Aging Minds: Normal vs Abnormal Cognitive Decline
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Having a “senior moment” and having dementia are things that are quite distinct from one another; while we may very reasonably intend to fight every part of it, it’s good to know what’s “normal” as well as what is starting to look like progress into something more severe:
Know the differences
Cognitive abilities naturally decline with age, often beginning around 30 (yes, really—the first changes are mostly metabolic though, so this is far from set in stone). Commonly-noticed changes include:
- slower thinking
- difficulty multitasking
- reduced attention
- weaker memory.
Over time, these changes have what is believed to be a two-way association (as in, each causes/worsens the other) with changes in brain structure, especially reduced hippocampal and frontal lobe volume.
- Gradual cognitive changes are normal with age, whereas dementia involves a pathological decline affecting memory, problem-solving, and behavior.
- Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) involves noticeable cognitive decline without disrupting daily life, while dementia affects everyday tasks like cooking or driving.
- Dementia causes significant impairments, including motor challenges like falls or tremors, and dementia-induced cognitive decline symptoms include forgetfulness, getting lost, personality changes, and planning difficulties, often worsening with stress or illness.
To best avoid these, consider: regular exercise, a nutritious diet, good quality sleep, social interaction, and mentally stimulating activities.
Also, often forgotten (in terms of its relevance at least): managing cardiovascular health is very important too. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: what’s good for your heart is good for your brain (since the former feeds the latter with oxygen and nutrients, and also takes away detritus that will otherwise build up in the brain).
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Is It Dementia? Spot The Signs (Because None Of Us Are Immune) ← we go into more specific detail here
Take care!
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How Does Alcohol Cause Blackouts?
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Sometimes people who have never experienced an alcoholic blackout wonder “is it real, or is it just a convenient excuse to avoid responsibility/embarrassment with regard to things done while drunk?”
In 1969 (so, still in the era of incredibly unethical psychological experiments that ranged from the 50s into the 70s), Dr. Donald Goodwin conducted a study in which intoxicated participants were asked to recall an object they had just seen. Most succeeded initially, but half were unable to remember the object just 30 minutes later, demonstrating alcohol-induced memory blackouts.
But, is it any different from regular forgetting? And the answer is: yes, it is indeed different.
The memories that never got stored
Ethanol, the active compound in alcohol, is lipophilic, enabling it to cross the blood-brain barrier and disrupt brain function. It impairs all kinds of things, including decision-making, impulse control, motor skills, and, notably, memory networks—which is what we’re looking at today.
Memory formation (beyond “working memory”, which is the kind that enables you to have an idea of what you were just doing, and carry out simple plans like “pick up this cup, raise it to my mouth, and take a sip”, without forgetting partway through) relies on a process called long-term potentiation (LTP), which strengthens neural connections to store information. Ethanol disrupts this process, preventing memory storage and causing blackouts.
In effect, this means you didn’t just forget a memory; you never stored it in the first place. For this reason, experiences from during an alcoholic blackout cannot be retrieved in the same ways we might retrieve other memories (e.g. in regular forgetting, it’s possible that a context clue jogs our memory and then we remember the experience—because in regular forgetting, the memory was in there; we just didn’t recall it until we were reminded).
Blackouts (in which the memory is never stored in the first place) typically occur when blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeds 0.16, while lower levels can result in partial memory loss (brownouts) in which some things may be recalled, but not others. Factors such as dehydration, genetics, medications, food consumption, and age influence the likelihood of complete blackouts.
While alcohol’s residual effects typically subside within a day, repeated over-drinking can cause permanent neuron damage, as well as of course plenty of damage to other organs in the body (especially the liver and gut).
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Alcohol
Take care!
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Bold Beans – by Amelia Christie-Miller
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We all know beans are one of the most healthful foods around, but how to include more of them, without getting boring?
This book has the answer, giving 80 exciting recipes, divided into the following sections:
- Speedy beans
- Bean snacks & sharing plates
- Brothy beans
- Bean bowls
- Hearty salads
- Bean feasts
The recipes are obviously all bean-centric, though if you have a particular dietary restriction, watch out for the warning labels on some (e.g. meat, fish, dairy, gluten, etc), and make a substitution if appropriate.
