An Underrated Tool Against Alzheimer’s

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Dementia in general, and Alzheimer’s in particular, affects a lot of people, and probably even more than the stats show, because some (estimated to be: about half) will go undiagnosed and thus unreported:

Alzheimer’s: The Bad News And The Good

At 10almonds, we often talk about brain health, whether from a nutrition standpoint or other lifestyle factors. For nutrition, by the way, check out:

Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!

Today we’ll be looking at some new science for an underrated tool:

Bilingualism as protective factor

It’s well-known that bilingualism offers brain benefits, but most people would be hard-pressed to name what, specifically, those brain benefits are.

As doctors Kristina Coulter and Natalie Phillips found in a recent study, one of the measurable benefits may be a defense against generalized (i.e. not necessarily language-related) memory loss Alzheimer’s disease.

Specifically,

❝We used surface-based morphometry methods to measure cortical thickness and volume of language-related and AD-related brain regions. We did not observe evidence of brain reserve in language-related regions.

However, reduced hippocampal volume was observed for monolingual, but not bilingual, older adults with AD. Thus, bilingualism is hypothesized to contribute to reserve in the form of brain maintenance in the context of AD.❞

Read in full: Bilinguals show evidence of brain maintenance in Alzheimer’s disease

This is important, because while language is processed in various parts of the brain beyond the scope of this article, the hippocampi* are where memory is stored.

*usually mentioned in the singular as “hippocampus”, but you have one on each side, unless some terrible accident or incident befell you.

What this means in practical terms: these results suggest that being bilingual means we will retain more of our capacity for memory, even if we get Alzheimer’s disease, than people who are monolingual.

Furthermore, while we’re talking practicality:

❝…our subsample may be characterized as mostly late bilinguals (i.e., learning an L2 after age 5), having moderate self-reported L2 ability, and relatively few participants reporting daily L2 use (33 out of 119)❞

(L2 = second language)

This is important, because it means you don’t have to have grown up speaking multiple languages, you don’t even have to speak it well, and you don’t have to be using your second language(s) on a daily basis, to enjoy benefits. Merely having them in your head appears to be sufficient to trigger the brain to go “oh, we need to boost and maintain the hippocampal volume”.

We would hypothesize that using second language(s) regularly and/or speaking second language(s) well offers additional protection, and the data would support this if it weren’t for the fact that the sample sizes for daily and high-level speakers are a bit small to draw conclusions.

But the important part is: simply knowing another language, including if you literally just learned it later in life, is already protective of hippocampal volume in the context of Alzheimer’s disease.

Here’s a pop-science article about the study, that goes into it in more detail than we have room to here:

Bilingualism linked to greater brain resilience in older adults

Want to learn a new language?

Here are some options where you can get going right away:

Duolingo | Babbel | Lernu

If you are thinking “sounds good, but learning a language is too much work”, then that is why we included that third option there. It’s specifically for one language, and that language is Esperanto, arguably the world’s easiest language and specifically designed to be super quick and easy to get good at. Also, it’s free!

Do, kial ne lerni novan lingvon rapide kaj facile? 😉

Want to know more?

For ways to reduce your overall Alzheimer’s risk according to science, check out:

Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

Take care!

Don’t Forget…

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  • Behind Book Recommendations

    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!

    Each Thursday, we respond to subscriber questions and requests! If it’s something small, we’ll answer it directly; if it’s something bigger, we’ll do a main feature in a follow-up day instead!

    So, no question/request to big or small; they’ll just get sorted accordingly

    Remember, you can always hit reply to any of our emails, or use the handy feedback widget at the bottom. We always look forward to hearing from you!

    Q: What’s the process behind the books you recommend? You seem to have a limitless stream of recommendations

    We do our best!

