Stop Cancer 20 Years Ago
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Get Abreast And Keep Abreast
This is Dr. Jenn Simmons. Her specialization is integrative oncology, as she—then a breast cancer surgeon—got breast cancer, decided the system wasn’t nearly as good from the patients’ side of things as from the doctors’ side, and took to educate herself, and now others, on how things can be better.
What does she want us to know?
Start now
If you have breast cancer, the best time to start adjusting your lifestyle might be 20 years ago, but the second-best time is now. We realize our readers with breast cancer (or a history thereof) probably have indeed started already—all strength to you.
What this means for those of us without breast cancer (or a history therof) is: start now
Even if you don’t have a genetic risk factor, even if there’s no history of it in your family, there’s just no reason not to start now.
Start what, you ask? Taking away its roots. And how?
Inflammation as the root of cancer
To oversimplify: cancer occurs because an accidentally immortal cell replicates and replicates and replicates and takes any nearby resources to keep on going. While science doesn’t know all the details of how this happens, it is a factor of genetic mutation (itself a normal process, without which evolution would be impossible), something which in turn is accelerated by damage to the DNA. The damage to the DNA? That occurs (often as not) as a result of cellular oxidation. Cellular oxidation is far from the only genotoxic thing out there, and a lot of non-food “this thing causes cancer” warnings are usually about other kinds of genotoxicity. But cellular oxidation is a big one, and it’s one that we can fight vigorously with our lifestyle.
Because cellular oxidation and inflammation go hand-in-hand, reducing one tends to reduce the other. That’s why so often you’ll see in our Research Review Monday features, a line that goes something like:
“and now for those things that usually come together: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and anti-aging”
So, fight inflammation now, and have a reduced risk of a lot of other woes later.
See: How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation
Don’t settle for “normal”
People are told, correctly but not always helpfully, such things as:
- It’s normal to have less energy at your age
- It’s normal to have a weaker immune system at your age
- It’s normal to be at a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, etc
…and many more. And these things are true! But that doesn’t mean we have to settle for them.
We can be all the way over on the healthy end of the distribution curve. We can do that!
(so can everyone else, given sufficient opportunity and resources, because health is not a zero-sum game)
If we’re going to get a cancer diagnosis, then our 60s are the decade where we’re most likely to get it. Earlier than that and the risk is extant but lower; later than that and technically the risk increases, but we probably got it already in our 60s.
So, if we be younger than 60, then now’s a good time to prepare to hit the ground running when we get there. And if we missed that chance, then again, the second-best time is now:
See: Focusing On Health In Our Sixties
Fast to live
Of course, anything can happen to anyone at any age (alas), but this is about the benefits of living a fasting lifestyle—that is to say, not just fasting for a 4-week health kick or something, but making it one’s “new normal” and just continuing it for life.
This doesn’t mean “never eat”, of course, but it does mean “practice intermittent fasting, if you can”—something that Dr. Simmons strongly advocates.
See: Intermittent Fasting: We Sort The Science From The Hype
While this calls back to the previous “fight inflammation”, it deserves its own mention here as a very specific way of fighting it.
It’s never too late
All of the advices that go before a cancer diagnosis, continue to stand afterwards too. There is no point of “well, I already have cancer, so what’s the harm in…?”
The harm in it after a diagnosis will be the same as the harm before. When it comes to lifestyle, preventing a cancer and preventing it from spreading are very much the same thing, which is also the same as shrinking it. Basically, if it’s anticancer, it’s anticancer, no matter whether it’s before, during, or after.
Dr. Simmons has seen too many patients get a diagnosis, and place their lives squarely in the hands of doctors, when doctors can only do so much.
Instead, Dr. Simmons recommends taking charge of your health as best you are able, today and onwards, no matter what. And that means two things:
- Knowing stuff
- Doing stuff
So it becomes our responsibility (and our lifeline) to educate ourselves, and take action accordingly.
Want to know more?
We recently reviewed her book, and heartily recommend it:
The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer – by Dr. Jenn Simmons
Enjoy!
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Chickpeas vs Black Beans – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing chickpeas to black beans, we picked the black beans.
Why?
They’re both great! But we consider the nutritional profile of black beans to be better:
In terms of macros, black beans have a little more protein, while chickpeas have more carbohydrates. Generally speaking, people are not usually short of carbs in their diet, so we’ll go with the one with more protein. Black beans also have more fiber, which is important for heart health and more.