The recipes themselves have a happily short introductory paragraph, followed by all you’d expect from a recipe book (ingredients, measurements, method, picture)
There’s also a reference section, to learn about different kinds of beans and bean-related culinary methods that can be applied per your preferences.
Bottom line: if you’d like to include more beans in your daily diet but are stuck for making them varied and interesting, this is the book for you!
Click here to check out Bold Beans, and get your pulse racing (in a good way!)
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The “Five Tibetan Rites” & Why To Do Them!
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Spinning Around
In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your opinion of the “Five Tibetan Rites”, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:
- About 41% said “I have never heard of these before”
- About 27% said “they restore youth by adjusting internal vortexes”
- About 22% said “they are basically yoga, by a different name”
- About 11% said “they are a pseudoscience popular in the US”
So what does the science say?
The Five Tibetan Rites are five Tibetan rites: True or False?
False, though this is more question of social science than of health science, so we’ll not count it against them for having a misleading name.
The first known mentioning of the “Five Tibetan Rites” is by an American named Peter Kelder, who in 1939 published, through a small LA occult-specialized publishing house, a booklet called “The Eye of Revelation”. This work was then varyingly republished, repackaged, and occasionally expanded upon by Kelder or other American authors, including Chris Kilham’s popular 1994 book “The Five Tibetans”.
The “Five Tibetan Rites” are unknown as such in Tibet, except for what awareness of them has been raised by people asking about them in the context of the American phenomenon.
Here’s a good history book, for those interested:
The author didn’t originally set out to “debunk” anything, and is himself a keen spiritualist (and practitioner of the five rites), but he was curious about the origins of the rites, and ultimately found them—as a collection of five rites, and the other assorted advices given by Kelder—to be an American synthesis in the whole, each part inspired by various different physical practices (some of them hatha yoga, some from the then-popular German gymnastics movement, some purely American spiritualism, all available in books that were popular in California in the early 1900s).
You may be wondering: why didn’t Kelder just say that, then, instead of telling stories of an ancient Tibetan tradition that empirically does not exist? The answer to this lies again in social science not health science, but it’s been argued that it’s common for Westerners to “pick ‘n’ mix” ideas from the East, champion them as inscrutably mystical, and (since they are inscrutable) then simply decide how to interpret and represent them. Here’s an excellent book on this, if you’re interested:
(in Kelder’s case, this meant that “there’s a Tibetan tradition, trust me” was thus more marketable in the West than “I read these books in LA”)
They are at least five rites: True or False?
True! If we use the broad definition of “rite” as “something done repeatedly in a solemn fashion”. And there are indeed five of them:
- Spinning around (good for balance)
- Leg raises (this one’s from German gymnastics)
- Kneeling back bend (various possible sources)
- Tabletop (hatha yoga, amongst others)
- Pendulum (hatha yoga, amongst others) ← you may recognize this one from the Sun Salutation
You can see them demonstrated here:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically
Kelder also advocated for what was basically the Hay Diet (named not for the substance but for William Hay; it involved separating foods into acid and alkali, not necessarily according to the actual pH of the foods, and combining only “acid” foods or only “alkali” foods at a time), which was popular at the time, but has since been rejected as without scientific merit. Kelder referred to this as “the sixth rite”.
The Five Rites restore youth by adjusting internal vortexes: True or False?
False, in any scientific sense of that statement. Scientifically speaking, the body does not have vortexes to adjust, therefore that is not the mechanism of action.
Spiritually speaking, who knows? Not us, a humble health science publication.
The Five Rites are a pseudoscience popular in the US: True or False?
True, if 27% of those who responded of our mostly North American readership can be considered as representative of what is popular.
However…
“Pseudoscience” gets thrown around a lot as a bad word; it’s often used as a criticism, but it doesn’t have to be. Consider:
A small child who hears about “eating the rainbow” and mistakenly understands that we are all fuelled by internal rainbows that need powering-up by eating fruits and vegetables of different colors, and then does so…
…does not hold a remotely scientific view of how things are happening, but is nevertheless doing the correct thing as recommended by our best current science.
