Clean – by Dr. James Hamblin
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Our skin is our largest organ, and it’s easy to forget that, and how much it does for us. All things considered, it’s good to take good care of it! But what if we sometimes take too much “care” of it?
Dr. James Hamblin, a medical doctor-turned-writer, has explored this a lot both personally and in research. Through such, he has come to the conclusion there’s definitely a “sweet spot” of personal hygiene:
- Too little, and the Bubonic plague sweeps through Europe, or other plagues sweep through other places when European invaders came.
- Too much, and we strip our skin of one of its greatest qualities: the ability to protect us.
Dr. Hamblin asks (and answers) such questions as:
- What is good hygiene, and what is neurotically doing ourselves multiple levels of harm because advertising companies shamed us into doing so?
- Is it good or bad to use a series of products, each to undo the problem caused by the previous?
- What the difference between a 5-step skincare routine, and a series of gratuitous iatrogenic damage?
- Which products clean us most helpfully, and which clean us most harmfully?
- How often should we bathe/shower, really?
If the book has a weak point, it’s that it’s written mostly with his body in mind. That makes a difference when it comes to hairwashing, for example. He’s a white guy with short hair. If you’re black and/or have long hair, for example, your haircare needs will be quite different. Similarly, many women engage in shaving/depilation in places that most men don’t, and the consequences of that choice (and implications for any extra washing needs/harms) aren’t covered.
Bottom line: notwithstanding the aforementioned blind-spots, this book will help readers reduce the amount of harm we are doing to our bodies with our washing routines, without sacrificing actual hygiene.
Click here to check out Clean and help your skin to help you!
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How Useful Is Hydrotherapy?
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Hyyyyyyydromatic…
Hydrotherapy is a very broad term, and refers to any (external) use of water as part of a physical therapy. Today we’re going to look at some of the top ways this can be beneficial—maybe you’ll know them all already, but maybe there’s something you hadn’t thought about or done decently; let’s find out!
Notwithstanding the vague nature of the umbrella term, some brave researchers have done a lot of work to bring us lots of information about what works and what doesn’t, so we’ll be using this to guide us today. For example:
Scientific Evidence-Based Effects of Hydrotherapy on Various Systems of the Body
Swimming (and similar)
An obvious one, this can for most people be a very good full-body exercise, that’s exactly as strenuous (or not) as you want/need it to be.
It can be cardio, it can be resistance, it can be endurance, it can be high-intensity interval training, it can be mobility work, it can be just support for an aching body that gets to enjoy being in the closest to zero-gravity we can get without being in freefall or in space.
See also: How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
Depending on what’s available for you locally (pool with a shallow area, for example), it can also be a place to do some exercises normally performed on land, but with your weight being partially supported (and as a counterpoint, a little resistance added to movement), and no meaningful risk of falling.
Tip: check out your local facilities, to see if they offer water aerobics classes; because the water necessitates slow movement, this can look a lot like tai chi to watch, but it’s great for mobility and balance.
Water circuit therapy
This isn’t circuit training! Rather, it’s a mixture of thermo- and cryotherapy, that is to say, alternating warm and cold water immersion. This can also be interspersed with the use of a sauna, of course.
See also:
- Ice Baths: To Dip Or Not To Dip?
- Saunas: Health Benefits (& Caveats)
- The Stress Prescription (Against Aging!)
this last one is about thermal shock-mediated hormesis, which sounds drastic, but it’s what we’re doing here with the hot and cold, and it’s good for most people!
Pain relief
Most of the research for this has to do with childbirth pain rather than, for example, back pain, but the science is promising:
Post-exercise recovery
It can be tempting to sink into a hot bath, or at least enjoy a good hot shower, after strenuous exercise. But does it help recovery too? The answer is probably yes:
Effect of hot water immersion on acute physiological responses following resistance exercise
For more on that (and other means of improving post-exercise recovery), check out our previous main feature:
How To Speed Up Recovery After A Workout (According To Actual Science)
Take care!
