Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit
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Which Addiction-Quitting Methods Work Best?
In Tuesday’s newsletter we asked you what, in your opinion, is the best way to cure an addiction. We got the above-depicted, below-described, interesting distribution of responses:
- About 29% said: “Addiction cannot be cured; once an addict, always an addict”
- About 26% said “Cold turkey (stop 100% and don’t look back)”
- About 17% said “Gradually reduce usage over an extended period of time”
- About 11% said “A healthier, but somewhat like-for-like, substitution”
- About 9% said “Therapy (whether mainstream, like CBT, or alternative, like hypnosis)”
- About 6% said “Peer support programs and/or community efforts (e.g. church etc)”
- About 3% said “Another method (mention it in the comment field)” and then did not mention it in the comment field
So what does the science say?
Addiction cannot be cured; once an addict, always an addict: True or False?
False, which some of the people who voted for it seemed to know, as some went on to add in the comment field what they thought was the best way to overcome the addiction.
The widespread belief that “once an addict, always an addict” is a “popular truism” in the same sense as “once a cheater, always a cheater”. It’s an observation of behavioral probability phrased as a strong generalization, but it’s not actually any kind of special unbreakable law of the universe.
And, certainly the notion that one cannot be cured keeps membership in many 12-step programs and similar going—because if you’re never cured, then you need to stick around.
However…
❝What is the definition of addiction?
Addiction is a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences.
Prevention efforts and treatment approaches for addiction are generally as successful as those for other chronic diseases.❞
~ American Society of Addiction Medicine
Or if we want peer-reviewed source science, rather than appeal to mere authority as above, then:
❝What is drug addiction?
Addiction is defined as a chronic, relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use despite adverse consequences. It is considered a brain disorder, because it involves functional changes to brain circuits involved in reward, stress, and self-control. Those changes may last a long time after a person has stopped taking drugs.
Addiction is a lot like other diseases, such as heart disease. Both disrupt the normal, healthy functioning of an organ in the body, both have serious harmful effects, and both are, in many cases, preventable and treatable.❞
~ Nora D. Volkow (Director, National Institute of Drug Abuse)
Read more: Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction
In short: part of the definition of addiction is the continued use; if the effects of the substance are no longer active in your physiology, and you are no longer using, then you are not addicted.
Just because you would probably become addicted again if you used again does not make you addicted when neither the substance nor its after-effects are remaining in your body. Otherwise, we could define all people as addicted to all things based on “well if they use in the future they will probably become addicted”.
This means: the effects of addiction can and often will last for long after cessation of use, but ultimately, addiction can be treated and cured.
(yes, you should still abstain from the thing to which you were formerly addicted though, or you indeed most probably will become addicted again)
Cold turkey is best: True or False?
True if and only if certain conditions are met, and then only for certain addictions. For all other situations… False.
To decide whether cold turkey is a safe approach (before even considering “effective”), the first thing to check is how dangerous the withdrawal symptoms are. In some cases (e.g. alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and others), the withdrawal symptoms can kill.
That doesn’t mean they will kill, so knowing (or being!) someone who quit this way does not refute this science by counterexample. The mortality rates that we saw while researching varied from 8% to 37%, so most people did not die, but do you really want (yourself or a loved one) to play those odds unnecessarily?
See also: Detoxification and Substance Abuse Treatment
Even in those cases where it is considered completely safe for most people to quit cold turkey, such as smoking, it is only effective when the quitter has appropriate reliable medical support, e.g.
- Without support: 3–5% success rate
- With support: 22% success rate
And yes, that 22% was for the “abrupt cessation” group; the “gradual cessation” group had a success rate of 15.5%. On which note…
Gradual reduction is the best approach: True or False?
False based on the above data, in the case of addictions where abrupt cessation is safe. True in other cases where abrupt cessation is not safe.
Because if you quit abruptly and then die from the withdrawal symptoms, then well, technically you did stay off the substance for the rest of your life, but we can’t really claim that as a success!
A healthier, but somewhat like-for-like substitution is best: True or False?
True where such is possible!
This is why, for example, medical institutions recommend the use of buprenorphine (e.g. Naloxone) in the case of opioid addiction. It’s a partial opioid receptor agonist, meaning it does some of the job of opioids, while being less dangerous:
It’s also why vaping—despite itself being a health hazard—is recommended as a method of quitting smoking:
Similarly, “zero alcohol drinks that seem like alcohol” are a popular way to stop drinking alcohol, alongside other methods:
This is also why it’s recommended that if you have multiple addictions, to quit one thing at a time, unless for example multiple doctors are telling you otherwise for some specific-to-your-situation reason.
