Healthy Hormones And How To Hack Them
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Healthy Hormones And How To Hack Them!
Hormones are vital for far more than they tend to get credit for. Even the hormones that people think of first—testosterone and estrogen—do a lot more than just build/maintain sexual characteristics and sexual function. Without them, we’d lack energy, we’d be depressed, and we’d soon miss the general smooth-running of our bodies that we take for granted.
And that’s without getting to the many less-talked-about hormones that play a secondary sexual role or are in the same general system…
How are your prolactin levels, for example?
Unless you’re ill, taking certain medications, recently gave birth, or picked a really interesting time to read this newsletter, they’re probably normal, by the way.
But, prolactin can explain “la petite mort”, the downturn in energy and the somewhat depressed mood that many men experience after orgasm.
Otherwise, if you have too much prolactin in general, you will be sleepy and depressed.
Prolactin’s primary role? In women, it stimulates milk production when needed. In men, it plays a role in regulating mood and metabolism.
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How Likely Are You To Live To 100?
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How much hope can we reasonably have of reaching 100?
Yesterday, we asked you: assuming a good Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL), how much longer do you hope to live?
We got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:
- A little over 38% of respondents hope to live another 11–20 years
- A little over 31% hope to live another 31–40 years
- A little over 7% will be content to make it to the next decade
- One (1) respondent hopes to live longer than an additional 100 years
This is interesting when we put it against our graph of how old our subscribers are:
…because it corresponds inversely, right down to the gap/dent in the 40s. And—we may hypothesize—that one person under 18 who hopes to live to 120, perhaps.
This suggests that optimism remains more or less constant, with just a few wobbles that would probably be un-wobbled with a larger sample size.
In other words: most of our education-minded, health-conscious subscriber-base hope to make it to the age of 90-something, while for the most part feeling that 100+ is overly optimistic.
Writer’s anecdote: once upon a time, I was at a longevity conference in Brussels, and a speaker did a similar survey, but by show of hands. He started low by asking “put your hands up if you want to live at least a few more minutes”. I did so, with an urgency that made him laugh, and say “Don’t worry; I don’t have a gun hidden up here!”
Conjecture aside… What does the science say about our optimism?
First of all, a quick recap…
To not give you the same information twice, let’s note we did an “aging mythbusting” piece already covering:
- Aging is inevitable: True or False?
- Aging is, and always will be, unstoppable: True or False?
- We can slow aging: True or False?
- It’s too early to worry about… / It’s too late to do anything about… True or False?
- We can halt aging: True or False?
- We can reverse aging: True or False?
- But those aren’t really being younger, we’ll still die when our time is up: True or False?
You can read the answers to all of those here:
Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
Now, onwards…
It is unreasonable to expect to live past 100: True or False?
True or False, depending on your own circumstances.
First, external circumstances: the modal average person in Hong Kong is currently in their 50s and can expect to live into their late 80s, while the modal average person in Gaza is 14 and may not expect to make it to 15 right now.
To avoid extremes, let’s look at the US, where the modal average person is currently in their 30s and can expect to live into their 70s:
United States Mortality Database
Now, before that unduly worries our many readers already in their 70s…
Next, personal circumstances: not just your health, but your socioeconomic standing. And in the US, one of the biggest factors is the kind of health insurance one has:
SOA Research Institute | Life Expectancy Calculator 2021
You may note that the above source puts all groups into a life expectancy in the 80s—whereas the previous source gave 70s.
Why is this? It’s because the SOA, whose primary job is calculating life insurance risks, is working from a sample of people who have, or are applying for, life insurance. So it misses out many people who die younger without such.
New advances in medical technology are helping people to live longer: True or False?
True, assuming access to those. Our subscribers are mostly in North America, and have an economic position that affords good access to healthcare. But beware…
On the one hand:
The number of people who live past the age of 100 has been on the rise for decades
On the other hand:
The average life expectancy in the U.S. has been on the decline for three consecutive years
COVID is, of course, largely to blame for that, though:
❝The decline of 1.8 years in life expectancy was primarily due to increases in mortality from COVID-19 (61.2% of the negative contribution).
The decline in life expectancy would have been even greater if not for the offsetting effects of decreases in mortality due to cancer (43.1%)❞
Source: National Vital Statistics Reports
The US stats are applicable to Canada, the UK, and Australia: True or False?
False: it’s not quite so universal. Differences in healthcare systems will account for a lot, but there are other factors too:
- Life expectancy in Canada fell for the 3rd year in a row. What’s happening?
- UK life expectancy lagging behind rest of G7 except the US
- Australians are living longer but what does it take to reach 100 years old?