It’s thus a little similar with the five rites. Because…
The Five Rites are at least good for our health: True or False?
True! They are great for the health.
The first one (spinning around) is good for balance. Science would recommend doing it both ways rather than just one way, but one is not bad. It trains balance, trains our stabilizing muscles, and confuses our heart a bit (in a good way).
See also: Fall Special (How To Not Fall, And Not Get Injured If You Do)
The second one (leg raises) is excellent for core strength, which in turn helps keep our organs where they are supposed to be (this is a bigger health issue than most people realise, because “out of sight, out of mind”), which is beneficial for many aspects of our health!
See also: Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It ← visceral fat is the fat that surrounds your internal organs; too much there becomes a problem!
The third, fourth, and fifth ones stretch our spine (healthily), strengthen our back, and in the cases of the fourth and fifth ones, are good full-body exercises for building strength, and maintaining muscle mass and mobility.
See also: Building & Maintaining Mobility
So in short…
If you’ve been enjoying the Five Rites, by all means keep on doing them; they might not be Tibetan (or an ancient practice, as presented), and any mystical aspect is beyond the scope of our health science publication, but they are great for the health in science-based ways!
Take care!
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Whole – by Dr. T. Colin Campbell
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.
Most of us have at least a broad idea of what we’re supposed to be eating, what nutrients we should be getting. Many of us look at labels, and try to get our daily dose of this and that and the other.
And what we don’t get from food? There are supplements.
Dr. Campbell thinks we can do better:
Perhaps most critical in this book, where it stands out from others (we may already know, for example, that we should try to eat diverse plants and whole foods) is its treatment of why many supplements aren’t helpful.
We tend to hear “supplements are a waste of money” and sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t. How to know the difference?
Key: things directly made from whole food sources will tend to be better. Seems reasonable, but… why? The answer lies in what else those foods contain. An apple may contain a small amount of vitamin C, less than a vitamin C tablet, but also contains a whole host of other things—tiny phytonutrients, whose machinations are mostly still mysteries to us—that go with that vitamin C and help it work much better. Lab-made supplements won’t have those.
There’s a lot more to the book… A chunk of which is a damning critique of the US healthcare system (the author argues it would be better named a sicknesscare system). We also learn about getting a good balance of macro- and micronutrients from our diet rather than having to supplement so much.
The style is conversational, while not skimping on the science. The author has had more than 150 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, and is no stranger to the relevant academia. Here, however, he focuses on making things easily comprehensible to the lay reader.
In short: if you’ve ever wondered how you’re doing at getting a good nutritional profile, and how you could do better, this is definitely the book for you.
Click here to check out “Whole” on Amazon today, and level up your daily diet!
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52 Ways to Walk – by Annabel Streets
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Most of us learned to walk at a very young age and probably haven’t thought much about it since, except perhaps in a case where some injury made it difficult.
Annabel Streets provides a wonderful guide to not just taking up (or perhaps reclaiming) the joy of walking, but also the science of it in more aspects than most of us have considered:
- The physical mechanics of walking—what’s best?
- Boots or shoes? Barefoot?
- Roads, grass, rougher vegetation… Mud?
- Flora & fauna down to the microbiota that affect us
- How much walking is needed, to be healthy?
- Is there such a thing as too much walking?
- What are the health benefits (or risks) of various kinds of weather?
- Is it better to walk quickly or to walk far?
- What about if we’re carrying some injury?
- What’s going on physiologically when we walk?
- And so much more…
Streets writes with a captivating blend of poetic joie-de-vivre coupled with scientific references.
One moment the book is talking about neuroradiology reports of NO-levels in our blood, the impact of Mycobacterium vaccae, and the studied relationship between daily steps taken and production of oligosaccharide 3′-sialyllactose, and the next it’s all:
“As if the newfound lightness in our limbs has crept into our minds, loosening our everyday cares and constraints…”
And all in all, this book helps remind us that sometimes, science and a sense of wonder can and do (and should!) walk hand-in-hand.
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What’s Your Ikigai?