Take care!
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Asbestos in mulch? Here’s the risk if you’ve been exposed
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Mulch containing asbestos has now been found at 41 locations in New South Wales, including Sydney parks, schools, hospitals, a supermarket and at least one regional site. Tests are under way at other sites.
As a precautionary measure, some parks have been cordoned off and some schools have closed temporarily. Fair Day – a large public event that traditionally marks the start of Mardi Gras – was cancelled after contaminated mulch was found at the site.
The New South Wales government has announced a new taskforce to help investigate how the asbestos ended up in the mulch.
Here’s what we know about the risk to public health of mulch contaminated with asbestos, including “friable” asbestos, which has been found in one site (Harmony Park in Surry Hills).
What are the health risks of asbestos?
Asbestos is a naturally occurring, heat-resistant fibre that was widely used in building materials from the 1940s to the 1980s. It can be found in either a bonded or friable form.
Bonded asbestos means the fibres are bound in a cement matrix. Asbestos sheeting that was used for walls, fences, roofs and eaves are examples of bonded asbestos. The fibres don’t escape this matrix unless the product is severely damaged or worn.
A lot of asbestos fragments from broken asbestos products are still considered bonded as the fibres are not released as they lay on the ground.
Asbestos sheeting was used for walls and roofs.
Tomas Regina/ShutterstockFriable asbestos, in contrast, can be easily crumbled by touch. It will include raw asbestos fibres and previously bonded products that have worn to the point that they crumble easily.
The risk of disease from asbestos exposure is due to the inhalation of fibres. It doesn’t matter if those fibres are from friable or bonded sources.
However, fibres can more easily become airborne, and therefore inhalable, if the asbestos is friable. This means there is more of a risk of exposure if you are disturbing friable asbestos than if you disturb fragments of bonded asbestos.
Who is most at risk from asbestos exposure?
The most important factor for disease risk is exposure – you actually have to inhale fibres to be at risk of disease.
Just being in the vicinity of asbestos, or material containing asbestos, does not put you at risk of asbestos-related disease.
For those who accessed the contaminated areas, the level of exposure will depend on disturbing the asbestos and how many fibres become airborne due to that disturbance.
However, if you have been exposed to, and inhaled, asbestos fibres it does not mean you will get an asbestos-related disease. Exposure levels from the sites across Sydney will be low and the chance of disease is highly unlikely.
The evidence for disease risk from ingestion remains highly uncertain, although you are not likely to ingest sufficient fibres from the air, or even the hand to mouth activities that may occur with playing in contaminated mulch, for this to be a concern.
The risk of disease from exposure depends on the intensity, frequency and duration of that exposure. That is, the more you are exposed to asbestos, the greater the risk of disease.
Most asbestos-related disease has occurred in people who work with raw asbestos (for example, asbestos miners) or asbestos-containing products (such as building tradespeople). This has been a tragedy and fortunately asbestos is now banned.
There have been cases of asbestos-related disease, most notably mesothelioma – a cancer of the lining of the lung (mostly) or peritoneum – from non-occupational exposures. This has included people who have undertaken DIY home renovations and may have only had short-term exposures. The level of exposure in these cases is not known and it is also impossible to determine if those activities have been the only exposure.
There is no known safe level of exposure – but this does not mean that one fibre will kill. Asbestos needs to be treated with caution.
As far as we are aware, there have been no cases of mesothelioma, or other asbestos-related disease, that have been caused by exposure from contaminated soils or mulch.
Has asbestos been found in mulch before?
Asbestos contamination of mulch is, unfortunately, not new. Environmental and health agencies have dealt with these situations in the past. All jurisdictions have strict regulations about removing asbestos products from the green waste stream but, as is happening in Sydney now, this does not always happen.
Mulch contamination is not new.
gibleho/ShutterstockWhat if I’ve been near contaminated mulch?
Exposure from mulch contamination is generally much lower than from current renovation or construction activities and will be many orders of magnitude lower than past occupational exposures.
Unlike activities such as demolition, construction and mining, the generation of airborne fibres from asbestos fragments in mulch will be very low. The asbestos contamination will be sparsely spread throughout the mulch and it is unlikely there will be sufficient disturbance to generate large quantities of airborne fibres.
Despite the low chance of exposure, if you’re near contaminated mulch, do not disturb it.