Here’s an interesting (UK-based) tool that calculates not just your life expectancy, but also gives the odds of living to various ages (e.g. this writer was given odds of living to 87, 96, 100).
Check yours here:
Office of National Statistics | Life Expectancy Calculator
To finish on a cheery note…
Data from Italian centenarians suggests a “mortality plateau”:
❝The risk of dying leveled off in people 105 and older, the team reports online today in Science.
That means a 106-year-old has the same probability of living to 107 as a 111-year-old does of living to 112.
Furthermore, when the researchers broke down the data by the subjects’ year of birth, they noticed that over time, more people appear to be reaching age 105.❞
Pop-sci source: Once you hit this age, aging appears to stop
Actual paper: The plateau of human mortality: demography of longevity pioneers
Take care!
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Mindfulness – by Olivia Telford
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Olivia Telford takes us on a tour of mindfulness, meditation, mindfulness meditation, and how each of these things impacts stress, anxiety, and depression—as well as less obvious things too, like productivity and relationships.
In the category of how much this is a “how-to-” guide… It’s quite a “how-to” guide. We’re taught how to meditate, we’re taught assorted mindfulness exercises, and we’re taught specific mindfulness interventions such as beating various life traps (e.g. procrastination, executive dysfunction, etc) with mindfulness.
The writing style is simple and to the point, explanatory and very readable. References are made to pop-science and hard science alike, and all in all, is not too far from the kind of writing you might expect to find here at 10almonds.
Bottom line: if you’d like to practice mindfulness meditation and want an easy “in”, or perhaps you’re curious and wonder what mindfulness could tangibly do for you and how, then this book is a great choice for that.
Click here to check out Mindfulness, and enjoy being more present in life!
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The Blue Zones Kitchen – by Dan Buettner
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We’ve previously reviewed Buettner’s other book, The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons For Living Longer From The People Who’ve Lived The Longest, and with this one, it’s now time to focus on the dietary aspect.
As the title and subtitle promises, we get 100 recipes, inspired by Blue Zone cuisines. The recipes themselves have been tweaked a little for maximum healthiness, eliminating some ingredients that do crop up in the Blue Zones but are exceptions to their higher average healthiness rather than the rule.
The recipes are arranged by geographic zone rather than by meal type, so it might take a full read-through before knowing where to find everything, but it makes it a very enjoyable “coffee-table book” to browse, as well as being practical in the kitchen. The ingredients are mostly easy to find globally, and most can be acquired at a large supermarket and/or health food store. In the case of substitutions, most are obvious, e.g. if you don’t have wild fennel where you are, use cultivated, for example.
In the category of criticism, it appears that Buettner is very unfamiliar with spices, and so has skipped them almost entirely. We at 10almonds could never skip them, and heartily recommend adding your own spices, for their health benefits and flavors. It may take a little experimentation to know what will work with what recipes, but if you’re accustomed to cooking with spices normally, it’s unlikely that you’ll err by going with your heart here.
Bottom line: we’d give this book a once-over for spice additions, but aside from that, it’s a fine book of cuisine-by-location cooking.
Click here to check out The Blue Zones Kitchen, and get cooking into your own three digits!
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Waist Size Worries: Age-Appropriate Solutions
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝My BMI is fine, but my waist is too big. What do I do about that? I am 5′ 5″ tall and 128 pounds and 72 years old.❞
It’s hard to say without knowing about your lifestyle (and hormones, for that matter)! But, extra weight around the middle in particular is often correlated with high levels of cortisol, so you might find this of benefit:
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Vaginal Probiotics: What Does The Science Say?
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small 😎
❝Is there any merit to vaginal probiotics?❞
What a fun question! First let’s break it down, as this could mean two different things:
- Probiotics, which you consume, using your mouth, which are marketed as benefiting vaginal health
- Probiotics taken as a vaginal pessary/suppository, to act directly there
The former has limited evidence for it, but generally speaking, improving one’s gut health improves all other areas of health, so it’s not surprising if it helps this too.
See for example:
Some notes:
- candidal vaginitis means a yeast infection causing vaginal inflammation
- bacterial vaginosis means a vaginal bacterial imbalance (generally also featuring vaginal inflammation, though it can be asymptomatic)
In the latter case, the “imbalance” in question is usually a shortage of Lactobacillus sp. (that is to say, the diverse species of the Lactobacillus genus) resulting in an overgrowth of other kinds of bacteria, which in turn results in changing the vaginal microbiome to make it warmer and more acidic than it should be.
While a healthy vagina shouldn’t smell of roses, it shouldn’t smell fishy either; if it does, that’s a sign of bacterial vaginosis.
