Daily, Weekly, Monthly: Habits Against Aging

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Dr. Anil Rajani has advice on restoring/retaining youthfulness. Two out of three of the sections are on skincare specifically, which may seem a vanity, but it’s also worth remembering that our skin is a very large and significant organ, and makes a big difference for the rest of our physical health, as well as our mental health. So, it’s worthwhile to look after it:

The recommendations

Daily: meditation practice

Meditation reduces stress, which reduction in turn protects telomere length, slowing the overall aging process in every living cell of the body.

Weekly: skincare basics

Dr. Rajani recommends a combination of retinol and glycolic acid. The former to accelerate cell turnover, stimulate collagen production, and reduce wrinkles; the latter, to exfoliate dead cells, allowing the retinol to do its job more effectively.

We at 10almonds would like to add: wearing sunscreen with SPF50 is a very good thing to do on any day that your phone’s weather app says the UV index is “moderate” or higher.

Monthly: skincare extras

Here are the real luxuries; spa visits, microneedling (stimulates collagen production), and non-ablative laser therapy. He recommends creating a home spa if possible for monthly skincare treatments, investing in high-quality devices for long-term benefits.

For more on all of these things, enjoy:

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You might also like to read:

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  • Acid Reflux After Meals? Here’s How To Stop It Naturally

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    Harvard-trained gastroenterologist Dr. Saurabh Sethi advises:

    Calming it down

    First of all, what it actually is and how it happens: acid reflux occurs when the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) doesn’t close properly, allowing stomach acid to flow back into the esophagus. Chronic acid reflux is known as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Symptoms can include heartburn, an acid taste in the mouth, belching, bloating, sore throat, and a persistent cough—but most people do not get all of the symptoms, usually just some.

    Things that help it acutely (as in, you can do them today and they will help today): consider skipping certain foods/substances like peppermint, tomatoes, chocolate, alcohol, and caffeine, which can worsen acid reflux. Eating smaller, more frequent meals instead of large ones and leaving a gap of 3–4 hours before lying down after meals can also help manage symptoms.

    Things that can help it chronically (as in, you do them in an ongoing fashion and they will help in an ongoing fashion): lifestyle changes like quitting smoking, reducing alcohol intake, and wearing loose clothing can strengthen the LES. Maintaining a healthy weight and avoiding large meals, especially close to bedtime, can also reduce symptoms. Elevating the upper body while sleeping (using a wedge pillow or raising the bed by 10–20°) can make a big difference.

    Medications to avoid, if possible, include: aspirin, ibuprofen, and calcium channel blockers.

    Some drinks you can enjoy that will help: drinking water can quickly dilute stomach acid and provide relief. Herbal teas like basil tea, fennel tea, and ginger tea are also effective. But notably: not peppermint tea! Since, as mentioned earlier, peppermint is a known trigger for acid reflux (despite peppermint’s usual digestion-improving properties).

    For more on all of this, enjoy:

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

    Want to learn more?

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    Coughing/Wheezing After Dinner? Here’s How To Fix It ← this is about acid reflux and more

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  • Gut-Healthy Labneh Orecchiette

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    Labneh (a sort of yogurt-cheese made from strained yogurt) is a great probiotic, and there’s plenty of resistant starch in this dish too, from how we cook, cool, and reheat the pasta. Add to this the lycopene from the tomatoes, the ergothioneine from the mushrooms, and the healthful properties of the garlic, black pepper, and red chili, and we have a very healthy dish!

