What Your Eyes Say About Your Health (If You Have A Mirror, You Can Do This Now!)
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In an age when doctors are increasingly pressed to get you out of their office quickly and not take the time to do thorough tests, having a good basic knowledge of signs and symptoms of disease has become more important than ever for all of us:
The eyes have it:
Dr. Siobhan Deshauer is back, this time working with Dr. Maria Howard, a Canadian optometrist, who advised behind-the-scenes to ensure the best information about these signs and symptoms and what they tell us:
- Color blindness test: Ishihara color test identifies color blindness; in the version in the video, seeing “74” is normal, “12” indicates red-green color blindness, and no numbers suggest complete color blindness due to genetics or retinal/optic nerve issues.
- Yellow sclera (scleral icterus): yellow sclera indicates high bilirubin from excessive red blood cell breakdown, liver damage, bile duct blockage, or Gilbert syndrome.
- Blue sclera: indicates thin collagen in the sclera, which can be linked to osteogenesis imperfecta, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and Marfan syndrome.
- Pink eye: caused by infections, autoimmune diseases, or trauma; persistent symptoms or associated pain/vision changes need medical evaluation.
- Physiologic diplopia (double vision): normal test where fingers appear doubled when focusing on different planes; absence may indicate amblyopia.
- Pinhole test (visual acuity): looking through a small pinhole can determine if glasses are needed for clearer vision.
- Nearsighted vs farsighted: nearsightedness risks retinal tears and night vision issues, while farsightedness increases the risk of glaucoma.
- Eye color and health: brown eyes lower cancer risk but higher cataract risk; light eyes higher cancer risk but lower cataract risk; sudden changes may indicate a condition.
- Kayser-Fleischer rings: golden-brown rings around the iris suggest copper buildup from Wilson disease, treatable with chelation therapy.
- Corneal arcus: gray/white ring around the iris indicates cholesterol buildup, normal with aging but concerning in younger individuals, signaling hypercholesterolemia or artery narrowing.
- Limbal rings: dark rings around the iris are generally aesthetic and not health-related.
- Red desaturation test: a difference in red color perception between eyes may indicate optic nerve or retinal issues.
- Eye twitching: often linked to stress, sleep deprivation, or caffeine; persistent twitching or muscle involvement requires medical attention.
- Pupillary reflex: pupil constriction in light; abnormal responses suggest trauma, overdose, or poisoning.
- Cataracts: lens cloudiness due to age, UV exposure, smoking, diabetes, or prednisone; also occurs sometimes in youth due to conditions like diabetes.
- Yellow spots (pinguecula and pterygium): sun damage, wind, and dust exposure cause yellow spots; protect with sunglasses to prevent progression impacting vision.
- Dark spots in the eye: includes freckles, moles (nevi), and melanoma; changes require medical evaluation.
- Hypnotic induction profile: eye roll test assesses susceptibility to hypnosis.
- Floaters: normal clumps in the eye; sudden increases, flashes, or curtain-like effects may signal retinal detachment.
- Retinal detachment: caused by aging-related vitreous shrinkage; treated with lasers, gas bubbles, or retinal buckles.
- Macular degeneration (Amsler grid test): wavy, fuzzy lines or missing vision spots may indicate this condition.
- Giant cell arteritis: no, that’s not a typo: rather it is about blood vessel inflammation that can cause blindness; treated with prednisone, symptoms include headaches and vision changes.
- Near point of convergence: focus test to detect convergence issues common with excessive screen time.
- Blepharitis: eyelid inflammation causing itchiness, burning, or flaky skin; treated with hygiene, antibiotics, or tea tree oil.
- Proptosis (Graves’ disease): bulging eyes due to hyperthyroidism; treatable with medications, radiation, or surgery.
- Ptosis (droopy eyelids): indicates myasthenia gravis, temporarily improved with the ice pack test.
- Night vision issues: caused by retinal problems or high myopia, not typically vitamin A deficiency in developed countries.
- Dry eyes: caused by screen time, smoking, medications, or autoimmune diseases; managed with lubricating drops, reduced screen time, and adjustments.
- Watery eyes: caused by irritation or blocked tear ducts; treated with lubricating drops or surgery.
- Retinoblastoma: rare childhood cancer detectable through flash photography showing one white pupil; early detection enables treatment.
For more on all of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
What Your Hands Can Tell You About Your Health
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Skin Care Down There (Incl. Butt Acne, Hyperpigmentation, & More)
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Dr. Sam Ellis, dermatologist, gives us the low-down:
Where the sun don’t shine
Common complaints and remedies that Dr. Ellis covers in this video include:
- Butt acne/folliculitis: most butt breakouts are actually folliculitis, not traditional acne. Folliculitis is caused by friction, sitting for long periods, or wearing tight clothes. Solutions include antimicrobial washes like benzoyl peroxide and changing sitting habits (i.e. to sit less)
- Keratosis pilaris: rough bumps around hair follicles can appear on the butt, often confused with acne.
