But also:

    • how environmental factors and destructive coping styles contribute to the onset of disease, and
    • how traumatic events can warp people’s physical perception of pain
    • how certain illnesses are associated with particular personality types.

    This latter is not “astrology for doctors”, by the way. It has more to do with what coping strategies people are likely to employ, and thus what diseases become more likely to take hold.

    The book has practical advice too, and it’s not just “reduce your stress”. Ideally, of course, indeed reduce your stress. But that’s a) obvious b) not always possible. Rather, Dr. Maté explains which coping strategies result in the least prevalence of disease.

    In terms of writing style, the book is very much easy-reading, but be warned that (ironically) this isn’t exactly a feel-good book. There are lot of tragic stories in it. But, even those are very much well-worth reading.

    Bottom line: if you (and/or a loved one) are suffering from stress, this book will give you the knowledge and understanding to minimize the harm that it will otherwise do.

    Click here to check out When The Body Says No, and take good care of yourself; you’re important!

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Tahini vs Hummus – Which is Healthier?

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    The 10almonds Team

    Our Verdict

    When comparing tahini to hummus, we picked the tahini.

    Why?

    Both are great! But tahini is so nutritionally dense, that it makes even the wonder food that is hummus look bad next to it.

    In terms of macros, tahini is higher in everything except water. So, higher in protein, carbs, fats, and fiber. In terms of those fats, the fat breakdown is similar for both, being mostly polyunsaturated and monounsaturated, with a small percentage of saturated. Tahini has the lower glycemic index, but both are so low that it makes no practical difference.

    In terms of vitamins, tahini has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B9, E, and choline, while hummus is higher in vitamin B6.

    This is a good reason to embellish hummus with some red pepper (vitamin A), a dash of lemon (vitamin C), etc, but we’re judging these foods in their most simple states, for fairness.

    When it comes to minerals, tahini has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Meanwhile, hummus is higher in sodium.

    Note: hummus is a good source of all those minerals too! Tahini just has more.

    In short… Enjoy both, but tahini is the more nutritionally dense by far. On the other hand, if for whatever reason you’re looking for something lower in carbs, fats, and calories, then hummus is where it’s at.

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