Inhaled Eucalyptus’s Immunomodulatory and Antimicrobial Effects

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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

❝At the first hint of a cough or a cold, I resort to steam inhalation. Some people add herbs or aromatic oils to the boiling water. What do you recommend?❞

First of all, please do be careful:

Severe scalds sustained during steam inhalation therapy in an adult population: Analysis of patient outcomes and the financial burden to healthcare services

Western science’s view is predominantly “this is popular and/but evidence for its usefulness is lacking”:

Theoretical effectiveness of steam inhalation against SARS-CoV-2 infection: updates on clinical trials, mechanism of actions, and traditional approaches

But! Traditional Chinese Medicine indicates shuanghuanglian, yuxingcao and qingkailing, which the China Food and Drug Administration has also approved:

Chinese Medicine in Inhalation Therapy: A Review of Clinical Application and Formulation Development

Indian scientists are also looking at modern scientific applications of certain Ayurvedic herbs:

Promising phytochemicals of traditional Indian herbal steam inhalation therapy to combat COVID-19

In terms of what is likely more available to you, there are several reasons to choose eucalyptus over popular alternatives:

Immune-modifying and antimicrobial effects of Eucalyptus oil and simple inhalation devices

For the sake of being methodical, here’s an example product on Amazon, though we’re sure you’d have no trouble finding this in your local pharmacy if you prefer.

Take care!

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    Get moving! “Move” argues that our lack of movement is crippling us physically and mentally. Find ways to build your life around movement and improve your health.

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  • The Blue Zones, Second Edition – by Dan Buettner

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    Eat beans & greens, take walks, have a purpose; you can probably list off the top of your head some of the “advices from Blue Zones”, so what makes this book stand out?

    This is perhaps one of the most thoughtful investigations; the author (a National Geographic researcher) toured and researched all the Blue Zones, took many many notes (we get details), and asked a lot of questions that others skipped.

    For example, a lot of books about the Blue Zones mention the importance of community—but they don’t go into much detail of what that looks like… And they certainly don’t tend to explain what we should do about it.

    And that’s because community is often viewed as environmental in a way that we can’t control. If we want to take supplements, eat a certain way, exercise, etc, we can do all those things alone if we want. But if we want community? We’re reliant on other people—and that’s a taboo in the US, and US-influenced places.

    So, one way this book excels is in describing how exactly people foster community in the Blue Zones (hint: the big picture—the form of the community—is different in each place, but the individual actions taken are similar), with particular attention to the roles actively taken on by the community elders.

    In a similar vein, “reduce stress” is good, but what mindsets and mechanisms do they use that are still reproducible if we are not, for example, Okinawan farmers? Again, Buettner delivers in spades.

    Bottom line: this is the Blue Zones book that digs deeper than others, and makes the advices much more applicable no matter where we live.

    Click here to check out The Blue Zones, and build these 9 things into your life!

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  • WHO Overturns Dogma on Airborne Disease Spread. The CDC Might Not Act on It.

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    The World Health Organization has issued a report that transforms how the world understands respiratory infections like covid-19, influenza, and measles.

    Motivated by grave missteps in the pandemic, the WHO convened about 50 experts in virology, epidemiology, aerosol science, and bioengineering, among other specialties, who spent two years poring through the evidence on how airborne viruses and bacteria spread.

    However, the WHO report stops short of prescribing actions that governments, hospitals, and the public should take in response. It remains to be seen how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will act on this information in its own guidance for infection control in health care settings.

    The WHO concluded that airborne transmission occurs as sick people exhale pathogens that remain suspended in the air, contained in tiny particles of saliva and mucus that are inhaled by others.

    While it may seem obvious, and some researchers have pushed for this acknowledgment for more than a decade, an alternative dogma persisted — which kept health authorities from saying that covid was airborne for many months into the pandemic.

    Specifically, they relied on a traditional notion that respiratory viruses spread mainly through droplets spewed out of an infected person’s nose or mouth. These droplets infect others by landing directly in their mouth, nose, or eyes — or they get carried into these orifices on droplet-contaminated fingers. Although these routes of transmission still happen, particularly among young children, experts have concluded that many respiratory infections spread as people simply breathe in virus-laden air.

    “This is a complete U-turn,” said Julian Tang, a clinical virologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who advised the WHO on the report. He also helped the agency create an online tool to assess the risk of airborne transmission indoors.

    Peg Seminario, an occupational health and safety specialist in Bethesda, Maryland, welcomed the shift after years of resistance from health authorities. “The dogma that droplets are a major mode of transmission is the ‘flat Earth’ position now,” she said. “Hurray! We are finally recognizing that the world is round.”

