Fast Diet, Fast Exercise, Fast Improvements
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Diet & Exercise, Optimized
This is Dr. Michael Mosley. He originally trained in medicine with the intention of becoming a psychiatrist, but he grew disillusioned with psychiatry as it was practised, and ended up pivoting completely into being a health educator, in which field he won the British Medical Association’s Medical Journalist of the Year Award.
He also died under tragic circumstances very recently (he and his wife were vacationing in Greece, he went missing while out for a short walk on the 5th of June, appears to have got lost, and his body was found 100 yards from a restaurant on the 9th). All strength and comfort to his family; we offer our small tribute here today in his honor.
The “weekend warrior” of fasting
Dr. Mosley was an enjoyer (and proponent) of intermittent fasting, which we’ve written about before:
Fasting Without Crashing? We Sort The Science From The Hype
However, while most attention is generally given to the 16:8 method of intermittent fasting (fast for 16 hours, eat during an 8 hour window, repeat), Dr. Mosley preferred the 5:2 method (which generally means: eat at will for 5 days, then eat a reduced calorie diet for the other 2 days).
Specifically, he advocated putting that cap at 800 kcal for each of the weekend days (doesn’t have to be specifically the weekend).
He also tweaked the “eat at will for 5 days” part, to “eat as much as you like of a low-carb Mediterranean diet for 5 days”:
❝The “New 5:2” approach involves restricting calories to 800 on fasting days, then eating a healthy lower carb, Mediterranean-style diet for the rest of the week.
The beauty of intermittent fasting means that as your insulin sensitivity returns, you will feel fuller for longer on smaller portions. This is why, on non-fasting days, you do not have to count calories, just eat sensible portions. By maintaining a Mediterranean-style diet, you will consume all of the healthy fats, protein, fibre and fresh plant-based food that your body needs.❞
Read more: The Fast 800 | The New 5:2
And about that tweaked Mediterranean Diet? You might also want to check out:
Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet
Knowledge is power
Dr. Mosley encouraged the use of genotyping tests for personal health, not just to know about risk factors, but also to know about things such as, for example, whether you have the gene that makes you unable to gain significant improvements in aerobic fitness by following endurance training programs:
The Real Benefit Of Genetic Testing
On which note, he himself was not a fan of exercise, but recognised its importance, and instead sought to minimize the amount of exercise he needed to do, by practising High Intensity Interval Training. We reviewed a book of his (teamed up with a sports scientist) not long back; here it is:
Fast Exercise: The Simple Secret of High Intensity Training – by Dr. Michael Mosley & Peta Bee
You can also read our own article on the topic, here:
How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
Just One Thing…
As well as his many educational TV shows, Dr. Mosley was also known for his radio show, “Just One Thing”, and a little while ago we reviewed his book, effectively a compilation of these:
Just One Thing: How Simple Changes Can Transform Your Life – by Dr. Michael Mosley
Enjoy!
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The Science and Technology of Growing Young – by Sergey Young
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There are a lot of very optimistic works out there that promise the scientific breakthroughs that will occur very soon. Even amongst the hyperoptimistic transhumanism community, there is the joke of “where’s my flying car?” Sometimes prefaced with “Hey Ray, quick question…” as a nod to (or sometimes, direct address to) Ray Kurzweil, the Google computer scientist and futurist.
So, how does this one measure up?
Our author, Sergey Young, is not a scientist, but an investor with fingers in many pies. Specifically, pies relating to preventative medicine and longevity. Does that make him an unreliable narrator? Not necessarily, but it means we need to at least bear that context in mind.
But, also, he’s investing in those fields because he believes in them, and wants to benefit from them himself. In essense, he’s putting his money where his mouth is. But, enough about the author. What of the book?
It’s a whirlwind tour of the main areas of reseach and development, in the recent past, the present, and the near future. He talks about problems, and compelling solutions to problems.
If the book has a weak point, it’s that it doesn’t really talk about the problems to those solutions—that is, what can still go wrong. He’s excited about what we can do, and it’s somebody else’s job to worry about pitfalls along the way.
As to the “and what you can do now?” We’ll summarize:
- Mediterranean diet, mostly plant-based
- Get moderate exercise daily
- Get good sleep
- Don’t drink or smoke
- Get your personal health genomics data
- Get regular medical check-ups
- Look after your mental health too
Bottom line: this is a great primer on the various avenues of current anti-aging research and development, with discussion ranging from the the technological to the sociological. It has some health tips too, but the real meat of the work is the insight into the workings of the longevity industry.