In the category of micronutrients, black beans have twice as much potassium and twice as much calcium, as well as twice as much magnesium. Chickpeas, meanwhile are better for manganese and slightly higher in B vitamins, but B vitamins are everywhere (especially vitamin B5, pantothenic acid; that’s literally where its name comes from, it means “from everywhere”), so we don’t consider that as much of a plus as the black beans doubling up on potassium, calcium, and magnesium.
So, do enjoy both, but if you’re going to pick, or lean more heavily on one, we recommend the black beans
Further reading
See also:
- Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)
- Easily Digestible Vegetarian Protein Sources
- What Matters Most For Your Heart? Eat More (Of This) For Lower Blood Pressure
Enjoy!
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The Vitamin Solution – by Dr. Romy Block & Dr. Arielle Levitan
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A quick note: it would be remiss of us not to mention that the authors of this book are also the founders of a vitamin company, thus presenting a potential conflict of interest.
That said… In this reviewer’s opinion, the book does seem balanced and objective, regardless.
We talk a lot about supplements here at 10almonds, especially in our Monday Research Review editions. And yesterday, we featured a book by a doctor who hates supplements. Today, we feature a book by two doctors who have made them their business.
The authors cover all the most common vitamins and minerals popularly enjoyed as supplements, and examine:
- why people take them
- factors affecting whether they help
- problems that can arise
- complicating factors
The “complicating factors” include, for example, the way many vitamins and/or minerals interplay with each other, either by requiring the presence of another, or else competing for resources for absorption, or needing to be delicately balanced on pain of diverse woes.
This is the greatest value of the book, perhaps; it’s where most people go wrong with supplementation, if they go wrong.
While both authors are medical doctors, Dr. Romy Block is an endocrinologist specifically, and she clearly brought a lot of extra attention to relevant metabolic/thyroid issues, and how vitamins and minerals (such as thiamin and iron) can improve or sabotage such, depending on various factors that she explains. Informative, and so far as this reviewer could see, objective and well-balanced.
Bottom line: supplementation is a vast and complex topic, but this book does a fine job of demystifying and simplifying it in a clear and objective fashion, without resorting to either scaremongering or hype.
Click here to check out The Vitamin Solution, and upgrade your knowledge!
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Why Some People Get Sick More (And How To Not Be One Of Them)
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Some people have never yet had COVID (so far so good, this writer included); others are on their third bout already; others have not been so lucky and are no longer with us to share their stories.
Obviously, even the healthiest and/or most careful person can get sick, and it would be folly to be complacent and think “I’m not a person who gets sick; that happens to other people”.
Nor is COVID the only thing out there to worry about; there’s always the latest outbreak-du-jour of something, and there are always the perennials such as cold and flu—which are also not to be underestimated, because both weaken us to other things, and flu has killed very many, from the 50,000,000+ in the 1918 pandemic, to the 700,000ish that it kills each year nowadays.
And then there are the combination viruses:
Move over, COVID and Flu! We Have “Hybrid Viruses” To Contend With Now
So, why are some people more susceptible?
Firstly, some people are simply immunocompromised. This means for example that:
- perhaps they have an inflammatory/autoimmune disease of some kind (e.g. lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes), or…
- perhaps they are taking immunosuppressants for some reason (e.g. because they had an organ transplant), or…
- perhaps they have a primary infection that leaves them vulnerable to secondary infections. Most infections will do this to some degree or another, but some are worse for it than others; untreated HIV is a clear example. The HIV itself may not kill people, but (if untreated) the resultant AIDS will leave a person open to being killed by almost any passing opportunistic pathogen. Pneumonia of various kinds being high on the list, but it could even be something as simple as the common cold, without a working immune system to fight it.
See also: How To Prevent (Or Reduce) Inflammation
And for that matter, since pneumonia is a very common last-nail-in-the-coffin secondary infection (especially: older people going into hospital with one thing, getting a secondary infection and ultimately dying as a result), it’s particularly important to avoid that, so…
See also: Pneumonia: What We Can & Can’t Do About It
Secondly, some people are not immunocompromised per the usual definition of the word, but their immune system is, arguably, compromised.
Cortisol, the stress hormone, is an immunosuppressant. We need cortisol to live, but we only need it in small bursts here and there (such as when we are waking up the morning). When high cortisol levels become chronic, so too does cortisol’s immunosuppressant effect.
Top things that cause elevated cortisol levels include:
- Stress
- Alcohol
- Smoking
Thus, the keys here are to 1) not smoke 2) not drink, ideally, or at least keep consumption low, but honestly even one drink will elevate cortisol levels, so it’s better not to, and 3) manage stress.
