Dancing vs Parkinson’s Depression
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This is a fun study, and the results are/were very predictable, and/but not necessarily something that people might think of in advance. First, let’s look at how some things work:
Parkinson’s disease & depression
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative neurological disease that, amongst other things, is characterized by low dopamine levels.
For the general signs and symptoms, see: Recognize The Early Symptoms Of Parkinson’s Disease
Dopamine is the neurotransmitter responsible for feelings of reward, is involved in our language faculties and the capacity to form plans (even simple plans such as “make a cup of coffee”) as well as being critical for motor functions.
See also: Neurotransmitter Cheatsheet ← for demystifying some of “what does what” for commonly-conflated chemicals
You can see, therefore, why Parkinson’s disease will often have depression as a comorbidity—there may be influencing social factors as well (many Parkinson’s disease sufferers are quite socially isolated, which certainly does not help), but a clear neurochemical factor that we can point to is “a person with low dopamine levels will feel joyless, bored, and unmotivated”.
Let movement be thy medicine
Parkinson’s disease medications, therefore, tend to involve increasing dopamine levels and/or the brain’s ability to use dopamine.
Antidepressant medications, however, are more commonly focused on serotonin, as serotonin is another neurotransmitter associated with happiness—it’s the one we get when we look at open green spaces with occasional trees and a blue sky ← we get it in other ways too, but for evolutionary reasons, it seems our brains still yearn the most for landscapes that look like the Serengeti, even if we have never even been there personally.
There are other kinds of antidepressants too, and (because depression can have different causes) what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. See: Antidepressants: Personalization Is Key!
In the case of Parkinson’s disease, because the associated depression is mostly dopamine-related, those green spaces and blue skies and SSRIs won’t help much. But you know what does?
Dance!
A recent (published last month, at time of writing) study by Dr. Karolina Bearss et al. did an interventional study that found that dance classes significantly improved both subjective experience of depression, and objective brain markers of depression, across people with (68%) and without (32%) Parkinson’s disease.
The paper is quite short and it has diagrams, and discusses the longer-term effect as well as the per-session effect:
Dance is thought to have a double-effect, improving both cognitive factors and motor control factors, for obvious reasons, and all related to dopamine response (dancing is an activity we are hardwired to find rewarding*, plus it is exercise which also triggers various chemicals to be made, plus it is social, which also improves many mental health factors).
*You may have heard the expression that “dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire”, and while that may not be true for everyone on an individual level, on a species level it is a very reasonable hypothesis for why we do it and why it is the way it is.
Want to learn more?
We wrote previously about battling depression (of any kind) here:
The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
Take care!
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White Noise vs Pink Noise
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝I live in a large city and even late at night there is always a bit of background noise. While I am pretty used to it by now, I find I don’t sleep nearly as well in the city as I do in the country. I have seen some stuff about “white noise” generators. I was wondering whether you have any thoughts about the science behind these, and whether it is something I should try out – or maybe I should be trying something completly different.❞
The science says…
❝Our data show that white noise significantly improved sleep based on subjective and objective measurements in subjects complaining of difficulty sleeping due to high levels of environmental noise. This suggests that the application of white noise may be an effective tool in helping to improve sleep in those settings.❞
That said, you might also consider “pink noise”, which is very similar to white noise (having all frequencies normally audible to the human ear), but has greater intensity of lower frequencies, creating a more deep and even sound. While white noise and pink noise are both great at “muting” external sounds like those that have been disturbing your sleep, pink noise may have an advantage in helping to stimulate deep and restful sleep:
❝This study demonstrates that steady pink noise has significant effect on reducing brain wave complexity and inducing more stable sleep time to improve sleep quality of individuals.❞
Source: Pink noise: effect on complexity synchronization of brain activity and sleep consolidation
There may be extra benefits to pink noise, too:
Acoustic Enhancement of Sleep Slow Oscillations and Concomitant Memory Improvement in Older Adults
Rest well!
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The Truth About Chocolate & Skin Health
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!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝What’s the science on chocolate and acne? Asking for a family member❞
The science is: these two things are broadly unrelated to each other.
There was a very illustrative study done specifically for this, though!
❝65 subjects with moderate acne ate either a bar containing ten times the amount of chocolate in a typical bar, or an identical-appearing bar which contained no chocolate. Counting of all the lesions on one side of the face before and after each ingestion period indicated no difference between the bars.