If, by chance, you have had an exposure, or think you have had an exposure, it’s highly unlikely you will develop an asbestos-related disease in the future. If you’re worried, the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency is a good source of information.
Peter Franklin, Associate Professor and Director, Occupational Respiratory Epidemiology, The University of Western Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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War in Ukraine affected wellbeing worldwide, but people’s speed of recovery depended on their personality
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The war in Ukraine has had impacts around the world. Supply chains have been disrupted, the cost of living has soared and we’ve seen the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. All of these are in addition to the devastating humanitarian and economic impacts within Ukraine.
Our international team was conducting a global study on wellbeing in the lead up to and after the Russian invasion. This provided a unique opportunity to examine the psychological impact of the outbreak of war.
As we explain in a new study published in Nature Communications, we learned the toll on people’s wellbeing was evident across nations, not just in Ukraine. These effects appear to have been temporary – at least for the average person.
But people with certain psychological vulnerabilities struggled to recover from the shock of the war.
Tracking wellbeing during the outbreak of war
People who took part in our study completed a rigorous “experience-sampling” protocol. Specifically, we asked them to report their momentary wellbeing four times per day for a whole month.
Data collection began in October 2021 and continued throughout 2022. So we had been tracking wellbeing around the world during the weeks surrounding the outbreak of war in February 2022.
We also collected measures of personality, along with various sociodemographic variables (including age, gender, political views). This enabled us to assess whether different people responded differently to the crisis. We could also compare these effects across countries.
Our analyses focused primarily on 1,341 participants living in 17 European countries, excluding Ukraine itself (44,894 experience-sampling reports in total). We also expanded these analyses to capture the experiences of 1,735 people living in 43 countries around the world (54,851 experience-sampling reports) – including in Australia.
A global dip in wellbeing
On February 24 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a sharp decline in wellbeing around the world. There was no decline in the month leading up to the outbreak of war, suggesting the change in wellbeing was not already occurring for some other reason.
However, there was a gradual increase in wellbeing during the month after the Russian invasion, suggestive of a “return to baseline” effect. Such effects are commonly reported in psychological research: situations and events that impact our wellbeing often (though not always) do so temporarily.
Unsurprisingly, people in Europe experienced a sharper dip in wellbeing compared to people living elsewhere around the world. Presumably the war was much more salient for those closest to the conflict, compared to those living on an entirely different continent.
Interestingly, day-to-day fluctuations in wellbeing mirrored the salience of the war on social media as events unfolded. Specifically, wellbeing was lower on days when there were more tweets mentioning Ukraine on Twitter/X.
Our results indicate that, on average, it took around two months for people to return to their baseline levels of wellbeing after the invasion.
Different people, different recoveries
There are strong links between our wellbeing and our individual personalities.
However, the dip in wellbeing following the Russian invasion was fairly uniform across individuals. None of the individual factors assessed in our study, including personality and sociodemographic factors, predicted people’s response to the outbreak of war.
On the other hand, personality did play a role in how quickly people recovered. Individual differences in people’s recovery were linked to a personality trait called “stability”. Stability is a broad dimension of personality that combines low neuroticism with high agreeableness and conscientiousness (three traits from the Big Five personality framework).
Stability is so named because it reflects the stability of one’s overall psychological functioning. This can be illustrated by breaking stability down into its three components:
- low neuroticism describes emotional stability. People low in this trait experience less intense negative emotions such as anxiety, fear or anger, in response to negative events
- high agreeableness describes social stability. People high in this trait are generally more cooperative, kind, and motivated to maintain social harmony
- high conscientiousness describes motivational stability. People high in this trait show more effective patterns of goal-directed self-regulation.
So, our data show that people with less stable personalities fared worse in terms of recovering from the impact the war in Ukraine had on wellbeing.
In a supplementary analysis, we found the effect of stability was driven specifically by neuroticism and agreeableness. The fact that people higher in neuroticism recovered more slowly accords with a wealth of research linking this trait with coping difficulties and poor mental health.
These effects of personality on recovery were stronger than those of sociodemographic factors, such as age, gender or political views, which were not statistically significant.
Overall, our findings suggest that people with certain psychological vulnerabilities will often struggle to recover from the shock of global events such as the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
Luke Smillie, Professor in Personality Psychology, The University of Melbourne
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Osteoporosis & Exercises: Which To Do (And Which To Avoid)
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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
❝Any idea about the latest research on the most effective exercises for osteoporosis?❞
While there isn’t much new of late in this regard, there is plenty of research!
