When Did You Last Have a Cognitive Health Check-Up?
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When Did You Last Have a Cognitive Health Check-Up?
Regular health check-ups are an important part of a good health regime, especially as we get older. But after you’ve been prodded, probed, sampled and so forth… When did you last have a cognitive health check-up?
Keeping on top of things
In our recent Monday Research Review main feature about citicoline, we noted that it has beneficial effects for a lot of measures of cognitive health.
And that brought us to realize: just how on top of this are we?
Your writer here today could tell you what her sleep was like on any night in the past year, what her heart rate was like, her weight, and all that. Moods too! There’s an app for that. But cognitive health? My last IQ test was in 2001, and I forget when my last memory test was.
It’s important to know how we’re doing, or else how to we know if there has been some decline? We’ve talked previously about the benefits of brain-training of various kinds to improve cognition, so in some parts we’ll draw on the same resources today, but this time the focus is on getting quick measurements that we can retest regularly (mark the calendar!)
Some quick-fire tests
These tests are all free, quick, and accessible. Some of them will try to upsell you on other (i.e. paid) services; we leave that to your own discretion, but the things we’ll be using today are free.
Test your verbal memory
This one’s a random word list generator. It defaults to 12 words, but you can change that if you like. Memorize the words, and then test yourself by seeing how many you can write down from memory. If it gets too easy, crank up the numbers.
Test your visual memory
This one’s a series of images; the test is to click to say whether you’ve seen this exact image previously in the series or not.
Test your IQ
This one’s intended to be general purpose intelligence; in reality, IQ tests have their flaws too, but it’s not a bad metric to keep track of. Just don’t get too hung up on the outcome, and remember, your only competition is yourself!
Test your attention / focus
This writer opened this and this three other attention tests (to get you the best one) before getting distracted, noting the irony, and finally taking the test. Hopefully you can do better!
Test your creativity
This one’s a random object generator. Give yourself a set period of time (per your preference, but make a note of the time you allow yourself, so that you can use the same time period when you retest yourself at a later date) in which to list as many different possible uses for the item.
Test your musical sense
This one’s a pitch recognition test. So, with the caveat that it is partially testing your hearing as well as your cognition, it’s a good one to take and regularly retest in any case.
How often should you retest?
There’s not really any “should” here, but to offer some advice:
- If you take them too often, you might find you get bored of doing so and stop, essentially burning out.
- If you don’t take them regularly, you may forget, lose this list of tests, etc.
- Likely a good “sweet spot” is quarterly or six-monthly, but there’s nothing wrong with testing annually either.
It’s all about the big picture, after all.
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How to Fall Asleep Faster: CBT-Insomnia Treatment
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Insomnia affects a lot of people, and is even more common as we get older. Happily, therapist Emma McAdam is here with a drug-free solution that will work for most people most of the time.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBTI)
While people think of causes of insomnia as being things such as stress, anxiety, overthinking, disturbances, and so forth, these things affect sleep in the short term, but don’t directly cause chronic insomnia.
We say “directly”, because chronic insomnia is usually the result of the brain becoming accustomed to the above, and thus accidentally training itself to not sleep.
The remedy: cut the bad habit of staying in bed while awake. Lying in bed awake trains the brain to associate lying in bed with wakefulness (and any associated worrying, etc). In essence, we lie down, and the brain thinks “Aha, we know this one; this is the time and place for worrying, ok, let’s get to work”.
So instead: if you’re in bed and not asleep within 15 minutes, get up and do something non-stimulating until you feel sleepy, then return to bed. This may cause some short term tiredness, but it will usually correct the chronic insomnia within a week.
For more details, tips, and troubleshooting with regard to the above, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
How to Fall Back Asleep After Waking Up in the Middle of the Night
Take care!
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Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
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Gut Health 101
We have so many microorganisms inside us, that by cell count, their cells outnumber ours more than ten-to-one. By gene count, we have 23,000 and they have more than 3,000,000. In effect, we are more microbe than we are human. And, importantly: they form a critical part of what keeps our overall organism ticking on.
Read all about it: The role of the gut microbiota in nutrition and health
Our trillions of tiny friends keep us alive, so it really really pays to return the favor.
But how?
Probiotics and fermented foods
You probably guessed this one, but it’d be remiss not to mention it first. It’s no surprise that probiotics help; the clue is in the name. In short, they help add diversity to your microbiome (that’s a good thing).
Read from the NIH: Probiotics: What You Need To Know
As for fermented foods, not every fermented food will boost your microbiota, but great options include…
- Fermented vegetables (sauerkraut, pickles, etc)
- You’ll often hear kimchi mentioned; that is also pickled vegetables, usually mostly cabbage. It’s just the culinary experience that differs. Unlike sauerkraut, kimchi is usually spiced, for example.