    The books we recommend are books that…

    • are on Amazon—it makes things tidy, consistent, and accessible. And if you end up buying one of the books, we get a small affiliate commission*.
    • we have read—we would say “obviously”, but you might be surprised how many people write about books without having read them.
    • pertain in at least large part to health and/or productivity.
    • are written by humans—bookish people (and especially Kindle Unlimited users) may have noticed lately that there are a lot of low quality AI-written books flooding the market, sometimes with paid 5-star reviews to bolster them. It’s frustrating, but we can tell the difference and screen those out.
    • are of a certain level of quality. They don’t have to be “top 5 desert-island books”, because well, there’s one every day and the days keep coming. But they do have to genuinely deliver the value that we describe, and merit a sincere recommendation.
    • are varied—we try to not give a run of “samey” books one after another. We will sometimes review a book that covers a topic another previously-reviewed book did, but it must have something about it that makes it different. It may be a different angle or a different writing style, but it needs something to set it apart.

    *this is from Amazon and isn’t product-specific, so this is not affecting our choice of what books to review at all—just that they will be books that are available on Amazon.

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  • Pink Himalayan Salt: Health Facts

    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!

    Q: Great article about the health risks of salt to organs other than the heart! Is pink Himalayan sea salt, the pink kind, healthier?

    Thank you! And, no, sorry. Any salt that is sodium chloride has the exact same effect because it’s chemically the same substance, even if impurities (however pretty) make it look different.

    If you want a lower-sodium salt, we recommend the kind that says “low sodium” or “reduced sodium” or similar. Check the ingredients, it’ll probably be sodium chloride cut with potassium chloride. Potassium chloride is not only not a source of sodium, but also, it’s a source of potassium, which (unlike sodium) most of us could stand to get a little more of.

    For your convenience: here’s an example on Amazon!

    Bonus: you can get a reduced sodium version of pink Himalayan salt too!

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  • Good news: midlife health is about more than a waist measurement. Here’s why

    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.

    You’re not in your 20s or 30s anymore and you know regular health checks are important. So you go to your GP. During the appointment they measure your waist. They might also check your weight. Looking concerned, they recommend some lifestyle changes.

    GPs and health professionals commonly measure waist circumference as a vital sign for health. This is a better indicator than body mass index (BMI) of the amount of intra-abdominal fat. This is the really risky fat around and within the organs that can drive heart disease and metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes.

    Men are at greatly increased risk of health issues if their waist circumference is greater than 102 centimetres. Women are considered to be at greater risk with a waist circumference of 88 centimetres or more. More than two-thirds of Australian adults have waist measurements that put them at an increased risk of disease. An even better indicator is waist circumference divided by height or waist-to-height ratio.

    But we know people (especially women) have a propensity to gain weight around their middle during midlife, which can be very hard to control. Are they doomed to ill health? It turns out that, although such measurements are important, they are not the whole story when it comes to your risk of disease and death.

    How much is too much?

    Having a waist circumference to height ratio larger than 0.5 is associated with greater risk of chronic disease as well as premature death and this applies in adults of any age. A healthy waist-to-height ratio is between 0.4 to 0.49. A ratio of 0.6 or more places a person at the highest risk of disease.

    Some experts recommend waist circumference be routinely measured in patients during health appointments. This can kick off a discussion about their risk of chronic diseases and how they might address this.

    Excessive body fat and the associated health problems manifest more strongly during midlife. A range of social, personal and physiological factors come together to make it more difficult to control waist circumference as we age. Metabolism tends to slow down mainly due to decreasing muscle mass because people do less vigorous physical activity, in particular resistance exercise.

    For women, hormone levels begin changing in mid-life and this also stimulates increased fat levels particularly around the abdomen. At the same time, this life phase (often involving job responsibilities, parenting and caring for ageing parents) is when elevated stress can lead to increased cortisol which causes fat gain in the abdominal region.

    Midlife can also bring poorer sleep patterns. These contribute to fat gain with disruption to the hormones that control appetite.

    Finally, your family history and genetics can make you predisposed to gaining more abdominal fat.

    Why the waist?

    This intra-abdominal or visceral fat is much more metabolically active (it has a greater impact on body organs and systems) than the fat under the skin (subcutaneous fat).