See also: Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)
Other modifiable factors
Being aware of infection risk and taking steps to reduce it (e.g. avoiding being with many people in confined indoor places, masking as appropriate, handwashing frequently) is a good preventative strategy, along with of course getting any recommended vaccines as they come available.
What if they fail? How can we boost the immune system?
We talked about not sabotaging the immune system, but what about actively boosting it? The answer is yes, we certainly can (barring serious medical reasons why not), as there are some very important lifestyle factors too:
Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!
One final last-line thing…
Since if we do get an infection, it’s better to know sooner rather than later… A recent study shows that wearable activity trackers can (if we pay attention to the right things) help predict disease, including highlighting COVID status (positive or negative) about as accurately (88% accuracy) as rapid screening tests. Here’s a pop-science article about it:
Wearable activity trackers show promise in detecting early signals of disease
Take care!
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Building & Maintaining Mobility
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Building & Maintaining Mobility!
This is Juliet Starrett. She’s a CrossFit co-founder, and two-time white-water rafting world champion. Oh, and she won those after battling thyroid cancer. She’s now 50 years old, and still going strong, having put aside her career as a lawyer to focus on fitness. Specifically, mobility training.
The Ready State
Together with her husband Kelly, Starrett co-founded The Ready State, of which she’s CEO.
It used to be called “Mobility WOD” (the “WOD” stands for “workout of the day”) but they changed their name as other companies took up the use of the word “mobility”, something the fitness world hadn’t previously focussed on much, and “WOD”, which was also hardly copyrightable.
True to its origins, The Ready State continues to offer many resources for building and maintaining mobility.
Why the focus on mobility?
When was the last time you had to bench-press anything larger than a small child? Or squat more than your partner’s bodyweight? Or do a “farmer’s walk” with anything heavier than your groceries?
For most of us, unless our lifestyles are quite extreme, we don’t need ridiculous strength (fun as that may be).
You know what makes a huge difference to our quality of life though? Mobility.
Have you ever felt that moment of panic when you reach for something on a high shelf and your shoulder or back twinges (been there!)? Or worse, you actually hurt yourself and the next thing you know, you need help putting your socks on (been there, too!)?
And we say to ourselves “I’m not going to let that happen to me again”
But how? How do we keep our mobility strong?
First, know your weaknesses
Starrett is a big fan of mobility tests to pinpoint areas that need more work.
Most of her resources for this aren’t free, and we’re drawing heavily from her book here, so for your convenience, we’ll link to some third party sources for this:
- Timed Up and Go—start with this, before progressing to the next!
- Sit To Rise Test—not to be underestimated (this page also has excerpts from Starrett’s mobility book, by the way)
- Shoulders/Spine/Hips—7 quick tests; note any that you can’t do, or struggle with
Next, eliminate those weaknesses
Do mobility exercises in any weak areas, until they’re not weak:
Want to train the full body in one session?
Try out The Ready State’s 10-Minute Morning Mobility Routine
Want to learn more?
You might enjoy her book that we reviewed previously:
Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully
You might also enjoy The Ready State App, available for iOS and for Android:
The Ready State Virtual Mobility Coach
Enjoy!
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Rethinking Diabetes – by Gary Taubes
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We’ve previously reviewed this author’s “The Case Against Sugar” and “Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It“. There’s an obvious theme, and this book caps it off nicely:
By looking at the history of diabetes treatment (types 1 and 2) in the past hundred years, and analysing the patterns over time, we can see how:
- diabetics have been misled a lot over time by healthcare providers
- we can learn from those mistakes going forwards
Happily, he does this without crystal-balling the future or expecting diet to fix, for example, a pancreas that can’t produce insulin. But what he does do is focus on the “can” items rather than the “can’t” items.
In the category of criticism, one of the strategies he argues for is basically the keto diet, which is indeed just fine for diabetes but often not great for the heart in the long-term (it depends on various factors, including genes). However, even if you choose not to implement that, there is plenty more to try out in this book.
Bottom line: whether you have diabetes, love someone who does, or just plain like to be on top of your glycemic health, this book is full of important insights and opportunities to improve things progressively along the way.
Click here to check out Rethinking Diabetes, and rethink diabetes!
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Anise vs Diabetes & Menopause
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What A Daily Gram Of Anise Can Do
Anise, specifically the seed of the plant, also called aniseed, is enjoyed for its licorice taste—as well as its medicinal properties.
