Antibiotics? Think Thrice

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Antibiotics: Useful Even Less Often Than Previously Believed (And Still Just As Dangerous)

You probably already know that antibiotics shouldn’t be taken unless absolutely necessary. Not only does taking antibiotics frivolously increase antibiotic resistance (which is bad, and kills people), but also…

It’s entirely possible for the antibiotics to not only not help, but instead wipe out your gut’s “good bacteria” that were keeping other things in check.

Those “other things” can include fungi like Candida albicans.

Candida, which we all have in us to some degree, feeds on sugar (including the sugar formed from breaking down alcohol, by the way) and refined carbs. Then it grows, and puts its roots through your intestinal walls, linking with your neural system. Then it makes you crave the very things that will feed it and allow it to put bigger holes in your intestinal walls.

Don’t believe us? Read: Candida albicans-Induced Epithelial Damage Mediates Translocation through Intestinal Barriers

(That’s scientist-speak for “Candida puts holes in your intestines, and stuff can then go through those holes”)

And as for how that comes about, it’s like we said:

See also: Candida albicans as a commensal and opportunistic pathogen in the intestine

That’s not all…

And that’s just C. albicans, never mind things like C. diff. that can just outright kill you easily.

We don’t have room to go into everything here, but you might like to check out:

Four Ways Antibiotics Can Kill You

It gets worse (now comes the new news)

So, what are antibiotics good for? Surely, for clearing up chesty coughs, lower respiratory tract infections, right? It’s certainly one of the two things that antibiotics are most well-known for being good at and often necessary for (the other being preventing/treating sepsis, for example in serious and messy wounds).

But wait…

A large, nationwide (US) observational study of people who sought treatment in primary or urgent care settings for lower respiratory tract infections found…

(drumroll please)

the use of antibiotics provided no measurable impact on the severity or duration of coughs even if a bacterial infection was present.

Read for yourself:

Antibiotics Not Associated with Shorter Duration or Reduced Severity of Acute Lower Respiratory Tract Infection

And in the words of the lead author of that study,

❝Lower respiratory tract infections tend to have the potential to be more dangerous, since about 3% to 5% of these patients have pneumonia. But not everyone has easy access at an initial visit to an X-ray, which may be the reason clinicians still give antibiotics without any other evidence of a bacterial infection.❞

~ Dr. Daniel Merenstein

So, what’s to be done about this? On a large scale, Dr. Merenstein recommends:

❝Serious cough symptoms and how to treat them properly needs to be studied more, perhaps in a randomized clinical trial as this study was observational and there haven’t been any randomized trials looking at this issue since about 2012.❞

~ Dr. Daniel Merenstein

This does remind us that, while not a RCT, there is a good ongoing observational study that everyone with a smartphone can participate in:

Dr. Peter Small’s medical AI: “The Cough Doctor”

In the meantime, he advises that when COVID and SARS have been ruled out, then “basic symptom-relieving medications plus time brings a resolution to most people’s infections”.

You can read a lot more detail here:

Antibiotics aren’t effective for most lower tract respiratory infections

In summary…

Sometimes, antibiotics really are a necessary and life-saving medication. But most of the time they’re not, and given their great potential for harm, they may be best simultaneously viewed as the very dangerous threat they also are, and used only when those “heavy guns” are truly what’s required.

Take care!

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  • 5 Surprising Benefits Of Exercise After 50 (More Than Just Fitness)

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    It’s easy to want to do less as we get older, but the benefits of continuing to actively exercise, pushing oneself even just a little, can be far-reaching.

    Direct and indirect benefits

    As well as the obvious fitness benefits, keeping up good levels of exercise can also offer:

    Healthy Skin

    Exercise improves circulation, bringing growth factors (thus: regeneration, because it’s replacing cells), oxygen, and nutrients to the skin. Accordingly, it can lead to healthier, more youthful-looking skin as a low-cost alternative to a lot of skincare products. That said, it also encourages good skin habits, like daily sunscreen use.

