Are your Kidneys Ok? Detect Early To Protect Kidney Health (Here’s How)

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Tomorrow (at time of publication) will be World Kidney Day (WKD). Perhaps not the most well-known initiative, but it celebrates its 21st year this year!

For those of us who celebrated our own 21st year quite some time ago now, it’s as good a reason as any to check in on our kidney health.

Here are some things they’d like us to know about Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD):

❝CKD is a silent disease, people with CKD have no signs or symptoms until the late stage of the disease.
CKD usually does not go away, instead, it progresses, unless early treatment to slow or halt the disease is ensured.
CKD can progress to kidney failure – a condition when kidneys cannot maintain their function anymore, posing a life-threatening risk.
CKD ranks number 7 in the top ten causes of death among noncommunicable diseases worldwide.
CKD increases the risk of premature death from associated cardiovascular disease.
CKD is more common among certain ethnic groups due in part to high rates of diabetes and high blood pressure.
CKD is more common among women, here is why.❞

Source: World Kidney Day: Your Amazing Kidneys

How can we check our kidney health?

There are clinical tests that can be done (they’ll just need a urine sample from you; ask your doctor about it), but there’s some screening that can be done at home already:

Are Your Kidneys Healthy? Take This One-Minute Quiz To Find out

👆 this is about medical indicators; there are also non-medical factors that affect risk, including:

  • Where someone lives
  • Where they work
  • The foods they eat
  • How much exercise they do
  • If they are able to get the medical care they need

For more information on this, see: Keeping Your Kidneys Healthy (Especially After 60) ← there’s a lot more to it than just hydration!

What can we do for our kidney health, besides the obvious “hydrate”?

Some top things to do include:

Hydrate, yes. See also: Things Many People Forget When It Comes To Hydration

Don’t smoke. It’s bad for everything, including your kidneys. So, just don’t. See also: Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit

Look after your blood. Not just “try to keep it inside your body”, but also:

Basically, your kidneys’ primary job of filtering blood will go much more smoothly if that blood is less problematic on the way in.

Watch your over-the-counter pill intake. A lot of PRN OTC NSAIDs (PRN = pro re nata, i.e. you take them as and when symptoms arise) (NSAIDs = Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, such as ibuprofen for example) can cause kidney damage if taken regularly.

Keep an eye on your urine. Hydration is only one side of the story, and our urine can say quite a bit about our health. Indeed, we have written about this before:

12 Things Your Urine Says About Your Health (Test At Home) ← no special equipment required!

On which note, see also: To Pee Or Not To Pee ← spoiler: there’s a flood of reasons to not hold your pee

Want to know more?

Check out the WKD website’s…

8 Golden Rules Of Kidney Disease Prevention

Take care!

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  • How community health screenings get more people of color vaccinated

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    U.S. preventive health screening rates dropped drastically at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have yet to go back to pre-pandemic levels, especially for Black and Latine communities

    Screenings, or routine medical checkups, are important ways to avoid and treat disease. They’re key to finding problems early on and can even help save people’s lives. 

    Community health workers say screenings are also a key to getting more people vaccinated. Screening fairs provide health workers the chance to build rapport and trust with the communities they serve, while giving their clients the chance to ask questions and get personalized recommendations according to their age, gender, and family history.

    But systemic barriers to health care can often keep people from marginalized communities from accessing recommended screenings, exacerbating racial health disparities. 

    Public Good News spoke with Dr. Marie-Jose Francois, president and chief executive officer, and April Johnson, outreach coordinator, at the Center for Multicultural Wellness and Prevention (CMWP), in Central Florida, to learn how they promote the benefits of screening and leverage screenings for vaccination outreach among their diverse communities. 

    Here’s what they said. 

    [Editor’s note: This content has been edited for clarity and length.]

    PGN: What is CMWP’s mission? How does vaccine outreach fit into the work you do in the communities you serve?

    Dr. Marie-Jose Francois: Since 1995, our mission has been to enhance the health, wellness, and quality of life for diverse populations in Central Florida. At the beginning, our main focus was education, wellness, and screening for HIV/AIDS, and we continue to do case management for HIV screening and testing. 