What it’s supposed to be like: slightly bitter, slightly salty, distinctly umami, along with a cocktail of personal pheromones (and if menstruating or otherwise* vaginally bleeding, then of course add: iron/”metallic”). The pheromones will also reflect any hormonal changes, but should never make anything smell bad, just different.
*e.g. due to PCOS, fibroids, etc. Note that in the case of PCOS, it may also smell a little different (if it does, then usually: a little more musky), due to often different hormone levels. Again: it still shouldn’t smell bad, though, just different.
In the above-linked study, taking more live Lactobacillus acidophilus (in yogurt, eating it, with their mouths) improved levels of L. acidophilus in the vagina. While the study authors concluded “this ingestion of yogurt may have reduced episodes of bacterial vaginosis”, which is rather a weak claim, it can be argued that it merely improving the levels of L. acidophilus in the vagina was already a win.
That was a small (n=42, and only 7 followed through to completion) and old (1996) study, and it bears mentioning that most of the studies into this seem to be small and old, but conclude similarly with weakly positive statements.
However, it does make a difference what kind of Lactobacillus is used, for example in this next study…
- L. fermentum RC-14 worked well (90% success rate)
- L. rhamnosus GR-1 worked somewhat (40% success rate)
- L. rhamnosus GG did not work (0% success rate)
So, diversity is key, and getting a wide range of Lactobacillus sp. seems to be a safe bet.
Short version: enjoying probiotics as part of your diet probably improves vaginal health, just like it improves pretty much everything else.
See also: Make Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
You would think that this would mean that taking probiotics as a vaginal pessary/suppository would be even better, but the results are weaker, as in this study, which produced temporary improvements in about half the study group, with only 3 out of 28 being free of bacterial vaginosis the next month:
Treatment of bacterial vaginosis with lactobacilli
This study got better results, with a 61% success rate:
Important note
Do note that this last category, involving topical treatments (i.e., manually introducing Lactobacillus sp. to the vagina) were all in cases of pre-existing bacterial vaginosis, not as a prophylactic and/or general health-improving thing.
If your vagina seems happy right now, then do not mess with its happy bacterial balance!
And at all times (regardless of whether it seems happy right now or not): do not douche (it does not need it and will not benefit from it; the vagina is self-cleaning*) as this will wash out many of your Lactobacilli and will do absolutely nothing against any Candida there (C. albicans being a rooted fungus, whereas Lactobacillus is a sausage-shaped bacterium with many tiny appendages but no actual ability to stay put), so Candida will flourish in the Lactobacillus’s absence.
*by the vagina, we are referring to the vaginal canal. The vulva—the outside part consisting of the two pairs of labia, the glans clitoris, and clitoral hood—are not self-cleaning, and should just be washed gently per your normal bath/shower routine; that’s perfectly fine and good.
And definitely don’t put any “cleansing” toiletries inside the vagina (or any toiletries at all, for that matter), even if they are sold and marketed for that purpose; they will not help and they will harm.
Also, due to their neighborliness, messing up the microbiome inside the vagina is a common way to also get Candida inside the urethra:
How To Avoid Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs)
One other option
Finally, unless you have a “very good friend” you have a pressing urge to swap germs with, you might want to leave this one to the scientists, but we share this paper just for interest:
Lastly…
Going back to oral supplementation, if you’d like to try that then check out this for further notes on what, why, how, etc:
How Much Difference Do Probiotic Supplements Make To Health?
Take care!
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Red Cabbage vs White Cabbage – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing red cabbage to white cabbage, we picked the red.
Why?
Perhaps you guessed this one, based on the “darker and/or more colorful foods are usually more nutritionally dense” dictum. That’s not always true, by the way, but it is a good rule of thumb and it is correct here. In the case of cabbages, each type is a nutritional powerhouse, but red does beat white:
In terms of macros, they’re quite comparable. They’re both >90% water with just enough other stuff (carbs, fiber, protein) to hold them together, and the “other stuff” in question is quite similarly proportioned in both cases. Within the carbs, even the sugar breakdown is similar. There are slight differences, but the differences are not only tiny, but also they balance out in any case.
When it comes to vitamins, as you might expect, the colorful red cabbage does better with more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, C, and choline, while white has more of vitamins B5, B9, E, and K. So, a 7:4 win for red.
In the category of minerals, it’s even more polarized; red cabbage has more calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. On the other hand, white contains a tiny amount more copper.
In short, both are great (red just makes white look bad by standing next to it, but honestly, white has lots of all those same things too, just not quite as much as red), and this writer will continue to use white when making her favorite shchi, but if you’re looking for the most nutritionally dense option, it’s red.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
Take care!
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