- Boils and abscesses: painful, large lumps; these need medical attention for drainage.
- Hidradenitis suppurativa: recurrent painful cysts and boils in skin creases, often in the groin and buttocks. These require medical intervention and treatment.
- Ingrown hairs: are common in people who shave or wax. Treat with warm compresses and gentle exfoliants.
- Hyperpigmentation: is often caused by hormonal changes, friction, or other irritation. Laser hair removal and gentle chemical exfoliants can help.
In the event that the sun does, in fact, shine on your genitals (for example you sunbathe nude and have little or no pubic hair), then sun protection is essential to prevent further darkening (and also, incidentally, reduce the risk of cancer).
For more on all of this, plus a general introduction to skincare in the bikini zone (i.e. if everything’s fine there right now and you’d like to keep it that way), enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
The Evidence-Based Skincare That Beats Product-Specific Hype
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Vegetable Gardening for Beginners – by Patricia Bohn
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Gardens are places of relaxation, but what if it could be that and more? We all know that home-grown is best… But how?
Patricia Bohner takes us by the hand with a ground-up approach (so to speak) that assumes no prior gardening ability. Which, for some of us, is critical!
After an initial chapter covering the “why” of vegetable gardening (which most readers will know already, but it’s inspiring), she looks at the most common barriers to vegetable gardening:
- Time
- Space
- Skill issues
- Landlord issues
- Not enough sun
(This reviewer would have liked to have an extra section: “lives in an ancient bog and the soil kills most things”, but that is a little like “space”. I should be using containers, with soil from elsewhere!)
Anyway, after covering how to overcome each of those problems, it’s on to a chapter (of many sections) on “basic basics for beginners”. After this, we now know what our plants need and how we’re going to provide it, and what to do in what order. We’re all set up and ready to go!
Now comes the fancy stuff. We’re talking not just containers, but options of raised beds, vertical gardening, hydroponics, and more. And, importantly, what plants go well in which options—followed up with an extensive array of how-tos for all the most popular edible gardening options.
She finishes up with “not covered elsewhere” gardening tips, which even just alone would make the book a worthwhile read.
In short, if you’ve a desire to grow vegetables but haven’t felt you’ve been able, this book will get you up and running faster than runner beans.
Get your copy of Vegetable Gardening For Beginners from Amazon
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What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Alcohol
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Immediately after we stop drinking is rarely when we feel our best. But how long is it before we can expect to see benefits, instead of just suffering?
Timeline
After stopping drinking alcohol for…
- Seconds: the liver starts making progress filtering out toxins and sugars; ethanol starts to leave the system
- 1 hour: fatigue sets in as the body uses a lot of energy to metabolize and eliminate alcohol. However, sleep quality (if one goes to sleep now) is low because alcohol disrupts the brain patterns required for restful sleep
- 6–12 hours: the immune system starts recovering from the suppression caused by alcohol
- 24 hours: immune system is back to normal; withdrawal symptoms may occur in the case of heavy drinkers
- 3–5 days: resting blood pressure begins to drop, as stress levels decrease (alcohol may seem anxiolytic, but it is actually anxiogenic; it just masks its own effect in this regard). Also, because of insulin responses improving, appetite reduces. The liver, once it has finished dealing your last drinking session (if you used to drink all the time, it probably had a backlog to clear), can now begin to make repairs on itself.
- 1 week: skin will start looking better, as antidiuretic hormone levels neutralize, leading to a healthier maintenance of hydration
- 2 weeks: cognitive abilities improve as the brain begins to make progress in repairing itself. At the same time, kidneys start to heal.
- 3–4 weeks: the liver begins to regenerate in earnest. You may wonder what took it so long given the liver’s famous regenerative abilities, but in this case, the liver was also the organ that took the most damage from drinking, so its regeneration gets off to a slow start (in contrast, if the liver had “merely” suffered physical trauma, such as being shot, stabbed,
or eaten by eagles,it’d start regenerating vigorously as soon as the immediate wound-response had been tended to). Once it is able to pick up the pace though, overall health improves, as the liver can focus on breaking down other toxins. - 1–2 months: the heart is able to repair itself, and start to become stronger again (dependent on other lifestyle factors, of course).
- 3 months and more: bodily repairs continue (for example, the damage to the liver is often so severe that it can take quite a bit longer to recover completely, and repairs in the brain are always slow, for reasons beyond the scope of this article). Looking at the big picture, at this point we also see other benefits, such as reduced cancer risks.
In short… It’s never too soon to stop, but it’s also never too late, unless you are going to die in the next few days. So long as you’ll be in the land of the living for a few days yet, there’s time to enjoy the benefits of stopping.
Most importantly: the timeline for the most important repairs is not as long as many people might think, and that itself can be very motivating.
For more detail on much of the above, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Can We Drink To Good Health?
- How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
- Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit
- How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
Take care!