Five normal subjects ingested two enriched chocolate bars daily for one month; this represented a daily addition of the diet of 1,200 calories, of which about half was vegetable fat. This excessive intake of chocolate and fat did not alter the composition or output of sebum.
A review of studies purporting to show that diets high in carbohydrate or fat stimulate sebaceous secretion and adversely affect acne vulgaris indicates that these claims are unproved.❞
Source: Effect of Chocolate on Acne Vulgaris
As for what might help against acne more than needlessly abstaining from chocolate:
Why Do We Have Pores, And Could We Not?
…as well as:
Of Brains & Breakouts: The Neuroscience Of Your Skin
And here are some other articles that might interest you about chocolate:
- Chocolate & Health: Fact or Fiction?
- The “Love Drug”: Get PEA-Brained!
- Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
Enjoy! And while we have your attention… Would you like this section to be bigger? If so, send us more questions!
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Food Fix – by Dr. Mark Hyman
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On a simplistic level, “eat more plants, but ideally not monocrops, and definitely fewer animals” is respectable, ecologically-aware advice that is also consistent with good health. But it is a simplification, and perhaps an oversimplification.
Is there space on a healthy, ecologically sound plate for animal products? Yes, argues Dr. Mark Hyman. It’s a small space, but it’s there.
For example, some kinds of fish are both healthier and more sustainable as a food source than others, same goes for some kinds of dairy products. Poultry, too, can be farmed sustainably in a way that promotes a small self-contained ecosystem—and in terms of health, consumption of poultry appears to be health-neutral at worst.
As this book explores:
- Oftentimes, food choices look like: healthy/sustainable/cheap (choose one).
- Dr. Hyman shows how in fact, we can have it more like: healthy/sustainable/cheap (choose two).
- He argues that if more people “vote with their fork”, production will continue to adjust accordingly, and we’ll get: healthy/sustainable/cheap (all three).
To this end, while some parts of the book can feel like they are purely academic (pertaining less to what we can do as individuals, and more on what governments, farming companies, etc can do), it’s good to know what issues we might also take to the ballot box, if we’re able.
The big picture aside, the book remains very strong even just from an individual health perspective, though.
Bottom line: if you have an interest in preserving your own health, and possibly humanity itself, this is an excellent book.
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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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Protein: How Much Do We Need, Really?
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Mythbusting Protein!
Yesterday, we asked you for your policy on protein consumption. The distribution of responses was as follows:
- A marginal majority (about 55%) voted for “Protein is very important, but we can eat too much of it”
- A large minority (about 35%) voted for “We need lots of protein; the more, the better!”
- A handful (about 4%) voted for “We should go as light on protein as possible”
- A handful (6%) voted for “If we don’t eat protein, our body will create it from other foods”
So, what does the science say?
If we don’t eat protein, our body will create it from other foods: True or False?
Contingently True on an absurd technicality, but for all practical purposes False.
Our body requires 20 amino acids (the building blocks of protein), 9 of which it can’t synthesize and absolutely must get from food. Normally, we get those amino acids from protein in our diet, and we can also supplement them by buying amino acid supplements.
Specifically, we require (per kg of bodyweight) a daily average of:
- Histidine: 10 mg
- Isoleucine: 20 mg
- Leucine: 39 mg
- Lysine: 30 mg
- Methionine: 10.4 mg
- Phenylalanine*: 25 mg
- Threonine: 15 mg
- Tryptophan: 4 mg
- Valine: 26 mg
*combined with the non-essential amino acid tyrosine
Source: Protein and Amino Acid Requirements In Human Nutrition: WHO Technical Report
However, to get the requisite amino acid amounts, without consuming actual protein, would require gargantuan amounts of supplementation (bearing in mind bioavailability will never be 100%, so you’ll always need to take more than it seems), using supplements that will have been made by breaking down proteins anyway.
So unless you live in a laboratory and have access to endless amounts of all of the required amino acids (you can’t miss even one; you will die), and are willing to do that for the sake of proving a point, then you do really need to eat protein.
Your body cannot, for example, simply break down sugar and use it to make the protein you need.
On another technical note… Do bear in mind that many foods that we don’t necessarily think of as being sources of protein, are sources of protein.