    You will need

    • 10 oz labneh (if you can’t buy it locally, you can make your own by straining Greek yogurt through a muslin cloth, suspended over a bowl to catch the water that drips out, overnight—and yes, plant-based is also fine if you are vegan, and the gut benefits are similar because unlike vegan cheese, vegan yogurt is still fermented)
    • 6 oz wholegrain orecchiette (or other pasta, but this shape works well for this sauce)
    • ¼ bulb garlic, grated
    • Juice of ½ lemon
    • Large handful chopped parsley
    • Large handful chopped dill
    • 9 oz cherry tomatoes, halved
    • 9 oz mushrooms (your choice what kind), sliced (unless you went for shiitake or similar, which don’t need it due to already being very thin)
    • 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 tsp red chili flakes
    • ¼ tsp MSG or ½ tsp low-sodium salt
    • Extra virgin olive oil

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Cook the pasta as you normally would. Drain, and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

    2) Combine the labneh with the garlic, black pepper, dill, parsley, and lemon juice, in a large bowl. Set aside.

    3) Heat a little olive oil in a skillet; add the chili flakes, followed by the mushrooms. Cook until soft and browned, then add the tomatoes and fry for a further 1 minute—we want the tomatoes to be blistered, but not broken down. Stir in the MSG/salt, and take off the heat.

    4) Refresh the pasta by passing a kettle of boiling water through it in a colander, then add the hot pasta to the bowl of labneh sauce, stirring to coat thoroughly.

    5) Serve, spooning the mushrooms and tomatoes over the labneh pasta.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

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  • Why do disinfectants only kill 99.9% of germs? Here’s the science

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    Have you ever wondered why most disinfectants indicate they kill 99.9% or 99.99% of germs, but never promise to wipe out all of them? Perhaps the thought has crossed your mind mid-way through cleaning your kitchen or bathroom.

    Surely, in a world where science is able to do all sorts of amazing things, someone would have invented a disinfectant that is 100% effective?

    The answer to this conundrum requires understanding a bit of microbiology and a bit of mathematics.

    Davor Geber/Shutterstock

    What is a disinfectant?

    A disinfectant is a substance used to kill or inactivate bacteria, viruses and other microbes on inanimate objects.

    There are literally millions of microbes on surfaces and objects in our domestic environment. While most microbes are not harmful (and some are even good for us) a small proportion can make us sick.

    Although disinfection can include physical interventions such as heat treatment or the use of UV light, typically when we think of disinfectants we are referring to the use of chemicals to kill microbes on surfaces or objects.

    Chemical disinfectants often contain active ingredients such as alcohols, chlorine compounds and hydrogen peroxide which can target vital components of different microbes to kill them.

    Gloved hands spraying and wiping a surface.
    Diseinfectants can contain a range of ingredients. Maridav/Shutterstock

    The maths of microbial elimination

    In the past few years we’ve all become familiar with the concept of exponential growth in the context of the spread of COVID cases.

    This is where numbers grow at an ever-accelerating rate, which can lead to an explosion in the size of something very quickly. For example, if a colony of 100 bacteria doubles every hour, in 24 hours’ time the population of bacteria would be more than 1.5 billion.

    Conversely, the killing or inactivating of microbes follows a logarithmic decay pattern, which is essentially the opposite of exponential growth. Here, while the number of microbes decreases over time, the rate of death becomes slower as the number of microbes becomes smaller.

    For example, if a particular disinfectant kills 90% of bacteria every minute, after one minute, only 10% of the original bacteria will remain. After the next minute, 10% of that remaining 10% (or 1% of the original amount) will remain, and so on.

    Because of this logarithmic decay pattern, it’s not possible to ever claim you can kill 100% of any microbial population. You can only ever scientifically say that you are able to reduce the microbial load by a proportion of the initial population. This is why most disinfectants sold for domestic use indicate they kill 99.9% of germs.

    Other products such as hand sanitisers and disinfectant wipes, which also often purport to kill 99.9% of germs, follow the same principle.

    A tub of cleaning supplies.
    You might have noticed none of the cleaning products in your laundry cupboard kill 100% of germs. Africa Studio/Shutterstock

    Real-world implications

    As with a lot of science, things get a bit more complicated in the real world than they are in the laboratory. There are a number of other factors to consider when assessing how well a disinfectant is likely to remove microbes from a surface.

    One of these factors is the size of the initial microbial population that you’re trying to get rid of. That is, the more contaminated a surface is, the harder the disinfectant needs to work to eliminate the microbes.