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Non-Alcohol Mouthwash vs Alcohol Mouthwash – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing non-alcohol mouthwash to alcohol mouthwash, we picked the alcohol.
Why?
Note: this is a contingent choice and is applicable to most, but not all, people.
In short, there has been some concern about alcohol mouthwashes increasing cancer risk, but research has shown this is only the case if you already have an increased risk of oral cancer (for example if you smoke, and/or have had an oral cancer before).
For those for whom this is not the case (for example, if you don’t smoke, and/or have no such cancer history), then best science currently shows that alcohol mouthwash does not cause any increased risk.
What about non-alcohol mouthwashes? Well, they have a different problem; they usually use chlorine-based chemicals like chlorhexidine or cetylpyridinium chloride, which are (exactly as the label promises) exceptionally good at killing oral bacteria.
(They’d kill us too, at higher doses, hence: swill and spit)
Unfortunately, much like the rest of our body, our mouth is supposed to have bacteria there and bad things happen when it doesn’t. In the case of our oral microbiome, cleaning it with such powerful antibacterial agents can kill our “good” bacteria along with the bad, which lowers the pH of our saliva (that’s bad; it means it is more acidic), and thus indirectly erodes tooth enamel.
You can read more about the science of all of the above (with references), here:
Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?
Summary:
For most people, alcohol mouthwashes are a good way to avoid the damage that can be done by chlorhexidine in non-alcohol mouthwashes.
Here are some examples, but there will be plenty in your local supermarket:
Non-Alcohol, by Colgate | Alcohol, by Listerine
If you have had oral cancer, or if you smoke, then you may want to seek a third alternative (and also, please, stop smoking if you can).
Or, really, most people could probably skip mouthwashes, if you’ve good oral care already by other means. See also:
Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?
(yes, it’s the same link as before, but we’re now drawing your attention to the fact it has information about toothpastes too)
If you do want other options though, might want to check out:
Less Common Oral Hygiene Options ← miswak sticks are especially effective
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How to Use Topical Estrogen Cream For Aging Skin
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.
Dr. Sam Ellis, dermatologist, explains:
Tackling the cause
Estrogen is important for very many aspects of health beyond the sexual aspects. When it comes to skin, a drop in estrogen (usually because of menopause) leads to changes like collagen loss, dryness, reduced elasticity, and slower wound healing. Applying estrogen creams to the skin can reverse these changes.
If your estrogen levels are already within normal pre-menopausal female ranges, by the way, there isn’t so much science to indicate its benefit when used topically. If you are already on systemic HRT (i.e., you take estrogen already to raise your blood estrogen levels and affect your body in its entirety), you may or may not gain extra benefits from the topical cream, depending on factors such as your estrogen dose, your route of administration, your cardiovascular health, and other factors.
For those with lower estrogen and not currently on HRT, you may be wondering: can topical estrogen cream affect systemic estrogen levels? And the answer is that it mostly depends on the dose. In other words: it’s definitely possible, but for most people it’s unlikely.
As ever, if thinking of taking up any hormonal treatment, do consult an endocrinologist and/or gynecologist, and if you have an increased breast cancer risk (for example genetically or prior history), then an oncologist too, just to be safe.
That sounds like a lot of scary things, but mostly it’s just to be on the safe side. The dose of estrogen is very low in topical creams, and even then, only a tiny amount is used per day.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- “Why Does It Hurt When I Have Sex?” (And What To Do About It) ← because topical estrogen is not just for your face! Yes, you can use it down there too and it’s commonly prescribed for exactly this use.
- Hormones & Health, Beyond The Obvious
- The Hormone Therapy That Reduces Breast Cancer Risk & More
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Shoe Wear Patterns: What They Mean, Why It Matters, & How To Fix It
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.
If you look under your shoes, do you notice how the tread is worn more in some places than others? Specific patterns of shoe wear correspond to how our body applies force, weight, and rotational movement. This reveals how we move, and uneven wear can indicate problematic movement dynamics.
The clues in your shoes
Common shoe wear patterns include:
- Diagonal wear on the outside of the heel: caused by foot angle, leg position, and instability, leading to joint stress.
- Rotational wear at specific points: due to internal or external rotation, often originating from the hip, pelvis, or torso.
- Wear above the big toe: caused by excessive toe lifting, often associated with a “lighter” or kicking leg.
Fixing movement issues to prevent wear involves correcting posture, improving balance, and adjusting how the legs land during walking/running.
Key fixes include:
- Aligning the center of gravity properly to prevent leg overcompensation.
- Ensuring feet land under the hips and not far in front.
- Stabilizing the torso to avoid unnecessary rotation.
- Engaging the glutes effectively to reduce hip flexor dominance and improve leg mechanics.
- Maintaining even weight distribution on both legs to prevent excessive lifting or twisting.
Posture and walking mechanics are vital to reducing uneven wear, but meaningful, lasting change takes time and focused effort, to build new habits.
For more on all this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Steps For Keeping Your Feet A Healthy Foundation
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