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Ikigai: A Closer Look
We’ve mentioned ikigai from time to time, usually when discussing the characteristics associated with Blue Zone centenarians, for example as number 5 of…
It’s about finding one’s “purpose”. Not merely a function, but what actually drives you in life. And, if Japanese studies can be extrapolated to the rest of the world, it has a significant and large impact on mortality (other factors being controlled for); not having a sense of ikigai is associated with an approximately 47%* increase in 7-year mortality risk in the categories of cardiovascular disease and external cause mortality:
Sense of life worth living (ikigai) and mortality in Japan: Ohsaki Study
*we did a lot of averaging and fuzzy math to get this figure; the link will show you the full stats though!
In case that huge (n=43,391) study didn’t convince you, here’s another comparably-sized (n=43,117) one that found similarly, albeit framing the numbers the other way around, i.e. a comparable decrease in mortality risk for having a sense of ikigai:
This study was even longer (12 years rather than 7), so the fact that it found pretty much the same results the 7-year study we cited just before is quite compelling evidence. Again, multivariate hazard ratios were adjusted for age, BMI, drinking and smoking status, physical activity, sleep duration, education, occupation, marital status, perceived mental stress, and medical history—so all these things were effectively controlled for statistically.
Three kinds of ikigai
There are three principal kinds of ikigai:
- Social ikigai: for example, a caring role in the family or community, volunteer work, teaching
- Asocial ikigai: for example, a solitary practice of self-discipline, spirituality, or study without any particular intent to teach others
- Antisocial ikigai: for example, a strong desire to outlive an enemy, or to harm a person or group that one hates
You may be thinking: wait, aren’t those last things bad?
And… Maybe! But ikigai is not a matter of morality or even about “warm fuzzy feelings”. The fact is, having a sense of purpose increases longevity regardless of moral implications or niceness.
Nevertheless, for obvious reasons there is a lot more focus on the first two categories (social and asocial), and of those, especially the first category (social), because on a social level, “we all do well when we all do well”.
We exemplified them above, but they can be defined:
- Social: working for the betterment of society
- Asocial: working for the betterment of oneself
Of course, for many people, the same ikigai may cover both of those—often somebody who excels at something for its own sake and/but shares it with others to enrich their lives also, for example a teacher, an artist, a scientist, etc.
For it to cover both, however, requires that both parts of it are genuinely part of their feeling of ikigai, and not merely unintended consequences.
For example, a piano teacher who loves music in general and the piano in particular, and would gladly spend every waking moment studying/practising/performing, but hates having to teach it, but needs to pay the bills so teaches it anyway, cannot be said to be living any kind of social ikigai there, just asocial. And in fact, if teaching the piano is causing them to not have the time or energy to pursue it for its own sake, they might not even be living any ikigai at all.
One other thing to watch out for
There is one last stumbling block, which is that while we can find ikigai, we can also lose it! Examples of this may include:
- A professional whose job is their ikigai, until they face mandatory retirement or are otherwise unable to continue their work (perhaps due to disability, for example)
- A parent whose full-time-parent role is their ikigai, until their children leave for school, university, life in general
- A married person whose “devoted spouse” role is their ikigai, until their partner dies
For this reason, people of any age can have a “crisis of identity” that’s actually more of a “crisis of purpose”.
There are two ways of handling this:
- Have a back-up ikigai ready! For example, if your profession is your ikigai, maybe you have a hobby waiting in the wings, that you can smoothly jump ship to upon retirement.
- Embrace the fluidity of life! Sometimes, things don’t happen the way we expect. Sometimes life’s surprises can trip us up; sometimes they can leave us a sobbing wreck. But so long as life continues, there is an opportunity to pick ourselves up and decide where to go from that point. Note that this is not fatalism, by the way, it doesn’t have to be “this bad thing happened so that we could find this good thing, so really it was a good thing all along”. Rather, it can equally readily be “well, we absolutely did not want that bad thing to happen, but since it did, now we shall take it this way from here”.
For more on developing/maintaining psychological resilience in the face of life’s less welcome adversities, see:
Psychological Resilience Training
…and:
Putting The Abs Into Absurdity ← do not underestimate the power of this one
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
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