    If for example you were to start off with only 100 microbes on a surface or object, and you removed 99.9% of these using a disinfectant, you could have a lot of confidence that you have effectively removed all the microbes from that surface or object (called sterilisation).

    In contrast, if you have a large initial microbial population of hundreds of millions or billions of microbes contaminating a surface, even reducing the microbial load by 99.9% may still mean there are potentially millions of microbes remaining on the surface.

    Time is is a key factor that determines how effectively microbes are killed. So exposing a highly contaminated surface to disinfectant for a longer period is one way to ensure you kill more of the microbial population.

    This is why if you look closely at the labels of many common household disinfectants, they will often suggest that to disinfect you should apply the product then wait a specified time before wiping clean. So always consult the label on the product you’re using.

    A woman cleaning a kitchen counter with a pink cloth.
    Disinfectants won’t necessarily work in your kitchen exactly like they work in a lab. Ground Picture/Shutterstock

    Other factors such as temperature, humidity and the type of surface also influence how well a disinfectant works outside the lab.

    Similarly, microbes in the real world may be either more or less sensitive to disinfection than those used for testing in the lab.

    Disinfectants are one part infection control

    The sensible use of disinfectants plays an important role in our daily lives in reducing our exposure to pathogens (microbes that cause illness). They can therefore reduce our chances of getting sick.

    The fact disinfectants can’t be shown to be 100% effective from a scientific perspective in no way detracts from their importance in infection control. But their use should always be complemented by other infection control practices, such as hand washing, to reduce the risk of infection.

    Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University

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

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  • The Pain-Free Mindset – by Dr. Deepak Ravindran

    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.

    First: please ignore the terrible title. This is not the medical equivalent of “think and grow rich”. A better title would have been something like “The Pain-Free Plan”.

    Attentive subscribers may notice that this author was our featured expert yesterday, so you can learn about his “seven steps” described in our article there, without us repeating that in our review here.

    This book’s greatest strength is also potentially its greatest weakness, depending on the reader: it contains a lot of detailed medical information.

    This is good or bad depending on whether you like lots of detailed medical information. Dr. Ravindran doesn’t assume prior knowledge, so everything is explained as we go. However, this means that after his well-referenced clinical explanations, high quality medical diagrams, etc, you may come out of this book feeling like you’ve just done a semester at medical school.

    Knowledge is power, though, so understanding the underlying processes of pain and pain management really does help the reader become a more informed expert on your own pain—and options for reducing that pain.

    Bottom line: this, disguised by its cover as a “think healing thoughts” book, is actually a science-centric, information-dense, well-sourced, comprehensive guide to pain management from one of the leading lights in the field.

    Click here to check out The Pain-Free Mindset, and manage yours more comfortably!

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  • Why it’s a bad idea to mix alcohol with some medications

    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.

    Anyone who has drunk alcohol will be familiar with how easily it can lower your social inhibitions and let you do things you wouldn’t normally do.

    But you may not be aware that mixing certain medicines with alcohol can increase the effects and put you at risk.

    When you mix alcohol with medicines, whether prescription or over-the-counter, the medicines can increase the effects of the alcohol or the alcohol can increase the side-effects of the drug. Sometimes it can also result in all new side-effects.

    How alcohol and medicines interact

    The chemicals in your brain maintain a delicate balance between excitation and inhibition. Too much excitation can lead to convulsions. Too much inhibition and you will experience effects like sedation and depression.

    Alcohol works by increasing the amount of inhibition in the brain. You might recognise this as a sense of relaxation and a lowering of social inhibitions when you’ve had a couple of alcoholic drinks.

    With even more alcohol, you will notice you can’t coordinate your muscles as well, you might slur your speech, become dizzy, forget things that have happened, and even fall asleep.

    Woman collects beer bottles
    Alcohol can affect the way a medicine works.
    Jonathan Kemper/Unsplash

    Medications can interact with alcohol to produce different or increased effects. Alcohol can interfere with the way a medicine works in the body, or it can interfere with the way a medicine is absorbed from the stomach. If your medicine has similar side-effects as being drunk, those effects can be compounded.