    When the issue of COVID-19 came into the picture, we included COVID-19 information and education and stressed the importance of screening and receiving vaccinations during all of our outreach activities. 

    We try to meet the community where they are. Because there is so much misconception—and taboo—in regard to immunization. 

    April Johnson: So our job is to disperse accurate information. And how we do that is we go into rural communities. We build partnerships with local apartment complexes, hair salons, nail salons, laundromats, and provide a little community engagement, where people just hang out in different areas. 

    We build gatekeepers in those communities because you first have to get in there. You have to know that they trust you. Being in this field for about 30 years, I’ve [learned that] flexibility is key. Because sometimes you can’t get them from 9 to 5, or [from] Monday through Friday. So, you have to be very flexible in doing the outreach portion in order to get what you need. 

    I’ve built collaborations with senior citizen centers, community centers, schools, clinics, churches in Orlando and [in] different areas in Orange, Osceola, Seminole, and Lake counties. And we also partner with other community-based organizations to try to make it like a one-stop shop. So, partnership is a big thing. 

    PGN: How do you promote the importance of preventive screenings in the communities you serve?

    M.F.: We try to make them view their health in a more comprehensive way, for them to understand the importance of screening. [That] self care is key, and for them to not be afraid. 

    We empower them to know what to ask when they go to the doctor. We ask them, ‘Do you know your status? Do you know your numbers?’ 

    For example, if you go to the doctor, do you know your blood pressure? If you’re diabetic? Do you know your hemoglobin (A1C)? Do you know your cholesterol levels

    And now, [we also ask them]: ‘Have you received your flu shot for the year? Have you received all of your vaccine doses for COVID-19?’ We are even adding the mpox vaccine now, based on risk factors. 

    [We recommend they] ask their provider. For women, [we ask], ‘When do you need to have your mammogram?’ For the men, ‘You need to ask about your PSA and also about when and when to have your colonoscopy based on your age.’ 

    We also try to explain to the community that the more they know their family history, the more they can engage in their own health. Because sometimes you have mom and dad who have a history of cancer. They have a history of diabetes or blood pressure—and they don’t talk to their children. So, we try to [recommend they] talk to their children. Your own family needs to know what’s going on so they can be proactive in their screenings.

    PGN: What strategies or methods have you found most effective in getting people screened? 

    M.F.: Not everybody wants to be screened, not everybody wants to receive vaccines. 

    But with patience, just give them the facts. It goes right back to education, people have to be assured. 

    When you talk to them about COVID, or even HIV, you may hear them say, ‘Oh, I don’t see myself at risk for HIV.’  But we have to repeat to them that the more they get screened to make sure they’re OK, the better it is for them. ‘The more you use condoms, [the] safer it is for you.’ 

    In Haitian culture, they listen to the radio. So we use the radio as a tool to educate and deliver information [to] get vaccinated, wash your hands. ‘If you’re coughing, cover your mouth. If you have a fever, wear your masks. Call your doctor.’ 

    In our target population, we have people who have chronic conditions. We have people with HIV. So, we have to motivate them to receive the flu vaccine, to receive the COVID vaccine, to receive that RSV [vaccine], or to get the mpox vaccine. We have people with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, depressed immune systems. We have people with lupus, we have people with sickle cell disease. 

    So, this is a way to [ensure that] whomever you’re talking to one-on-one understands the value of being safe. 

    This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • Less Common Oral Hygiene Options

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    Less Common Alternatives For Oral Hygiene!

    You almost certainly brush your teeth. You might use mouthwash. A lot of people floss for three weeks at a time, often in January.

    There are a lot of options for oral hygiene; variations of the above, and many alternatives too. This is a big topic, so rather than try to squeeze it all in one, this will be a several-part series.

    Tooth soap

    The idea here is simplicity, and brushing with as few ingredients as possible. Soap cleans your teeth the same way it cleans your (sometimes compositionally quite similar—enamel and all) dishes, without damaging them.

    We’d love to link to some science here, but alas, it appears to have not yet been done—at least, we couldn’t find any!