    Bone Health

    Weight-bearing and resistance exercises (which between them, encompasses most forms of exercise) improve bone density. This is because physical stress signals bones to strengthen, reducing the risk of fractures. This includes activities like walking, hiking, and using resistance bands or weights. Note however that it is on a “per bone” basis. So for example, hiking will improve your lower body and spine, but do nothing for your arms. On the other hand, doing a daily groceries trip on foot, if local geography makes that practicable, can do the whole body, if one is then carrying groceries home (this writer lives about 2 miles from where she buys groceries, and does this pretty much daily).

    Mental Health

    Exercise, especially outdoors, has well-established positive effects on mental well-being, and can relieve stress and improve mood. As a bonus, community engagement and shared experiences can enhance mental health benefits for many people—but if you prefer it as peaceful time for yourself, that’s beneficial in its own way too!

    Better Sleep

    Physical activity helps promote better sleep quality, which is important for so many aspects of health—because fatiguing the body through exercise can lead to a more restful night, which is often harder to achieve with age.

    Visibility and Confidence

    Staying active and taking on challenges (e.g. training for some event) can boost visibility in social and family settings, countering “invisibility” often felt from midlife onwards. And even if one doesn’t do those things, exercise fosters confidence and helps people carry themselves with more self-assurance, which has a lot of knock-on benefits too.

    For more on all of these things, enjoy:

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    Are There Any Sensible Age Limits To Exercise?

    Take care!

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  • Get Rid Of Female Facial Hair Easily

    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:

    Hair today; gone tomorrow

    While a little peach fuzz is pretty ubiquitous, coarser hairs are less common in women especially earlier in life. However, even before menopause, such hair can be caused by main things, ranging from PCOS to genetics and more. In most cases, the underlying issue is excess androgen production, for one reason or another (i.e. there are many possible reasons, beyond the scope of this article).

    Options for dealing with this include…

    • Topical, such as eflornithine (e.g. Vaniqa) thins terminal hairs (those are the coarse kind); a course of 6–8 weeks continued use is needed.
    • Hormonal, such as estrogen (opposes testosterone and suppresses it), progesterone (downregulates 5α-reductase, which means less serum testosterone is converted to the more powerful dihydrogen testosterone (DHT) form), and spironolactone or other testosterone-blockers; not hormones themselves, but they do what it says on the tin (block testosterone).
    • Non-medical, such as electrolysis, laser, and IPL. Electrolysis works on all hair colors but takes longer; laser needs to be darker hair against paler skin* (because it works by superheating the pigment of the hair while not doing the same to the skin) but takes more treatments, and IPL is a less-effective more-convenient at-home option, that works on the same principles as laser (and so has the same color-based requirements), and simply takes even longer than laser.

    *so for example:

    • Black hair on white skin? Yes
    • Red hair on white skin? Potentially; it depends on the level of pigmentation. But it’s probably not the best option.
    • Gray/blonde hair on white skin? No
    • Black hair on mid-tone skin? Yes, but a slower pace may be needed for safety
    • Anything else on mid-tone skin? No
    • Anything on dark skin? No

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  • 5 Minute Posture Improvement Routine!

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    McKay Lang walks us through it:

    Step by Step

    Breathing exercise:

    • Place your hands on your lower abdomen.
    • Take three deep breaths, focusing on body tension in the shoulders and neck… And release.

    Shoulder squeeze:

    • With your hands on your hips, inhale and squeeze your shoulders upwards.
    • Hold your breath for 3–4 seconds, then exhale.
    • Repeat two more times, holding the squeeze a little longer each time.

    Upper shoulder massage:

    • Massage your upper shoulder muscles to release tension stored there.

    Overhead arm stretch:

    • Raise your arms above your head, clasping each elbow with the opposite hand.
    • Inhale deeply, stretch upwards, then exhale and release.
    • Repeat, alternating elbows.