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Soap vs Sanitizer – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing soap to sanitizer, we picked the soap.
Why?
Both are good at killing bacteria / inactivating viruses, but there are several things that set them apart:
- Soap doesn’t just kill them; it slides them off and away down the drain. That means that any it failed to kill are also off and down the drain, not still on your hands. This is assuming good handwashing technique, of course!
- Sanitizer gel kills them, but can take up to 4 minutes of contact to do so. Given that people find 20 seconds of handwashing laborious, 240 seconds of sanitizer gel use seems too much to hope for.
Both can be dehydrating for the hands; both can have ingredients added to try to mitigate that.
We recommend a good (separate) moisturizer in either case, but the point is, the dehydration factor doesn’t swing it far either way.
So, we’ll go with the one that gets rid of the germs the most quickly: the soap
10almonds tip: splash out on the extra-nice hand-soaps for your home—this will make you and others more likely to wash your hands more often! Sometimes, making something a more pleasant experience makes all the difference.
Want to know more?
Check out:
Take care!
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The Compass of Pleasure – by Dr. David Linden
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There are a lot of books about addiction, so what sets this one apart?
Mostly, it’s that this one maintains that addiction is neither good nor bad per se—just, some behaviors and circumstances are. Behaviors and circumstances caused, directly or indirectly, by addiction.
But, Dr. Linden argues, not every addiction has to be so. Especially behavioral addictions; the rush of dopamine one gets from a good session at the gym or learning a new language, that’s not a bad thing, even if they can fundamentally be addictions too.
Similarly, we wouldn’t be here as a species without some things that rely on some of the same biochemistry as addictions; orgasms and eating food, for example. Yet, those very same urges can also inconvenience us, and in the case of foods and other substances, can harm our health.
In this book, the case is made for shifting our addictive tendencies to healthier addictions, and enough information is given to help us do so.
Bottom line: if you’d like to understand what is going on when you get waylaid by some temptation, and how to be tempted to better things, this book can give the understanding to do just that.
Click here to check out The Compass of Pleasure, and make yours work in your favor!
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Colloidal Gold’s Impressive Claims
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All That Glitters…
Today we’ll be examining colloidal gold supplementation.
This issue of 10almonds brought to you by the writer suddenly getting lots of advertisements for this supplement. It’s not a new thing though, and has been around in one form or another since pretty much forever.
Colloidal gold is…
- Gold, as in the yellow metal
- Colloidal, as in “very tiny insoluble particles dispersed though another substance (such as water)”
What are the claims made for it?
Honestly, just about everything is claimed for it. But to go with some popular claims:
- Reduces inflammation
- Supports skin health
- Boosts immune function
- Combats aging
- Improves cognitive function
So, what does the science say?
Does it do those things?
The short and oversimplified answer is: no
However, there is a little bit of tangential merit, so we’re going to talk about the science of it, and how the leap gets made between what the science says and what the advertisements say.
First… What makes gold so special, in general? Historically, three things:
- It’s quite rare
- It’s quite shiny
- It’s quite unreactive
- The first is about supply and demand, so that’s not very important to us in this article.
- The second is an aesthetic quality, which actually will have a little bit of relevance, but not much.
- The third has been important historically (because it meant that shiny gold stayed shiny, because it didn’t tarnish), and now also important industrially too, as gold can be used in many processes where we basically need for nothing to happen (i.e., a very inert component is needed)
That third quality—its unreactivity—has become important in medicine.
When scientists need a way to deliver something (without the delivering object getting eaten by the body’s “eat everything” tendencies), or otherwise not interact chemically with anything around, gold is an excellent choice.
Hence gold teeth, and gold fillings, by the way. They’re not just for the bling factor; they were developed because of their unreactivity and thus safety.
So, what about those health claims we mentioned above?
Here be science (creative interpretations not included)
The most-backed-by-science claim from that list is “reduces inflammation”.
Websites selling colloidal gold cite studies such as:
Gold nanoparticles reduce inflammation in cerebral microvessels of mice with sepsis
A promising title!The results of the study showed:
❝20 nm cit-AuNP treatment reduced leukocyte and platelet adhesion to cerebral blood vessels, prevented BBB failure, reduced TNF- concentration in brain, and ICAM-1 expression both in circulating polymorphonuclear (PMN) leukocytes and cerebral blood vessels of mice with sepsis. Furthermore, 20 nm cit-AuNP did not interfere with the antibiotic effect on the survival rate of mice with sepsis.❞
That “20 nm cit-AuNP” means “20 nm citrate-covered gold nanoparticles”
So it is not so much the antioxidant powers of gold being tested here, as the antioxidant powers of citrate, a known antioxidant. The gold was the carrying agent, whose mass and unreactivity allowed it to get where it needed to be.