    You can make your own tooth soap if you are feeling confident, or you might prefer to buy one ready-made (here’s an example product on Amazon, with various flavor options)

    Oil pulling

    We are getting gradually more scientific now; there is science for this one… But the (scientific) reviews are mixed:

    Wooley et al., 2020, conducted a review of extant studies, and concluded:

    ❝The limited evidence suggests that oil pulling with coconut oil may have a beneficial effect on improving oral health and dental hygiene❞

    Source: The effect of oil pulling with coconut oil to improve dental hygiene and oral health: A systematic review

    The “Science-Based Medicine” project was less positive in its assessment, and declared that all and any studies that found oil pulling to be effective were a matter of researcher/publication bias. We would note that SBM is a private project and is not without its own biases, but for balance, here is what they had to offer:

    SBM | Oil Pulling Your Leg

    A more rounded view seems to be that it is a good method for cleaning your teeth if you don’t have better options available (whereby, “better options” is “almost any other method”).

    One final consideration, which the above seemed not to consider, is:

    If you have sensitive teeth/gums, oil-pulling is the gentlest way of cleaning them, and getting them back into sufficient order that you can comfortably use other methods.

    Want to try it? You can use any food-grade oil (coconut oil or olive oil are common choices).

    Chewing stick

    Not just any stick—a twig of the Salvadora persica tree. This time, there’s lots of science for it, and it’s uncontroversially effective:

    ❝A number of scientific studies have demonstrated that the miswak (Salvadora persica) possesses antibacterial, anti-fungal, anti-viral, anti-cariogenic, and anti-plaque properties.

    Several studies have also claimed that miswak has anti-oxidant, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory effects. The use of a miswak has an immediate effect on the composition of saliva.

    Several clinical studies have confirmed that the mechanical and chemical cleansing efficacy of miswak chewing sticks are equal and at times greater than that of the toothbrush❞

    ~ Hague et al.

    Read in full: A review of the therapeutic effects of using miswak (Salvadora Persica) on oral health

    And about the efficacy vs using a toothbrush, here’s an example:

    Comparative effect of chewing sticks and toothbrushing on plaque removal and gingival health

    Want to try the miswak stick? Here’s an example product on Amazon.

    Enjoy!

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  • Make Your Saliva Better For Your Teeth

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    A new study has highlighted the importance of lifestyle factors in shaping the oral microbiome—that is to say, how the things we do affect the bacteria that live in our mouths:

    Nepali oral microbiomes reflect a gradient of lifestyles from traditional to industrialized

    Neither the study title nor the abstract elucidate how, exactly, one impacts the other, but the study itself does (of course) contain that information; we read it, and the short version is:

    In terms of the extremes of “most traditional” to “most industrialized”, foragers have the most diverse oral microbiomes (that’s good), and people with an American industrialized lifestyle had the least diverse oral microbiomes (that’s bad). Between the two extremes, we see the gradient promised by the title.

    If you do feel like checking it out, Figure 3 in the paper illustrates this nicely.

    Also illustrated in the above-linked Figure 3 is oral microbiome composition. In other words (and to oversimplify it rather), how good or bad our mouth bacteria are for us, independent of diversity (so for example, are there more of this or that kind of bacteria).

    Once again, there is a gradient, only this time, the ends of it are even more polarized: foragers have a diverse oral microbiome rich with healthy-for-humans bacteria, while people with an American industrialized lifestyle might not have the diversity, but do have a large number of bad-for-humans bacteria.

    While many lifestyle factors are dietary or quasi-dietary, e.g. what kinds of foods people eat, whether they drink alcohol, whether they smoke or use gum, etc, many lifestyle factors were examined, including everything from medications and exercise, to things like kitchen location and what fuel is predominantly used, to education and sexual activity and many other things that we don’t have room for here.

    You can see how each lifestyle factor stacked up, in Figure 5.