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How To En-Joy Life (With Long-Term Benefits)
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New Year’s Dissolutions?
We have talked previously about:
The Science Of New Year’s Pre-Resolutions
…and here we are now at the end of the first week of January; how’s it going?
Hopefully, based on that article, it’s been going just great since December! For most people, statistically speaking, it hasn’t.
Around now is typically when many people enter the “bargaining” stage of New Year’s Resolutions, which at this point are often in serious danger of becoming New Year’s Dissolutions.
What’s important, really?
When trying to juggle potentially too many new items, it’s important to be able to decide where to focus one’s efforts in the case of needing to drop a ball or two.
First, the laziest way…
The path of least resistance
This is perhaps most people’s go-to. It, without too much thought, drops whatever feels most onerous, and continues with what seems easiest.
This is not a terrible approach, because what we enjoy, we will be more likely to continue. But it can be improved upon, while still getting that benefit.
Marie Kondo your
resolutionsvaluesInstead of throwing out the new habits that “don’t spark joy”, ask yourself:
“What brings me joy?”
…because often, the answer is something that’s a result of a thing that didn’t “spark joy” directly. Many things in life involve delayed gratification.
Let’s separate the [unwanted action] from the [wanted result] for a moment.
Rather than struggling on with something unpleasant for the hope of joy at the end of the rainbow, though, give yourself permission to improve the middle bit.
For example, if the idea of having lots of energy and good cardiovascular fitness is what prompted you to commit to those 6am runs each morning (but they’re not actually joyous in your experience), what would be more fun and still give you the same benefit?
Now that you know “having lots of energy and good CV fitness” is what sparks joy, not “getting up to run at 6am”, you can change lanes without pulling off the highway entirely.
Maybe a dance class will be more your speed, for example.
The key here is: you’ll have changed your resolution, without breaking it in any way that mattered
Want more ways to keep on track without burning out?
Who doesn’t? So, check out:
How To Keep On Keeping On… Long Term!
Enjoy!
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The New Menopause – by Dr. Mary Claire Haver
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The author is most famous for “The Galveston Diet”, which book is astonishingly similar in its content, chapters, format, etc to Nikki Williams’ “It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones” which came out a few years previously but didn’t get the same marketing.
Nonetheless, this time Dr. Haver has something new to add, and we think it’s worth a read.
The general theme of this book is a comprehensive overview of the menopause, experientially (subjective to the person going through it) and empirically (by science), from start to finish and beyond. This book’s more about human physiology, and less about diet than the previous.
Dr. Haver also discusses in-depth how estrogen is thought of as a sex hormone (and it is), to the point that people consider it perhaps expendable, and forget (or are simply unaware) that we have estrogen receptors throughout our bodies and estrogen is vital for maintaining many other bodily functions, including your heart, cognitive function, bone integrity, blood sugar balance, and more.
(in case you’re wondering “why don’t men fall to bits, then?”, don’t worry, their testosterone does these things for them. Testosterone is orders of magnitude less potent than estrogen, mg for mg, so they need a lot more of it, but under good conditions they produce plenty so it’s fine)
But, the amount of testosterone available to peri/postmenopausal women is simply not enough to do that job (and it’d also result in a transition of secondary sex characteristics, which for most people would be very unwanted), so, something else needs to be done.
Dr. Haver also discusses in detail the benefits and risks of HRT and how to get/manage them, respectively, with the latest up-to-date research (at time of going to print; the book was published in April 2024).
Bottom line: if you want to know what’s going on with your peri- or post-menopausal body and how it could be better (or if you want to know what’s going on with someone else approaching/experiencing menopause), then this is a top-tier book.
Click here to check out The New Menopause, and know what’s going on and what to do about it!
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How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
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Overcoming Loneliness & Isolation
One of the biggest mental health threats that faces many of us as we get older is growing isolation, and the loneliness that can come with it. Family and friends thin out over the years, and getting out and about isn’t always as easy as it used to be for everyone.