- Kombucha (a fermented sweet tea)
- Miso & tempeh (different preparations of fermented soy)
The health benefits vary based on the individual strains of bacteria involved in the fermentation, so don’t get too caught up on which is best.
The best one is the one you enjoy, because then you’ll have it regularly!
Feed them plenty of prebiotic fibers
Those probiotics you took? The bacteria in them eat the fiber that you can’t digest without them. So, feed them those sorts of fibers.
Great options include:
- Bananas
- Garlic
- Onions
- Whole grains
Read more: Effects of Probiotics, Prebiotics, and Synbiotics on Human Health
Don’t feed them sugar and sweeteners
Sugar and (and, counterintuitively, aspartame) can cause unfortunate gut microbe imbalances. Put simply, they kill some of your friends and feed some of your enemies. For example…
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.
Do not feed the Candida.
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:
❝Colonization of the intestine and translocation through the intestinal barrier are fundamental aspects of the processes preceding life-threatening systemic candidiasis. In this review, we discuss the commensal lifestyle of C. albicans in the intestine, the role of morphology for commensalism, the influence of diet, and the interactions with bacteria of the microbiota.❞
Source: Candida albicans as a commensal and opportunistic pathogen in the intestine
The usual five things
- Good diet (Mediterranean Diet is good; plant-based version of it is by far the best for this)
- Good exercise (yes, really)
- Good sleep (helps them, and they’ll help you get better sleep in return)
- Limit or eliminate alcohol consumption (what a shocker)
- Don’t smoke (it’s bad for everything, including gut health)
One last thing you should know:
If you’re used to having animal products in your diet, and make a sudden change to all plants, your gut will object very strongly. This is because your gut microbiome is used to animal products, and a plant-based diet will cause many helpful microbes to flourish in great abundance, and many less helpful microbes will starve and die. And they will make it officially Not Fun™ for you.
So, you have two options to consider:
- Do it anyway, and sit it out (and believe us, you’ll be sitting), get the change over with quickly, and enjoy the benefits and much happier gut that follows.
- Make the change gradual. Reduce portions of animal products slowly, have “Meatless Mondays” etc, and slowly make the change over. This—for most people—is pretty comfortable, easy, and effective.
And remember: the effects of these things we’ve talked about today compound when you do more than one of them, but if you don’t want to take probiotics or really hate kombucha or absolutely won’t consider a plant-based diet or struggle to give up sugar or alcohol, etc… Just do what you can do, and you’ll still have a net improvement!
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- Fermented vegetables (sauerkraut, pickles, etc)
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Change Your Brain, Change Your Life – by Dr. Daniel G. Amen
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To what extent can we change our brains, and to what extent are we stuck with what we have?
Dr. Amen tells us that being mindful of both ends of this is critical:
- Neuroplasticity means we can, indeed, change our brains
- We do, however, have fundamental “brain types” based on our neurochemistry and physical brain structure
He argues for the use of brain imaging technology to learn more about the latter… In order to better go about doing what we can with the former.
The book looks at how these different brain types can lead to situations where what works as a treatment for one person can often not work for another. It’s also prescriptive, about what sorts of treatments (and lifestyle adjustments) are more likely to do better for each.
Where the book excels is in giving ideas and pointers for exploration… Things to take to one’s doctor, and—for example—request certain tests, and then what to do with those.
Where the book is a little light is on including hard science in the explanations. The hard science is referred to, but is considered beyond the scope of the book, or perhaps beyond the interest of the reader. That’s unfortunate, as we’d have liked to have seen more of it, rather than taking claims at face value without evidence.
Bottom line: this is distinctly “pop science” in presentation, but can give a lot of great ideas for learning more about our own brains and brain health… And then optimizing such.
Click here to check out “Change Your Brain; Change Your Life” on Amazon today!
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What Curiosity Really Kills
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Curiosity Kills The Neurodegeneration
Of the seven things that Leonardo da Vinci considered most important for developing and maintaining the mind, number one on his list was curiosity, and we’re going to be focussing on that today.
In case you are curious about what seven things made Leonardo’s* list, they were:
- Curiosità: an insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning
- Dimostrazione: a commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes
- Sensazione: the continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as a means to enliven experience
- Sfumato: (lit: “gone up in smoke”) a willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty
- Arte/Scienza: the curated balance of art and science, imagination and logic
- Corporalità: the cultivation of physical grace, ambidexterity, and fitness
- Connessione: a recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of phenomena (systems-based thinking)
*In case you are curious why we wrote “Leonardo” and not “da Vinci” as per our usual convention of shortening names to last names, da Vinci is not technically a name, in much the same way as “of Nazareth” was not a name.