First, what you might want to avoid:
- Sit-ups, and other exercises with a lot of repeated spinal flexion
- Running, and other high-impact exercises
- Skiing, horse-riding, and other activities with a high risk of falling
- Golf and tennis (both disproportionately likely to result in injuries to wrists, elbows, and knees)
Next, what you might want to bear in mind:
While in principle resistance training is good for building strong bones, good form becomes all the more important if you have osteoporosis, so consider working with a trainer if you’re not 100% certain you know what you’re doing:
Some of the best exercises for osteoporosis are isometric exercises:
5 Isometric Exercises for Osteoporosis (with textual explanations and illustrative GIFs)
You might also like this bone-strengthening exercise routine from corrective exercise specialist Kendra Fitzgerald:
Enjoy!
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Acorns vs Chestnuts – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing acorns to chestnuts, we picked the acorns.
Why?
In terms of macros, chestnuts are mostly water, so it’s not surprising that acorns have a lot more carbs, fat, protein, and fiber. Thus, unless you have personal reasons for any of those to be a problem, acorns are the better choice, offering a lot more nutritional value.
In the category of vitamins, acorns lead with a lot more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B9, while chestnuts have more of vitamins B1 and C. However, that vitamin C is useless to us, because it is destroyed in the cooking process (by boiling or roasting), and both of these nuts can be harmful if consumed raw, so that cooking does need to be done. That leaves acorns with a 6:1 lead.
When it comes to minerals, things are more even; acorns have more copper, magnesium, manganese, and zinc, while chestnuts have more calcium, iron, phosphorus, and potassium. Thus, a 4:4 tie (and yes, the margins of difference are approximately equal too).
We mentioned “both of these nuts can be harmful if consumed raw”, so a note on that: it’s because, while both contain an assortment of beneficial phytochemicals, they also both contain tannins that, if consumed raw, chelate with iron, essentially taking it out of our diet and potentially creating an iron deficiency. Cooking tannins stops this from being an issue, and the same cooking process renders the tannins actively beneficial to the health, for their antioxidant powers.
You may have heard that acorns are poisonous; that’s not strictly speaking true, except insofar as anything could be deemed poisonous in excess (including such things as water, and oxygen). Rather, it’s simply the above-described matter of the uncooked tannins and iron chelation. Even then, you’re unlikely to suffer ill effects unless you consume them raw in a fair quantity. While acorns have fallen from popular favor sufficient that one doesn’t see them in supermarkets, the fact is they’ve been enjoyed as an important traditional part of the diet by various indigenous peoples of N. America for centuries*, and provided they are cooked first, they are a good healthy food for most people.
*(going so far as to cultivate natural oak savannah areas, by burning out young oaks to leave the old ones to flourish without competition, to maximize acorn production, and then store dried acorns in bulk sufficient to cover the next year or so in case of a bad harvest later—so these was not just an incidental food, but very important “our life may depend on this” food. Much like grain in many places—and yes, acorns can be ground into flour and used to make bread etc too)
Do note: they are both still tree nuts though, so if you have a tree nut allergy, these ones aren’t for you.
Otherwise, enjoy both; just cook them first!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts
Take care!
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Why You Probably Need More Sleep
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Sleep: yes, you really do still need it!
We asked you how much sleep you usually get, and got the above-pictured, below-described set of responses:
- A little of a third of all respondents selected the option “< 7 hours”
- However, because respondents also selected options such as < 6 hours, < 5 hours, and < 4 hours, so if we include those in the tally, the actual total percentage of respondents who reported getting under 7 hours, is actually more like 62%, or just under two thirds of all respondents.
- Nine respondents, which was about 5% of the total, reported usually getting under 4 hours sleep
- A little over quarter of respondents reported usually getting between 7 and 8 hours sleep
- Fifteen respondents, which was a little under 10% of the total, reported usually getting between 8 and 9 hours of sleep
- Three respondents, which was a little under 2% of the total, reported getting over 9 hours of sleep
- In terms of the classic “you should get 7–9 hours sleep”, approximately a third of respondents reported getting this amount.
You need to get 7–9 hours sleep: True or False?
True! Unless you have a (rare!) mutated ADRB1 gene, which reduces that.
The way to know whether you have this, without genomic testing to know for sure, is: do you regularly get under 6.5 hours sleep, and yet continue to go through life bright-eyed and bushy-tailed? If so, you probably have that gene. If you experience daytime fatigue, brain fog, and restlessness, you probably don’t.