The paper does say the words “Gold nanoparticles have been demonstrated to own important anti-inflammatory properties“ in the abstract, but does not elaborate on that, reference it, or indicate how.
Websites selling colloidal gold also cite papers such as:
Anti-inflammatory effect of gold nanoparticles supported on metal oxides
Another promising title! However the abstract mentions:
❝The effect was dependent on the MOx NPs chemical nature
[…]
The effect of Au/TiO2 NPs was not related to Au NPs size❞
MOx NPs = mineral oxide nanoparticles. In this case, the gold was a little more than a carrying agent, though, because the gold is described and explained as being a catalytic agent (i.e., its presence helps the attached mineral oxides react more quickly).
We said that was the most-backed claim, and as you can see, it has some basis but is rather tenuous since the gold by itself won’t do anything; it just helps the mineral oxides.
Next best-backed claim builds from that, which is “supports skin health”.
Sometimes colloidal gold is sold as a facial tonic. By itself it’ll distribute (inert) gold nanoparticles across your skin, and may “give you a healthy glow”, because that’s what happens when you put shiny wet stuff on your face.
Healthwise, if the facial tonic also contains some of the minerals we mentioned above, then it may have an antioxidant effect. But again, no minerals, no effect.
The claim that it “combats aging” is really a tag-on to the “antioxidant” claim.
As for the “supports immune health” claim… Websites selling colloid gold cite studies such as:
To keep things brief: gold can fight infectious diseases in much the same way that forks can fight hunger. It’s an inert carrying agent.
As for “improves cognitive function”? The only paper we could find cited was that mouse sepsis study again, this time with the website saying “researchers found that rats treated with colloidal gold showed improved spatial memory and learning ability“ whereas the paper cited absolutely did not claim that, not remotely, not even anything close to that. It wasn’t even rats, it was mice, and they did not test their memory or learning.
Is it safe?
Colloidal gold supplementation is considered very safe, precisely because gold is one of the least chemically reactive substances you could possibly consume. It is special precisely because it so rarely does anything.
However, impurities could be introduced in the production process, and the production process often involves incredibly harsh reagents to get the gold ions, and if any of those reagents are left in the solution, well, gold is safe but sodium borohydride and chloroauric acid aren’t!
Where can I get some?
In the unlikely event that our research review has given you an urge to try it, here’s an example product on Amazon
Take care!
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The Problem With Active Listening
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The problem with active listening
Listening is an important skill to keep well-trained at any age. It’s important in romantic relationships, parent-child relationships, friendships, and more.
First, for any unfamiliar or hazy-of-memory: active listening is the practice of listening, actively. The “active” side of this comes in several parts:
- Asking helpful questions
- Giving feedback to indicate that the answer has been understood
- Prompting further information-giving
This can look like:
- A: How did you feel when that happened?
- B: My heart was racing and I felt panicked, it really shocked me
- A: It really shocked you?
- B: Yes, because it was so unexpected; I’d never imagined something like this happening
- A: You’d never expect something like that
- B: No, I mean, I had no reason to
And… As a superficial listening technique, it’s not terrible, and it has its place
But unfortunately, if it’s one’s only listening technique, one will very quickly start sounding like a Furby—that children’s toy from the 90s that allegedly randomly parroted fragments of things that had been said to it. In fact this was a trick of programming, but that’s beyond the scope of this article.
The point is: the above technique, if used indiscriminately and/or too often, starts to feel like talking to a very basic simulacrum.
Which is the opposite of feeling like being listened to!
A better way to listen
Start off similarly, but better.
Ask open questions, or otherwise invite sharing of information.
People can be resistant to stock phrases like “How did that make you feel?”, but this can be got around by simply changing it up, e.g.:
- “What was your reaction?” ← oblique but often elicits the same information
- “I’m not sure how I’d feel about that, in your shoes” ← not even a question, but shows active attention much better than the “mmhmm” noises of traditional active listening, and again prompts the same information
Express understanding… But better
People have been told “I understand” a lot, and often it’s code for “Stop talking”. So, avoid “I understand”. Instead, try:
- “I can understand that”
- “Understandable”
- “That makes sense”
Ask clarifying questions… Better
Sometimes, a clarifying question doesn’t have to have its own point, beyond prompting more sharing, and sometimes, an “open question” can be truly wide open, meaning that vaguer is better, such as:
- “Oh?”