Nor is youth a guaranteed protection against this—in today’s world of urban sprawl and nothing-is-walkable cities, in which access to social spaces such as cafés and the like means paying the rising costs with money that young people often don’t have… And that’s without getting started on how much the pandemic impacted an entire generation’s social environments (or lack thereof).
Why is this a problem?
Humans are, by evolution, social creatures. As individuals we may have something of a spectrum from introvert to extrovert, but as a species, we thrive in community. And we suffer, when we don’t have that.
What can we do about it?
We can start by recognizing our needs, such as they are, and identifying to what extent they are being met (or not).
- Some of us may be very comfortable with a lot of alone time—but need someone to talk to sometimes.
- Some of us may need near-constant company to feel at our best—and that’s fine too! We just need to plan accordingly.
In the former case, it’s important to remember that needing someone to talk to is not being a burden to them. Not only will our company probably enrich them too, but also, we are evolved to care for one another, and that itself can bring fulfilment to them as much as to you. But what if you don’t a friend to talk to?
- You might be surprised at who would be glad of you reaching out. Have a think through whom you know, and give it a go. This can be scary, because what if they reject us, or worse, they don’t reject us but silently resent us instead? Again, they probably won’t. Human connection requires taking risks and being vulnerable sometimes.
- If that’s not an option, there are services that can fill your need. For some, therapy might serve a dual purpose in this regard. For others, you might want to check out the list of (mostly free) resources at the bottom of this article
In the second case (that we need near-constant company to feel at our best) we probably need to look more at our overall lifestyle, and find ways to be part of a community. That can include:
- Living in a close-knit community (places with a lot of retirees in one place often have this; or younger folk might look at communal living/working spaces, for example)
- Getting involved in local groups (you can check out NextDoor.com or MeetUp.com for this)
- Volunteering for a charity (not only are acts of service generally fulfilling in and of themselves, but also, you will probably be working with other people of a charitable nature, and such people tend to make for good company!)
Need a little help?
There are many, many organizations that will love to help you (or anyone else) overcome loneliness and isolation.
Rather than list them all here and make this email very long by describing how each of them works, here’s a great compilation of resources:
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Nanotechnology vs Alcohol Damage!
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One Thing That Does Pair Well With Alcohol…
Alcohol is not a healthy thing to consume. That shouldn’t be a controversial statement, but there is a popular belief that it can be good for the heart:
Red Wine & The Heart: Can We Drink To Good Health?
The above is an interesting and well-balanced article that examines the arguments for health benefits (including indirectly, e.g. social aspects).
Ultimately, though, as the World Health Organization puts it:
WHO: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health
There is some good news:
We can somewhat reduce the harm done by alcohol by altering our habits slightly:
How To Make Drinking Less Harmful
…and we can also, of course, reduce our alcohol consumption (ideally to zero, but any reduction is an improvement already):
And, saving the best news (in this section, anyway) for last, it is almost always possible to undo the harm done specifically to one’s liver:
Nanotechnology to the rescue?
Remember when we had a main feature about how colloidal gold basically does nothing by itself (and that that’s precisely why gold is used in medicine, when it is used)?
Now it has an extra bit of nothing to do, for our benefit (if we drink alcohol, anyway), as part of a gel that detoxifies alcohol before it can get to our liver:
Gold is one of the “ingredients” in a gel containing a nanotechnology lattice of protein fibrils coated with iron (and the gold is there as an inert catalyst, which is chemistry’s way of saying it doesn’t react in any way but it does cheer the actual reagents on). There’s more chemistry going on than we have room to discuss in our little newsletter, so if you like the full details, you can read about that here:
Single-site iron-anchored amyloid hydrogels as catalytic platforms for alcohol detoxification
The short and oversimplified explanation is that instead of alcohol being absorbed from the gut and transported via the bloodstream to the liver, where it is metabolized (poisoning the liver as it goes, and poisoning the rest of the body too, including the brain), the alcohol is degraded while it is still in the gastrointestinal tract, converted by the gel’s lattice into acetic acid (which is at worst harmless, and actually in moderation a good thing to have).