Grains and grain products, for example, all contain protein; we just don’t think of them as that because their macronutritional profile is heavily weighted towards carbohydrates.
For that matter, even celery contains protein. How much, you may ask? Almost none! But if something has DNA, it has protein. Which means all plants and animals (at least in their unrefined forms).
So again, to even try to live without protein would very much require living in a laboratory.
We can eat too much protein: True or False?
True. First on an easy technicality; anything in excess is toxic. Even water, or oxygen. But also, in practical terms, there is such a thing as too much protein. The bar is quite high, though:
❝Based on short-term nitrogen balance studies, the Recommended Dietary Allowance of protein for a healthy adult with minimal physical activity is currently 0.8 g protein per kg bodyweight per day❞
❝To meet the functional needs such as promoting skeletal-muscle protein accretion and physical strength, dietary intake of 1.0, 1.3, and 1.6 g protein per kg bodyweight per day is recommended for individuals with minimal, moderate, and intense physical activity, respectively❞
❝Long-term consumption of protein at 2 g per kg bodyweight per day is safe for healthy adults, and the tolerable upper limit is 3.5 g per kg bodyweight per day for well-adapted subjects❞
❝Chronic high protein intake (>2 g per kg bodyweight per day for adults) may result in digestive, renal, and vascular abnormalities and should be avoided❞
Source: Dietary protein intake and human health
To put this into perspective, if you weigh about 160lbs (about 72kg), this would mean eating more than 144g protein per day, which grabbing a calculator means about 560g of lean beef, or 20oz, or 1¼lb.
If you’re eating quarter-pounder burgers though, that’s not usually so lean, so you’d need to eat more than nine quarter-pounder burgers per day to get too much protein.
High protein intake damages the kidneys: True or False?
True if you have kidney damage already; False if you are healthy. See for example:
- Effects of dietary protein restriction on the progression of advanced renal disease in the modification of diet in renal disease study
- A high protein diet has no harmful effects: a one-year crossover study in healthy male athletes
High protein intake increases cancer risk: True or False?
True or False depending on the source of the protein, so functionally false:
- Eating protein from red meat sources has been associated with higher risk for many cancers
- Eating protein from other sources has been associated with lower risk for many cancers
Source: Red Meat Consumption and Mortality Results From 2 Prospective Cohort Studies
High protein intake increase risk of heart disease: True or False?
True or False depending on the source of the protein, so, functionally false:
- Eating protein from red meat sources has been associated with higher risk of heart disease
- Eating protein from other sources has been associated with lower risk of heart disease
Source: Major Dietary Protein Sources and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Women
In summary…
Getting a good amount of good quality protein is important to health.
One can get too much, but one would have to go to extremes to do so.
The source of protein matters:
- Red meat is associated with many health risks, but that’s not necessarily the protein’s fault.
- Getting plenty of protein from (ideally: unprocessed) sources such as poultry, fish, and/or plants, is critical to good health.
- Consuming “whole proteins” (that contain all 9 amino acids that we can’t synthesize) are best.
Learn more: Complete proteins vs. incomplete proteins (explanation and examples)
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Generation M – by Dr. Jessica Shepherd
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Menopause is something that very few people are adequately prepared for despite its predictability, and also something that very many people then neglect to take seriously enough.
Dr. Shepherd encourages a more proactive approach throughout all stages of menopause and beyond; she discusses “the preseason, the main event, and the after-party” (perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause), which is important, because typically people take up an interest in perimenopause, are treating it like a marathon by menopause, and when it comes to postmenopause, it’s easy to think “well, that’s behind me now”, and it’s not, because untreated menopause will continue to have (mostly deleterious) cumulative effects until death.
As for HRT, there’s a chapter on that of course, going into quite some detail. There is also plenty of attention given to popular concerns such as managing weight changes and libido changes, as well as oft-neglected topics such as brain changes, as well as things considered more cosmetic but that can have a big impact on mental health, such as skin and hair.
The style throughout is pop-science; friendly without skimping on detail and including plenty of good science.
Bottom line: if you’d like a fairly comprehensive overview of the changes that occur from perimenopause all the way to menopause and well beyond, then this is a great book for that.
Click here to check out Generation M, and live well at every stage of life!
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