About that mutated ADRB1 gene:
NIH | Gene identified in people who need little sleep
Quality of sleep matters as much as duration, and a lot of studies use the “RU-Sated” framework, which assesses six key dimensions of sleep that have been consistently associated with better health outcomes. These are:
- regularity / usual hours
- satisfaction with sleep
- alertness during waking hours
- timing of sleep
- efficiency of sleep
- duration of sleep
But, that doesn’t mean that you can skimp on the last one if the others are in order. In fact, getting a good 7 hours sleep can reduce your risk of getting a cold by three or four times (compared with six or fewer hours):
Behaviorally Assessed Sleep and Susceptibility to the Common Cold
^This study was about the common cold, but you may be aware there are more serious respiratory viruses freely available, and you don’t want those, either.
Napping is good for the health: True or False?
True or False, depending on how you’re doing it!
If you’re trying to do it to sleep less in total (per polyphasic sleep scheduling), then no, this will not work in any sustainable fashion and will be ruinous to the health. We did a Mythbusting Friday special on specifically this, a while back:
Could Just Two Hours Sleep Per Day Be Enough?
PS: you might remember Betteridge’s Law of Headlines
If you’re doing it as a energy-boosting supplement to a reasonable night’s sleep, napping can indeed be beneficial to the health, and can give benefits such as:
- Increased alertness
- Helps with learning
- Improved memory
- Boost to immunity
- Enhance athletic performance
However! There is still a right and a wrong way to go about it, and we wrote about this previously, for a Saturday Life Hacks edition of 10almonds:
How To Nap Like A Pro (No More “Sleep Hangovers”!)
As we get older, we need less sleep: True or False
False, with one small caveat.
The small caveat: children and adolescents need 9–12 hours sleep because, uncredited as it goes, they are doing some seriously impressive bodybuilding, and that is exhausting to the body. So, an adult (with a normal lifestyle, who is not a bodybuilder) will tend to need less sleep than a child/adolescent.
But, the statement “As we get older, we need less sleep” is generally taken to mean “People in the 65+ age bracket need less sleep than younger adults”, and this popular myth is based on anecdotal observational evidence: older people tend to sleep less (as our survey above shows! For any who aren’t aware, our readership is heavily weighted towards the 60+ demographic), and still continue functioning, after all.
Just because we survive something with a degree of resilience doesn’t mean it’s good for us.
In fact, there can be serious health risks from not getting enough sleep in later years, for example:
Sleep deficiency promotes Alzheimer’s disease development and progression
Want to get better sleep?
What gets measured, gets done. Sleep tracking apps can be a really good tool for getting one’s sleep on a healthier track. We compared and contrasted some popular ones:
The Head-To-Head Of Google and Apple’s Top Apps For Getting Your Head Down
Take good care of yourself!
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Diet Tips for Crohn’s Disease
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.
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
❝Doctors are great at saving lives like mine. I’m a two time survivor of colon cancer and have recently been diagnosed with Chron’s disease at 62. No one is the health system can or is prepared to tell me an appropriate diet to follow or what to avoid. Can you?❞
Congratulations on the survivorship!
As to Crohn’s, that’s indeed quite a pain, isn’t it? In some ways, a good diet for Crohn’s is the same as a good diet for most other people, with one major exception: fiber
…and unfortunately, that changes everything, in terms of a whole-foods majority plant-based diet.
What stays the same:
- You still ideally want to eat a lot of plants
- You definitely want to avoid meat and dairy in general
- Eating fish is still usually* fine, same with eggs
- Get plenty of water
What needs to change:
- Consider swapping grains for potatoes or pasta (at least: avoid grains)
- Peel vegetables that are peelable; discard the peel or use it to make stock
- Consider steaming fruit and veg for easier digestion
- Skip spicy foods (moderate spices, like ginger, turmeric, and black pepper, are usually fine in moderation)
Much of this latter list is opposite to the advice for people without Crohn’s Disease.
*A good practice, by the way, is to keep a food journal. There are apps that you can get for free, or you can do it the old-fashioned way on paper if prefer.
But the important part is: make a note not just of what you ate, but also of how you felt afterwards. That way, you can start to get a picture of patterns, and what’s working (or not) for you, and build up a more personalized set of guidelines than anyone else could give to you.
We hope the above pointers at least help you get going on the right foot, though!
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