    Visceral fat surrounds and infiltrates major organs such as the liver, pancreas and intestines, releasing a variety of chemicals (hormones, inflammatory signals, and fatty acids). These affect inflammation, lipid metabolism, cholesterol levels and insulin resistance, contributing to the development of chronic illnesses.

    Man runs on treadmill
    Exercise can limit visceral fat gains in mid-life. Shutterstock/Zamrznuti tonovi

    The issue is particularly evident during menopause. In addition to the direct effects of hormone changes, declining levels of oestrogen change brain function, mood and motivation. These psychological alterations can result in reduced physical activity and increased eating – often of comfort foods high in sugar and fat.

    But these outcomes are not inevitable. Diet, exercise and managing mental health can limit visceral fat gains in mid-life. And importantly, the waist circumference (and ratio to height) is just one measure of human health. There are so many other aspects of body composition, exercise and diet. These can have much larger influence on a person’s health.

    Muscle matters

    The quantity and quality of skeletal muscle (attached to bones to produce movement) a person has makes a big difference to their heart, lung, metabolic, immune, neurological and mental health as well as their physical function.

    On current evidence, it is equally or more important for health and longevity to have higher muscle mass and better cardiorespiratory (aerobic) fitness than waist circumference within the healthy range.

    So, if a person does have an excessive waist circumference, but they are also sedentary and have less muscle mass and aerobic fitness, then the recommendation would be to focus on an appropriate exercise program. The fitness deficits should be addressed as priority rather than worry about fat loss.

    Conversely, a person with low visceral fat levels is not necessarily fit and healthy and may have quite poor aerobic fitness, muscle mass, and strength. The research evidence is that these vital signs of health – how strong a person is, the quality of their diet and how well their heart, circulation and lungs are working – are more predictive of risk of disease and death than how thin or fat a person is.

    For example, a 2017 Dutch study followed overweight and obese people for 15 years and found people who were very physically active had no increased heart disease risk than “normal weight” participants.

    Getting moving is important advice

    Physical activity has many benefits. Exercise can counter a lot of the negative behavioural and physiological changes that are occurring during midlife including for people going through menopause.

    And regular exercise reduces the tendency to use food and drink to help manage what can be a quite difficult time in life.

    Measuring your waist circumference and monitoring your weight remains important. If the measures exceed the values listed above, then it is certainly a good idea to make some changes. Exercise is effective for fat loss and in particular decreasing visceral fat with greater effectiveness when combined with dietary restriction of energy intake. Importantly, any fat loss program – whether through drugs, diet or surgery – is also a muscle loss program unless resistance exercise is part of the program. Talking about your overall health with a doctor is a great place to start.

    Accredited exercise physiologists and accredited practising dietitians are the most appropriate allied health professionals to assess your physical structure, fitness and diet and work with you to get a plan in place to improve your health, fitness and reduce your current and future health risks.

    Rob Newton, Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Why do I keep getting urinary tract infections? And why are chronic UTIs so hard to treat?
  • Squat Variations for Painful Knees (No More Pain!)

    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.

    Having bad knees can be a bit of a catch-22; you want to squat to make them stronger, but you can’t do that because your knees are not good. But, there are ways to do it!

    Dr. Alyssa Kuhn, a doctor of physical therapy, advises:

    Gently does it

    Ten ways to choose from:

    1. Pool Squats: performed in a pool for joint-friendly support. Can use both hands, one hand, or no support. Focus on sitting back and standing up, aiming for 10–20 reps.
    2. Supported Squats: use a sink, rings, or handles for support. Stand a distance away and sit back while keeping your knees behind your heels. Perform 10–20 reps for 2–3 sets.
    3. Chair Loop Squats: use a resistance band around your knees while sitting on a chair. Press your knees outward as you stand and sit to strengthen hip and knee stability. Do 8–12 reps for 2–3 sets.
    4. Heel Elevated Squats: place your heels on dumbbells to shift emphasis to thighs and reduce knee strain. Ideal for stiff ankles or back tightness. Perform 10–15 reps for 2–3 sets.
    5. Sumo Squats: a wide stance squat, good for hip strength and reducing knee stress. Adjust your foot positioning for comfort. Perform 15–20 reps for 2–3 sets.
    6. Chair Squats: hold a weight close to your chest while sitting and standing from a chair. Can use kettlebells or dumbbells. Do 8–10 reps for 2–3 sets.
    7. Band Squats: use a resistance band secured behind your knees to provide support and encourage proper squat mechanics. Perform 5–12 reps for 2–3 sets.
    8. Modified Single Leg Squat: sit-to-stand using one leg with the other as a kickstand. Adjust your foot position for difficulty. Perform 8–12 reps per side for 2–3 sets.
    9. Weighted Squats: add weight using dumbbells or a barbell. Maintain an upright torso. Adjust the weight and reps based on difficulty, and do 5–10 reps for 2–4 sets.
    10. Split Squat: a stationary lunge, keeping your feet in place and lowering straight down. Focus on your front leg while keeping balance. Can add weight if you want. Perform 5–12 reps per side based on difficulty.

    For more on each of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

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

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    The Squat Bible: The Ultimate Guide to Mastering the Squat and Finding Your True Strength – by Dr. Aaron Horschig

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Doctors From 15 Specialties Tell The Worst Common Mistakes People Make

    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.

    Whatever your professional background, you probably know many things about it that are very obvious to you, but that most people don’t know. So it is for doctors too; here are the things that doctors from 15 specialties would never do, and thus advise people against doing:

    Better safe than sorry

    We’ll leap straight into it:

    1. General Surgery: avoid rushing into musculoskeletal or spinal surgery unless absolutely necessary; conservative treatments like physical therapy are often effective.
    2. Interventional Gastroenterology: avoid long-term, around-the-clock use of anti-inflammatory pain medications (e.g. Ibuprofen and friends) to prevent stomach ulcers.
    3. Podiatry: never place feet on the car dashboard due to the risk of severe injuries from airbag deployment.
    4. Rheumatology: avoid daily use of high heels to prevent joint and foot deformities, bunions, and pain.
    5. Otorhinolaryngology: never smoke, as it can lead to severe consequences like laryngectomy and other life-altering conditions.
    6. Pediatrics: avoid dangerous activities for children, such as swimming alone, eating choking hazards, biking or skiing without a helmet, or consuming raw meat/fish/dairy. Also, be cautious with firearms in homes.
    7. Orthopedic Surgery: avoid riding motorcycles and handling fireworks due to high risks of accidents.
    8. Emergency Medicine: never drink and drive or ride ATVs. Always use eye protection during activities like woodworking.
    9. Ophthalmology: always wear safety glasses during activities like grinding metal or woodworking. Sunglasses are essential to prevent UV damage even on cloudy days.
    10. Urology: avoid shaving pubic hair if diabetic or immunocompromised to prevent severe infections like Fournier’s gangrene.
    11. Gastroenterology: do not use gut health supplements as they lack proven efficacy and are often a waste of money*
    12. Plastic Surgery: avoid contour threads (barbed sutures for facial rejuvenation) and butt implants due to risks like infection, complications, and poor outcomes.
    13. Psychiatry: never take recreational drugs from unknown sources to avoid accidental overdoses, especially from substances laced with fentanyl. Carry Narcan for emergencies.
    14. Dermatology: use sunscreen daily to prevent skin cancer, aging, pigmentation issues, and texture problems caused by UV exposure.
    15. Cardiology: avoid the carnivore diet as it increases heart disease risks due to its negligible fiber content and high saturated fat intake.

    *We had an article about this a while back; part of the problem is that taking probiotics without prebiotics can mean your new bacteria just die in about 20 minutes, which is their approximate lifespan in which to multiply or else die out. Similar problems arise if taking them with sugar that feeds their competitors instead. See: Stop Sabotaging Your Gut!

    For more on each of these, in the words of the respective doctors, enjoy:

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    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Health Hacks from 20 Doctors

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • The Sucralose News: Scaremongering Or Serious?

    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.

    What’s the news on sucralose?

    These past days the press has been abuzz with frightening tales:

    How true and/or serious is this?