You can read more about all 7 of these in a book that we’ve reviewed previously:
How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day – by Michael J. Gelb
But for now, let’s take on “curiosity”!
If you need an extra reason to focus on growing and nurturing your curiosity, it was also #1 of Dr. Daniel Levitin’s list of…
The Five Keys Of Aging Healthily
…and that’s from a modern-day neuroscientist whose research focuses on aging, the brain, health, productivity, and creativity.
But how do we foster curiosity in the age of Google?
Curiosity is like a muscle: use it or lose it
While it’s true that many things can be Googled to satisfy one’s curiosity in an instant…
- do you? It’s only useful if you do use it
- is the top result on Google reliable?
- there are many things that aren’t available there
In short: douse “fast
foodinformation” sources, but don’t rely on them! Not just for the sake of having correct information, but also: for the actual brain benefits which is what we are aiming for here with today’s article.If you want the best brain benefits, dive in, and go deep
Here at 10almonds we often present superficial information, with links to deeper information (often: scholarly articles). We do this because a) there’s only so much we can fit in our articles and b) we know you only have so much time available, and/but may choose to dive deeper.
Think of it in layers, e.g:
- Collagen is good for joints and bones
- Collagen is a protein made of these amino acids that also requires these vitamins and minerals to be present in order to formulate it
- Those amino acids are needed in these quantities, of which this particular one is usually the weakest link that might need supplementing, and those vitamins and minerals need to be within this period of time, but not these ones at the exact same time, or else it will disrupt the process of collagen synthesis
(in case you’re curious, we covered this here and here and offered a very good, very in-depth book about it here)
Now, this doesn’t mean that to have a healthy brain you need to have the equivalent knowledge of an anatomy & physiology degree, but it is good to have that level of curiosity in at least some areas of your life—and the more, the better.
Top tips for developing a habit of curiosity
As you probably know, most of our endeavors as humans go best when they are habits:
How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits
And as for specifically building a habit of curiosity:
- Make a deal with yourself that when someone is excited to tell you what they know about something (no matter whether it is your grandkid, or the socially awkward nerd at a party, or whoever), listen and learn, no matter the topic.
- Learn at least one language other than your native language (presumably English for most of our readers). Not only does learning a language convey a lot of brain benefits of its own, but also, it is almost impossible to separate language learning from cultural learning, and so you will learn a lot about another culture too, and have whole new worlds opened up to you. Again, more is better, but one second language is already a lot better than none.
- Make a regular habit of going to your local library, and picking out a non-fiction book to take home and read. This has an advantage over a bookshop, by the way (and not just that the library is free): since library books must be returned, you will keep going back, and build a habit of taking out books.
- Pick a skill that you’d like to make into a fully-fledged hobby, and commit to continually learning as much about it as you can. We already covered language-learning above, but others might include: gardening (perhaps a specific kind), cooking (perhaps a specific kind), needlecraft (perhaps a specific kind), dance (perhaps a specific kind). You could learn a musical instrument. Or it could be something very directly useful, like learning to be a first responder in case of emergencies, and committing to continually learning more about it (because there is always more to learn).
And when it comes to the above choices… Pick things that excite you, regardless of how practical or not they are. Because that stimulation that keeps on driving you? That’s what keeps your brain active, healthy, and sharp.
Enjoy!
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The Immune System Recovery Plan – by Dr. Susan Blum
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.
The subtitle of the book is “A Doctor’s 4-Step Program to Treat Autoimmune Disease”, so we’ll not keep the four steps a secret; they are:
- Using food as medicine
- Understanding the stress connection
- Healing your gut and digestive system
- Optimizing liver function
Each of these sections gives a primer in the relevant science, worksheets for personalizing your own plan to your own situation, condition, and goals, and of course lots of practical advice.
This is important and perhaps the book’s greatest strength, since there are dozens of possible autoimmune conditions, and getting a professional diagnosis is often a long, arduous process. So while this book can’t necessarily speed that up, what it can do is give you a good head-start on managing your symptoms based on things that are most likely to help, and certainly, there will be no harm trying.
While it’s not primarily a recipe book, there are also recipes targeting each part of the whole, as well as an extensive herb and supplement guide, before getting into lots of additional resources.
Bottom line: if you are, or suspect you are, suffering from an autoimmune condition, the information in this book can make your life a lot easier.
Click here to check out The Immune System Recovery Plan, and help yours to help you!
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There are ‘forever chemicals’ in our drinking water. Should standards change to protect our health?
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Today’s news coverage reports potentially unsafe levels of “forever chemicals” detected in drinking water supplies around Australia. These include human-made chemicals: perfluorooctane sulfonate (known as PFOS) and perflurooctanic acid (PFOA). They are classed under the broader category of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS chemicals.
The contaminants found in our drinking water are the same ones United States authorities warn can cause cancer over a long period of time, with reports warning there is “no safe level of exposure”.