    Not all the side-effects need to be alcohol-like. Mixing alcohol with the ADHD medicine ritalin, for example, can increase the drug’s effect on the heart, increasing your heart rate and the risk of a heart attack.

    Combining alcohol with ibuprofen can lead to a higher risk of stomach upsets and stomach bleeds.

    Alcohol can increase the break-down of certain medicines, such as opioids, cannabis, seizures, and even ritalin. This can make the medicine less effective. Alcohol can also alter the pathway of how a medicine is broken down, potentially creating toxic chemicals that can cause serious liver complications. This is a particular problem with paracetamol.

    At its worst, the consequences of mixing alcohol and medicines can be fatal. Combining a medicine that acts on the brain with alcohol may make driving a car or operating heavy machinery difficult and lead to a serious accident.

    Who is at most risk?

    The effects of mixing alcohol and medicine are not the same for everyone. Those most at risk of an interaction are older people, women and people with a smaller body size.

    Older people do not break down medicines as quickly as younger people, and are often on more than one medication.

    Older people also are more sensitive to the effects of medications acting on the brain and will experience more side-effects, such as dizziness and falls.

    Woman sips red wine
    Smaller and older people are often more affected.
    Alfonso Scarpa/Unsplash

    Women and people with smaller body size tend to have a higher blood alcohol concentration when they consume the same amount of alcohol as someone larger. This is because there is less water in their bodies that can mix with the alcohol.

    What drugs can’t you mix with alcohol?

    You’ll know if you can’t take alcohol because there will be a prominent warning on the box. Your pharmacist should also counsel you on your medicine when you pick up your script.

    The most common alcohol-interacting prescription medicines are benzodiazepines (for anxiety, insomnia, or seizures), opioids for pain, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and some antibiotics, like metronidazole and tinidazole.

    Medicines will carry a warning if you shouldn’t take them with alcohol.
    Nial Wheate

    It’s not just prescription medicines that shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol. Some over-the-counter medicines that you shouldn’t combine with alcohol include medicines for sleeping, travel sickness, cold and flu, allergy, and pain.

    Next time you pick up a medicine from your pharmacist or buy one from the local supermarket, check the packaging and ask for advice about whether you can consume alcohol while taking it.

    If you do want to drink alcohol while being on medication, discuss it with your doctor or pharmacist first.The Conversation

    Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the School of Pharmacy, University of Sydney; Jasmine Lee, Pharmacist and PhD Candidate, University of Sydney; Kellie Charles, Associate Professor in Pharmacology, University of Sydney, and Tina Hinton, Associate Professor of Pharmacology, University of Sydney

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

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  • “Slugging” Skin Care Routine (Tips From A Dermatologist)

    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.

    Dermatologist Dr. Jenny Liu weighs in with advice!

    Sometimes simplest is best

    Slugging is a skincare trend involving applying petrolatum (e.g. Vaseline) as the final step to lock in hydration and repair the skin barrier. It’s particularly useful for dry, sensitive, or eczema-prone skin, and/or damaged skin barriers from overuse of actives or harsh conditions.

    How it works: the waterproof layer reduces water loss (up to 99%) and facilitates repair the skin barrier. Thus, it indirectly hydrates the skin, supports natural exfoliation, and reduces fine lines. Best of all, it’s non-irritating, non-comedogenic, and safe for all skin types.

    How to do it:

    1. Cleanse thoroughly to remove makeup and impurities.
    2. Apply a moisturizer or serum with humectants (e.g. glycerin, hyaluronic acid).
    3. Seal with petrolatum (e.g. Vaseline or similar).
    4. Skip areas with stronger active ingredients (e.g. retinoids) and active acne areas.
    5. Apply 30–60 minutes before bed to reduce product transfer.
    6. Use a gentle cleanser in the morning to remove residue.

    For more on all of this, enjoy:

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