Let’s see how well the science lives up to the folk medicine…
What medicinal properties does it claim?
The main contenders are:
- Reduces menopause symptoms
- Reduces blood sugar levels
- Reduces inflammation
Does it reduce menopause symptoms?
At least some of them! Including hot flashes and bone density loss. This seems to be due to the estrogenic-like activity of anethole, the active compound in anise that gives it these effects:
Estrogenic activity of isolated compounds and essential oils of Pimpinella species
1g of anise/day yielded a huge reduction in frequency and severity of hot flashes, compared to placebo*:
*you may be wondering what the placebo is for 1g of a substance that has a very distinctive taste. The researchers used capsules, with 3x330g as the dose, either anise seed or potato starch.
❝In the experimental group, the frequency and severity of hot flashes before the treatment were 4.21% and 56.21% and, after that, were 1.06% and 14.44% at the end of the fourth week respectively. No change was found in the frequency and severity of hot flashes in the control group. The frequency and severity of hot flashes was decreased during 4 weeks of follow up period. P. anisum is effective on the frequency and severity of hot flashes in postmenopausal women. ❞
See for yourself: The Study on the Effects of Pimpinella anisum on Relief and Recurrence of Menopausal Hot Flashes
As for bone mineral density, we couldn’t find a good study for anise, but we did find this one for fennel, which is a plant of the same family and also with the primary active compound anethole:
The Prophylactic Effect of Fennel Essential Oil on Experimental Osteoporosis
That was a rat study, though, so we’d like to see studies done with humans.
Summary on this one: it clearly helps against hot flashes (per the very convincing human study we listed above); it probably helps against bone mineral density loss.
Does it reduce blood sugar levels?
This one got a flurry of attention all so recently, on account of this research review:
Review on Anti-diabetic Research on Two Important Spices: Trachyspermum ammi and Pimpinella anisum
If you read this (and we do recommend reading it! It has a lot more information than we can squeeze in here!) one of the most interesting things about the in vivo anti-diabetic activity of anise was that while it did lower the fasting blood glucose levels, that wasn’t the only effect:
❝Over a course of 60 days, study participants were administered seed powders (5 g/d), which resulted in significant antioxidant, anti-diabetic, and hypolipidemic effects.
Notably, significant reductions in fasting blood glucose levels were observed. This intervention also elicited alterations in the lipid profile, LPO, lipoprotein levels, and the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) level.
Moreover, the serum levels of essential antioxidants, such as beta carotene, vitamin C, vitamin A, and vitamin E, which are typically decreased in diabetic patients, underwent a reversal.❞
That’s just one of the studies cited in that review (the comments lightly edited here for brevity), but it stands out, and you can read that study in its entirety (it’s well worth reading).
Rajeshwari et al, bless them, added a “tl;dr” at the top of their already concise abstract; their “tl;dr” reads:
❝Both the seeds significantly influenced almost all the parameters without any detrimental effects by virtue of a number of phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals present in the seeds having therapeutic effects.❞
Shortest answer: yes, yes it does
Does it fight inflammation?
This one’s quick and simple enough: yes it does; it’s full of antioxidants which thus also have an anti-inflammatory effect:
Review of Pharmacological Properties and Chemical Constituents of Pimpinella anisum
…which can also be used an essential oil, applied topically, to fight both pain and the inflammation that causes it—at least in rats and mice:
❝Indomethacin and etodolac were treated reference drugs for the anti-inflammatory activity. Aspirin and morphine hydrochloride were treated reference drugs for the analgesic activity. The results showed that fixed oil of P. anisum has an anti-inflammatory action more than etodolac and this effect was as strong as indomethacin. P. anisum induces analgesic effect comparable to that of 100 mg/kg Aspirin and 10 mg/kg morphine at 30 th min. of the study❞
Summary of this section:
- Aniseeds are a potent source of antioxidants, which fight inflammation.
- Anise essential oil is probably also useful as a topical anti-inflammatory and analgesic agent, but we’d like to see human tests to know for sure.
Is it safe?
For most people, enjoyed in moderation (e.g., within the dosage parameters described in the above studies), anise is safe. However:
- If you’re allergic to it, it won’t be safe
- Its estrogen-mimicking effects could cause problems if you have (or have a higher risk factor for) breast cancer, ovarian cancer, or endometriosis.
- For most men, the main concern is that it may lower sperm count.
Where to get it?
As ever, we don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, you can buy the seeds in bulk on Amazon, or in case you prefer it, here’s an example of it available as an essential oil.
Enjoy!
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