- “How so?” ← this is the heavy artillery that can open up a lot
Know when to STFU
Something that good therapists (and also military interrogators) know: when to STFU
If someone is talking, don’t interrupt them. If you do, they might not start again, or might skip what they were going to say.
Interruption says “I think you’ve said all that needs to be said there”, or else, if the interruption was to ask one of the above questions, it says “you’re not doing a good enough job of talking”, and neither of those sentiments encourage people to share, nor do they make someone feel listened-to!
Instead, just listen. Passive listening has its place too! When there’s a break, then you can go to one of the above questions/prompts/expressions of understanding, as appropriate.
Judge not, lest they feel judged
Reserve judgement until the conversation is over, at the earliest. If asked for your judgement of some aspect, be as reassuring as you can. People feel listened-to when they don’t feel judged.
If they feel judged, conversely, they can often feel you didn’t listen properly, or else you’d be in agreement with them. So instead, just sit on it for as long as you can.
Note: that goes for positive judgements too! Sit on it. Expressing a positive judgement too soon can seem that you were simply eager to please, and can suggest insincerity.
If this seems simple, that’s because it is. But, try it, and see the difference.
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International Day of Women and Girls in Science
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Today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, so we’ve got a bunch of content for the ladies out there. Let’s start with the statement Sima Bahous (the Executive Director of UN Women) made:
❝This year, the sixty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) will consider as its priority theme “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”.
This is an unprecedented opportunity for the Commission to develop a definitive agenda for progress towards women’s full and equal participation and representation in STEM. Its implementation will require bold, coordinated, multi-stakeholder action.❞
Here at 10almonds, we are just one newsletter, and maybe we can’t change the world (…yet), but we’re all for this!
We’re certainly all in favour of education in the digital age, and more of our subscribers are women and girls than not (highest of fives from your writer today, also a woman—and I do bring most of the sciency content).
Medical News Today asks “Why Are Women Less Likely To Survive Cardiac Arrest Than Men?”
You can read the full article here, but the short version is:
- People (bystanders and EMS professionals alike!) are less likely to intervene to give CPR when the patient is a woman (we appreciate that “your hands on an unknown woman’s chest” is a social taboo, but there’s a time and a place!)
- People trained to give CPR (volunteers or professionals!) are often less confident about how to do so with female anatomy—training is almost entirely on “male” dummies.
A quick take-away from this is: to give effective CPR, you need to be giving two-inch compressions!
On a side note, do you want to learn how to correctly do chest compressions on female anatomy? This short (1:55) video could save a woman’s life!
As a science-based health and productivity newsletter, we make no apologies if occasional issues sometimes have a slant to women’s health! Heaven help us, the bias in science at large is certainly the opposite:
The list of examples is far too long for us to include here, but two that spring immediately to mind are:
- PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome), which affects nearly 1 in 5 women, can lead to infertility, never mind the inconvenience of irregular bleeding, chronic pain, and diabetes (amongst other things), and… nobody knows what causes it, or what to do about it.
- Endometriosis (the lining of the womb starts growing in other places), meanwhile, affects around 1 in 10 women. It causes chronic pain and fatigue, and again, nobody knows what causes it or how to cure it.
Maybe if women in STEM weren’t on the receiving end of rampant systemic misogyny, we’d have more women in science, and some answers by now!
❗️NOT-SO-FUN FACT:
Women make up only 28% of the workforce in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and men vastly outnumber women majoring in most STEM fields in college. The gender gaps are particularly high in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paid jobs of the future, like computer science and engineering.
Source: AAUW
The US census suggests change is happening, but is a very long way from equality!
WHAT OUR SUBSCRIBERS SAY:
❝Women are slowly gaining more of a place in academia, and slowly making more of a difference when they get there, and start doing research that reflects ourselves. But I still think that it’s a struggle to get there, and it’s a struggle to be heard and be respected.
It’s a matter of pride, it’s a matter of proving yourself, being in STEM, and [women in STEM] still report being extremely disrespected, not taken seriously all, despite being very very good.
It’s worth noting as well, that we’ve had women in STEM for a while and there are so many things we appreciate nowadays that they were a part of, but they were never given credit for—it’s still a problem today and something we need to more actively fight.❞
Isabella F. Lima, Occupational Psychologist
Are you a woman in STEM, and have a story to tell? We’d love to hear it! Just reply to this email 🙂
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