    Why it matters

    Our oral microbiome affects many aspects of health, including:

    • Locally: caries, periodontal diseases, mucosal diseases, oral cancer, and more
    • Systemically: gastrointestinal diseases in general, IBS in particular, nervous system diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, endocrine diseases, all manner of immune/autoimmune diseases, and more

    Nor are the effects it has mild; oral microbiome health can be a huge factor, statistically, for many of the above. You can see information and data pertaining to all of the above and more, here:

    Oral microbiomes: more and more importance in oral cavity and whole body

    What to do about it

    Take care of your oral microbiome, to help it to take care of you. As well as the above-mentioned lifestyle factors, it’s worth noting that when it comes to oral hygiene, not all oral hygiene products are created equal:

    Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Kinds Help, And Which Kinds Harm?

    Additionally, you might want to consider gentler options, but if you do, take care to opt for things that science actually backs., rather than things that merely trended on social media.

    This writer (hi, it’s me) is particularly excited about the science and use of the miswak stick, which comes from the Saladora persica tree, and has phytochemical properties that (amongst many other health-giving effects) improve the quality of saliva (i.e., improve its pH and microbiome composition). In essence, your own saliva gets biochemically nudged into being the safest, most effective mouthwash.

    There’s a lot of science for the use of S. persica, and we’ve discussed it before in more detail than we have room to rehash today, here:

    Less Common Oral Hygiene Options

    If you’d like to enjoy these benefits (and also have the equivalent of a toothbrush that you can carry with you at all times and does not require water*), then here’s an example product on Amazon 😎

    *don’t worry, it won’t feel like dry-brushing your teeth. Remember what we said about what it does to your saliva. Basically, you chomp it once, and your saliva a) increases and b) becomes biological tooth-cleaning fluid. The stick itself is fibrous, so the end of it frays in a way that makes a natural little brush. Each stick is about 5”×¼” and you can carry it in a little carrying case (you’ll get a couple with each pack of miswak sticks), so you can easily use it in, say, the restroom of a restaurant or before your appointment somewhere, just as easily as you could use a toothpick, but with much better results. You may be wondering how long a stick lasts; well, that depends on how much you use it, but in this writer’s experience, each stick lasts about a month maybe, using it at least 2–3 times per day, probably rather more since I use it after each meal/snack and upon awakening.

    (the above may read like an ad, but we promise you it’s not sponsored and this writer’s just enthusiastic, and when you read the science, you will be too)

    Enjoy!

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  • The Mindgym: Wake Your Mind Up – by Dr. Sebastian Bailey and Octavius Black

    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.

    Since this reviewer got her copy, the subtitle and marketing of the book have changed, but the content has not. It’s now being marketed as “achieve more by thinking differently” like a pop-psychology business book. But it’s not that. What, then, is it?

    It’s 20 chapters of exercises for different kinds of thinking. And yes, the exercises will help those hungry 25–35-year-old MBAs too, but it’s more of a complete how-to-think overhaul.

    Its exercises cover psychology and philosophy, creativity and communication, logic and relaxation, cognition and motivation, and lots more.

    The style of the book is that of a workbook, and as such, it’s very clearly laid-out; one can go through them methodically, or get an overview and then dive in to whatever one wants/needs most at the moment.

    Bottom line: if you’d like a book that’s a one-stop shop for honing many different kinds of thinking, this is the book for you.

    Click here to check out The Mindgym, and get training yours!

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  • Creatine: Very Different For Young & Old People

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    What’s the Deal with Creatine?

    Creatine is best-known for its use as a sports supplement. It has a few other uses too, usually in the case of helping to treat (or recover from) specific medical conditions.

    What actually is it?

    Creatine is an organic compound formed from amino acids (mostly l-arginine and lysine, can be l-methionine, but that’s not too important for our purposes here).

    We can take it as a supplement, we can get it in our diet (unless we’re vegan, because plants don’t make it; vertebrates do), and we can synthesize it in our own bodies.

    What does it do?

    While creatine supplements mostly take the form of creatine monohydrate, in the body it’s mostly stored in our muscle tissue as phosphocreatine, and it helps cells produce adenosine triphosphate, (ATP).