    Firstly, let’s manage expectations. Pineapple juice also breaks down DNA, but is not generally considered a health risk. So let’s keep that in mind, while we look into the science.

    Is sucralose as scary as pineapple juice, or is it something actually dangerous?

    The new study (that sparked off these headlines)

    The much-referenced study is publicly available to read in full—here it is:

    Toxicological and pharmacokinetic properties of sucralose-6-acetate and its parent sucralose: in vitro screening assays

    You may notice that this doesn’t have quite the snappy punchiness of some of the headlines, but let’s break this down, if you’ll pardon the turn of phrase:

    • Toxicological: pertaining to whether or not it has toxic qualities
    • Pharmacokinetic: the science of asking, of chemicals in bodies, “where did it come from; where did it go; what could it do there; what can we know?”
    • Sucralose-6-acetate: an impurity that can be found in sucralose. For perspective, the study found that the sucralose in Splenda contained “up to” 0.67% sucralose-6-acetate.
    • Sucralose: a modified form of sucrose, that makes it hundreds of times sweeter, and non-caloric because the body cannot break it down so it’s treated as a dietary fiber and just passes through
    • In vitro: things are happening in petri dishes, not in animals (human or otherwise), which would be called “in vivo”
    • Screening assays: “we set up a very closed-parameters chemical test, to see what happens when we add this to this” ⇽ oversimplification, but this is the basic format of a screening assay

    Great, now we understand the title, but what about the study?

    Researchers looked primarily at the effects of sucralose-6-acetate and sucralose (together and separately) on epithelial cells (these are very simple cells that are easy to study; conveniently, they are also most of what makes up our intestinal walls). For this, they used a fancy way of replicating human intestinal walls, that’s actually quite fascinating but beyond the scope of today’s newsletter. Suffice it to say: it’s quite good, and/but has its limitations too. They also looked at some in vivo rat studies.

    What they found was…

    Based on samples from the rat feces (somehow this didn’t make it into the headlines), it appears that sucralose may be acetylated in the intestines. What that means is that we, if we are like the rats (definitely not a given, but a reasonable hypothesis), might convert up to 10% of sucralose into sucralose-6-acetate inside us. Iff we do, the next part of the findings become more serious.

    Based on the in vitro simulations, both sucralose and sucralose-6-acetate reduced intestinal barrier integrity at least a little, but sucralose-6-acetate was the kicker when it came to most of the effects—at least, so we (reasonably!) suppose.

    Basically, there’s a lot of supposition going on here but the suppositions are reasonable. That’s how science works; there’s usually little we can know for sure from a single study; it’s when more studies roll in that we start to get a more complete picture.

    What was sucralose-6-acetate found to do? It increased the expression of genes associated with inflammation, oxidative stress, and cancer (granted those three things generally go together). So that’s a “this probably has this end result” supposition.

    More concretely, and which most of the headlines latched onto, it was found (in vitro) to induce cytogenic damage, specifically, of the clastogenic variety (produces DNA strand breaks—so this is different than pineapple’s bromelain and DNA-helicase’s relatively harmless unzipping of genes).

    The dose makes the poison

    So, how much is too much and is that 0.67% something to worry about?

    • Remembering the rat study, it may be more like 10% once our intestines have done their thing. Iff we’re like rats.
    • But, even if it’s only 0.67%, this will still be above the “threshold of toxicological concern for genotoxicity”, of 0.15µg/person/day.
    • On the other hand, the fact that these were in vitro studies is a serious limitation.
    • Sometimes something is very dangerous in vitro, because it’s being put directly onto cells, whereas in vivo we may have mechanisms for dealing with that.

    We won’t know for sure until we get in vivo studies in human subjects, and that may not happen any time soon, if ever, depending on the technical limitations and ethical considerations that sometimes preclude doing certain studies in humans.

    Bottom line:

    • The headlines are written to be scary, but aren’t wrong; their claims are fundamentally true
    • What that means for us as actual humans may not be the same, however; we don’t know yet
    • For now, it is probably reasonable to avoid sucralose just in case

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

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