    Neck and head push:

    • Place your palms on the back of the head, and push your head into your hands (and vice versa, because of Newton’s Third Law of Motion).
    • Do the same sideways (one side and then the other), to engage the other neck muscles.

    Cool down:

    • Gently unclasp your hands, bring your head upright, and massage your muscles. And breathe.

    For variations and a visual demonstration of all, enjoy:

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Related Posts

  • What’s behind rising heart attack rates in younger adults
  • How To Survive A Heart Attack When You’re Alone

    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. Alan Mandel emphasizes the importance of staying calm and following these steps to improve survival chances:

    Simple is best

    Here’s how you will survive a heart attack alone: briefly.

    So, you will need to get help as quickly as possible. 90% of people who make it to a hospital alive, go on to survive their heart attack, so that’s your top priority.

    Call emergency services as soon as you suspect you are having a heart attack. Stay on the line, and stay calm.

    While having a heart attack is not an experience that’s very conducive to relaxation, heightened emotions will exacerbate things, so focus on breathing calmly. One of the commonly reported symptoms of heart attack that doesn’t often make it to official lists is “a strong sense of impending doom”, and that is actually helpful as it helps separate it from “is this indigestion?” or such, but once you have acknowledged “yes, this is probably a heart attack”, you need to put those feelings aside for later.

    If you have aspirin available, Dr. Mandel says that the time to take it is once you have called an ambulance. However, if aspirin is not readily available, do not exert yourself trying to find some; indeed, don’t move more than necessary.

    Do not drive yourself to hospital; it will increase the risk of fainting, and you may crash.

    While you are waiting, your main job is to remain calm; he recommends deep breathing, and lying with knees elevated or feet on a chair; this latter is to minimize the strain on your heart.

    For more on all this, plus the key symptoms and risk factors, enjoy:

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    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • 100 No-Equipment Workouts – by Neila Rey

    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.

    For those of us who for whatever reason prefer to exercise at home rather than at the gym, we must make do with what exercise equipment we can reasonably install in our homes. This book deals with that from the ground upwards—literally!

    If you have a few square meters of floorspace (and a ceiling that’s not too low, for exercises that involve any kind of jumping), then all 100 of these zero-equipment exercises are at-home options.

    As to what kinds of exercises they are, they each marked as being one or both of “cardio” and “strength”.

    They’re also marked as being of “difficulty level” 1, 2, or 3, so that someone who hasn’t exercised in a while (or hasn’t exercised like this at all), can know where best to start, and how best to progress.

    The exercises come with clear explanations in the text, and clear line-drawing illustrations of how to do each exercise. Really, they could not be clearer; this is top quality pragmatism, and reads like a military manual.

    Bottom line: whatever your strength and fitness goals, this book can see you well on your way to them (if not outright get you there already in many cases). It’s also an excellent “all-rounder” for full-body workouts.

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  • Compact Tai Chi – by Dr. Jesse Tsao

    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.

    A very frustrating thing when practicing tai chi, especially when learning, is the space typically required. We take a step this way and lunge that way and turn and now we’ve kicked a bookcase. Add a sword, and it’s goodnight to the light fixtures at the very least.

    While a popular suggestion may be “do it outside”, we do not all have the luxury of living in a suitable climate. We also may prefer to practice in private, with no pressing urge to have an audience.

    Tsao’s book, therefore, is very welcome. But how does he do it? The very notion of constriction is antithetical to tai chi, after all.

    He takes the traditional forms, keeps the movements mostly the same, and simply changes the order of them. This way, the practitioner revolves around a central point. Occasionally, a movement will become a smaller circle than it was, but never in any way that would constrict movement.

    Of course, an obvious question for any such book is “can one learn this from a book?” and the answer is complex, but we would lean towards yes, and insofar as one can learn any physical art from a book, this one does a fine job. It helps that it builds up progressively, too.

    All in all, this book is a great choice for anyone who’s interested in taking up tai chi, and/but would like to do so without leaving their home.

    Check Out “Compact Tai Chi” on Amazon Today!

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