    ATP is how energy is kept ready to use by cells, and is cells’ immediate go-to when they need to do something. For this reason, it’s highly instrumental in cell repair and rebuilding—which is why it’s used so much by athletes, especially bodybuilders or other athletes that have a vested interest in gaining muscle mass and enjoying faster recovery times.

    See: Creatine use among young athletes

    However! For reasons as yet not fully known, it doesn’t seem to have the same beneficial effect after a certain age:

    Read: Differential response of muscle phosphocreatine to creatine supplementation in young and old subjects

    What about the uses outside of sport?

    Almost all studies outside of athletic performance have been on animals, despite it being suggested as potentially helpful for many things, including:

    • Alzheimer’s disease
    • Parkinson’s disease
    • Huntington’s disease
    • ischemic stroke
    • epilepsy
    • brain or spinal cord injuries
    • motor neuron disease
    • memory and brain function in older adults

    However, research that’s been done on humans has been scant, if promising:

    In short: creatine may reduce symptoms and slow the progression of some neurological diseases, although more research in humans is needed, and words such as “promising”, “potential”, etc are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in those papers we just cited.

    Is it safe?

    It seems so: Creatine supplementation and health variables: a retrospective study

    Nor does it appear to create the sometimes-rumored kidney problems, cramps, or dehydration:

    Common questions and misconceptions about creatine supplementation: what does the scientific evidence really show?

    Where can I get it?

    You can get it from pretty much any sports nutrition outlet, or you can order online. For example:

    Click here to check it out on Amazon!

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  • 21% Stronger Bones in a Year at 62? Yes, It’s Possible (No Calcium Supplements Needed!)

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    Bone density is a concern for a lot of people past a certain age, and it can lead to an endless juggling of vitamin and mineral supplements to try to get the right balance. Sachiaki Takamiya advocates for a natural diet- and exercise-based approach instead, showing good results with his Okinawan-influenced Blue Zones diet and lifestyle.

    As a caveat, he has not gone through menopause, so this video does completely overlook the implications of that. Nevertheless, even if some of us must get our hormones from a bottle these days, this diet and exercise approach is a very good foundation and the advice here is important for all—we can take all the estrogen we need and still have weak bones if our diet and exercise aren’t there as needed.

    From strength to strength

    Sachiaki Takamiya’s bone density wasn’t bad the previous year, but this year it is better, hitting 123.4%. This is important information, because it’s easier to achieve an n% increase (for any given value of n) if your starting point is lower. For example, a 50% increase from 1g is 1.5g (so, 0.5g difference), whereas a 50% increase from 20g is 30g (so, a 10g difference). Since his starting value was high, this makes his 21% rise particularly noteworthy—and mean that a reader with a lower starting value will most likely see even better gains, if implementing this protocol.

    You may be wondering: isn’t a bone mass density of 123.4% about 23.4% more than we want it? And the answer is that the 100% value is taken from an average peak bone mass in young adults, so having it at 100% is fine, and having it a bit higher is still better—it just means he’s outclassing healthy young adults, less likely to break a bone if he falls, etc.

    As for what he ate: he focused on getting calcium and magnesium, as well as vitamins D and K2, all from food sources. Key foods included small fish (sardines, niosi, jaco), nattō, mushrooms, and seaweed (nori, wakame, hijiki). In particular, he emphasizes nattō’s benefits for bones, as well as for the gut, heart, and brain.

    As for his exercise: he did weight-bearing exercise and resistance training—including calisthenics and yoga, as well as sport, and simply walking and running. His weekly routine looked like this:

    • Monday: heart rate zone 2 jogging (45 min)
    • Tuesday: bodyweight HIIT and flexibility (20 min)
    • Wednesday: heart rate zone 2 jogging (60 min)
    • Thursday: bodyweight HIIT and flexibility (40 min)
    • Friday: heart rate zone 2 jogging (45 min)
    • Saturday: bodyweight HIIT and flexibility (20 min)

    …as well as social sports (e.g. tennis, amongst others), and additional activities such as gardening, and cycling for groceries.

    For more on all of the above (this is a very information-dense video), enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Take care!

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