In April, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) sent shock waves through the water industry around the world when it announced stricter advice on safe levels of PFOS/PFOA in drinking water. This reduced limits considered safe in supplies to zero and gave the water industry five years to meet legally enforceable limits of 4 parts per trillion.
So, should the same limits be enforced here in Australia? And how worried should we be that the drinking in many parts of Australia would fail the new US standards?
What are the health risks?
Medical knowledge about the human health effects of PFOS/PFOA is still emerging. An important factor is the bioaccumulation of these chemicals in different organs in the body over time.
Increased exposure of people to these chemicals has been associated with several adverse health effects. These include higher cholesterol, lower birth weights, modified immune responses, kidney and testicular cancer.
It has been very difficult to accurately track and measure effects of different levels of PFAS exposure on people. People may be exposed to PFAS chemicals in their everyday life through waterproofing of clothes, non-stick cookware coatings or through food and drinking water. PFAS can also be in pesticides, paints and cosmetics.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (on behalf of the World Health Organization) regards PFOA as being carcinogenic to humans and PFOS as possibly carcinogenic to humans.
Is our drinking water safe? What about long-term risks? Volodymyr TVERDOKHLIB/Shutterstock Our guidelines
Australian drinking water supplies are assessed against national water quality standards. These Australian Drinking Water Guidelines are continuously reviewed by industry and health experts that scan the international literature and update them accordingly.
All city and town water supplies across Australia are subject to a wide range of physical and chemical water tests. The results are compared to Australian water guidelines.
Some tests relate to human health considerations, such as levels of lead or bacteria. Others relate to “aesthetic” considerations, such as the appearance or taste of water. Most water authorities across Australia make water quality information and compliance with Australian guidelines freely available.
What about Australian PFOS and PFOA standards?
These chemicals can enter our drinking water system from many potential sources, such as via their use in fire-fighting foams or pesticides.
According to the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, PFOS should not exceed 0.07 micrograms per litre in drinking water. And PFOA should not exceed 0.56 micrograms per litre. One microgram is equivalent to one part per billion.
The concentration of these chemicals in water is incredibly small. And much of the advice on their concentration is provided in different units. Sometimes in micrograms or nannograms. The USEPA uses parts per trillion.
In parts per trillion (ppt) the Australian Guidelines for PFOS is 70 ppt and PFOA is 560 ppt. The USEPA’s new maximum contaminant levels (enforceable levels) are 4 ppt for both PFOS and also PFOA. Previous news reports have pointed out Australian guidelines for these chemicals in drinking water are up to 140 times higher than the USEPA permits.
Yikes! That seems like a lot
Today’s news report cites PFOS and PFOA water tests done at many different water supplies across Australia. Some water samples did not detect either chemicals. But most did, with the highest PFOS concentration 15.1–15.6 parts per trillion from Glenunga, South Australia. The highest PFOA concentration was reported from a small water supply in western Sydney, where it was detected at 5.17–9.66 parts per trillion.
Australia and the US are not alone. This is an enormous global problem.
One of the obvious challenges for the Australian water industry is that current water treatment processes may not be effective at removing PFOS or PFOA. The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines provide this advice:
Standard water treatment technologies including coagulation followed by physical separation, aeration, chemical oxidation, UV irradiation, and disinfection have little or no effect on PFOS or PFOA concentrations.
Filtering with activated carbon and reverse osmosis may remove many PFAS chemicals. But no treatment systems appear to be completely effective at their removal.
Removing these contaminants might be particularly difficult for small regional water supplies already struggling to maintain their water infrastructure. The NSW Auditor General criticised the planning for, and funding of, town water infrastructure in regional NSW back in 2020.
Where to from here?
The Australian water industry likely has little choice but to follow the US lead and address PFOS/PFAS contamination in drinking water. Along with lower thresholds, the US committed US$1 billion to water infrastructure to improve detection and water treatment. They will also now require:
Public water systems must monitor for these PFAS and have three years to complete initial monitoring (by 2027) […]
As today’s report notes, it is very difficult to find any recent data on PFOS and PFOA in Australian drinking water supplies. Australian regulators should also require ongoing and widespread monitoring of our major city and regional water supplies for these “forever chemicals”.
The bottom line for drinking tap water is to keep watching this space. Buying bottled water might not be effective (2021 US research detected PFAS in 39 out of 100 bottled waters). The USEPA suggests people can reduce PFAS exposure with measures including avoiding fish from contaminated waters and considering home filtration systems.
Correction: this article previously listed the maximum Australian Drinking Water Guidelines PFOA level as 0.056 micrograms per litre. The figure has been updated to show the correct level of 0.56 micrograms per litre.
Ian A. Wright, Associate Professor in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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