Even shorter and even more oversimplified: the gel turns the alcohol into vinegar in the stomach and gut, before it can get absorbed into the blood.
But…
Of course there’s a “but”…
There are some limitations:
It doesn’t get it all (tests so far found it only gets about half of the alcohol), and so far it’s only been tested on mice, so it’s not on the market yet—while the researchers are sufficiently confident about it that a patent application has now been made, though, so it’ll probably show up on the market in the near future.
You can read a pop-science article about it (with diagrams!) here:
New gel breaks down alcohol in the body
Want to read more…
…about how to protect your organs (including your brain) from alcohol completely?
We’ve reviewed quite a number of books about quitting alcohol, so it’s hard to narrow it down to a single favorite, but after some deliberation, we’ll finish today with recommending:
Quit Drinking – by Rebecca Dolton ← you can read our review here
Take care!
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Melatonin: A Safe, Natural Sleep Aid?
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Melatonin: A safe sleep supplement?
Melatonin is a hormone normally made in our pineal gland. It helps regulate our circadian rhythm, by making us sleepy.
It has other roles too—it has a part to play in regulating immune function, something that also waxes and wanes as a typical day goes by.
Additionally, since melatonin and cortisol are antagonistic to each other, a sudden increase in either will decrease the other. Our brain takes advantage of this, by giving us a cortisol spike in the morning to help us wake up.
As a supplement, it’s generally enjoyed with the intention of inducing healthy, natural, restorative sleep.
Does it really induce healthy, natural, restorative, sleep?
Yes! Well, “natural” is a little subject and relative, if you’re taking it as a supplement, but it’s something your body produces naturally anyway.
Contrast with, for example, benzodiazepines (that whole family of medications with names ending in -azopan or -alozam), or other tranquilizing drugs that do not so much induce healthy sleep, but rather reduce your brain function and hopefully knock you out, and/but often have unwanted side effects, and a tendency to create dependency.
Melatonin, unlike most of those drugs, does not create dependency, and furthermore, we don’t develop tolerance to it. In other words, the same dose will continue working (we won’t need more and more).
In terms of benefits, melatonin not only reduces the time to fall asleep and increases total sleep time, but also (quite a bonus) improves sleep quality, too:
Meta-Analysis: Melatonin for the Treatment of Primary Sleep Disorders
Because it is a natural hormone rather than a drug with many side effects and interactions, it’s also beneficial for those who need good sleep and/but don’t want tranquilizing:
Any other benefits?
Yes! It can also help guard against Seasonal Affective Disorder, also called seasonal depression. Because SAD is not just about “not enough light = not enough serotonin”, but also partly about circadian rhythm and (the body is not so sure what time of day it is when there are long hours of darkness, or even, in the other hemisphere / other time of year, long hours of daylight), melatonin can help, by giving your brain something to “anchor” onto, provided you take it at the same time each day. See:
- Is seasonal affective disorder a disorder of circadian rhythms?
- The circadian basis of winter depression: the case for low-dose melatonin use
As a small bonus, melatonin also promotes HGH production (important for maintaining bone and muscle mass, especially in later life):
Anything we should worry about?
Assuming taking a recommended dose only (0.5mg–10mg per day), toxicity is highly unlikely, especially given that it has a half-life of only 40–60 minutes, so it’ll be eliminated quite quickly.
However! It does indeed induce sleepiness, so for example, don’t take melatonin and then try to drive or operate heavy machinery—or, ideally, do anything other than go to bed.
It can interfere with some medications. We mentioned that melatonin helps regulate immune function, so for example that’s something to bear in mind if you’re on immunosuppressants or otherwise have an autoimmune disorder. It can also interfere with blood pressure medications and blood thinners, and may make epilepsy meds less effective.
As ever, if in doubt, please speak with your doctor and/or pharmacist.
Where to get it?
As ever, we don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, here is an example product on Amazon.
Enjoy!
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