    The change puts fresh emphasis on the need to improve ventilation indoors and stockpile quality face masks before the next airborne disease explodes. Far from a remote possibility, measles is on the rise this year and the H5N1 bird flu is spreading among cattle in several states. Scientists worry that as the H5N1 virus spends more time in mammals, it could evolve to more easily infect people and spread among them through the air.

    Traditional beliefs on droplet transmission help explain why the WHO and the CDC focused so acutely on hand-washing and surface-cleaning at the beginning of the pandemic. Such advice overwhelmed recommendations for N95 masks that filter out most virus-laden particles suspended in the air. Employers denied many health care workers access to N95s, insisting that only those routinely working within feet of covid patients needed them. More than 3,600 health care workers died in the first year of the pandemic, many due to a lack of protection.

    However, a committee advising the CDC appears poised to brush aside the updated science when it comes to its pending guidance on health care facilities.

    Lisa Brosseau, an aerosol expert and a consultant at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minnesota, warns of a repeat of 2020 if that happens.

    “The rubber hits the road when you make decisions on how to protect people,” Brosseau said. “Aerosol scientists may see this report as a big win because they think everything will now follow from the science. But that’s not how this works and there are still major barriers.”

    Money is one. If a respiratory disease spreads through inhalation, it means that people can lower their risk of infection indoors through sometimes costly methods to clean the air, such as mechanical ventilation and using air purifiers, and wearing an N95 mask. The CDC has so far been reluctant to press for such measures, as it updates foundational guidelines on curbing airborne infections in hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and other facilities that provide health care. This year, a committee advising the CDC released a draft guidance that differs significantly from the WHO report.

    Whereas the WHO report doesn’t characterize airborne viruses and bacteria as traveling short distances or long, the CDC draft maintains those traditional categories. It prescribes looser-fitting surgical masks rather than N95s for pathogens that “spread predominantly over short distances.” Surgical masks block far fewer airborne virus particles than N95s, which cost roughly 10 times as much.

    Researchers and health care workers have been outraged about the committee’s draft, filing letters and petitions to the CDC. They say it gets the science wrong and endangers health. “A separation between short- and long-range distance is totally artificial,” Tang said.

    Airborne viruses travel much like cigarette smoke, he explained. The scent will be strongest beside a smoker, but those farther away will inhale more and more smoke if they remain in the room, especially when there’s no ventilation.

    Likewise, people open windows when they burn toast so that smoke dissipates before filling the kitchen and setting off an alarm. “You think viruses stop after 3 feet and drop to the ground?” Tang said of the classical notion of distance. “That is absurd.”

    The CDC’s advisory committee is comprised primarily of infection control researchers at large hospital systems, while the WHO consulted a diverse group of scientists looking at many different types of studies. For example, one analysis examined the puff clouds expelled by singers, and musicians playing clarinets, French horns, saxophones, and trumpets. Another reviewed 16 investigations into covid outbreaks at restaurants, a gym, a food processing factory, and other venues, finding that insufficient ventilation probably made them worse than they would otherwise be.

    In response to the outcry, the CDC returned the draft to its committee for review, asking it to reconsider its advice. Meetings from an expanded working group have since been held privately. But the National Nurses United union obtained notes of the conversations through a public records request to the agency. The records suggest a push for more lax protection. “It may be difficult as far as compliance is concerned to not have surgical masks as an option,” said one unidentified member, according to notes from the committee’s March 14 discussion. Another warned that “supply and compliance would be difficult.”

    The nurses’ union, far from echoing such concerns, wrote on its website, “The Work Group has prioritized employer costs and profits (often under the umbrella of ‘feasibility’ and ‘flexibility’) over robust protections.” Jane Thomason, the union’s lead industrial hygienist, said the meeting records suggest the CDC group is working backward, molding its definitions of airborne transmission to fit the outcome it prefers.

    Tang expects resistance to the WHO report. “Infection control people who have built their careers on this will object,” he said. “It takes a long time to change people’s way of thinking.”

    The CDC declined to comment on how the WHO’s shift might influence its final policies on infection control in health facilities, which might not be completed this year. Creating policies to protect people from inhaling airborne viruses is complicated by the number of factors that influence how they spread indoors, such as ventilation, temperature, and the size of the space.

    Adding to the complexity, policymakers must weigh the toll of various ailments, ranging from covid to colds to tuberculosis, against the burden of protection. And tolls often depend on context, such as whether an outbreak happens in a school or a cancer ward.

    “What is the level of mortality that people will accept without precautions?” Tang said. “That’s another question.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • Oranges vs Lemons – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing oranges to lemons, we picked the oranges.

    Why?

    In the battle of these popular citrus fruits, there is a clear winner on the nutritional front.

    Things were initially promising for lemons when looking at the macros—lemons have a little more fiber while oranges are slightly higher in carbs, but the differences are small and both are very healthy in this regard.

    However, alas for this writer who prefers sour fruits to sweet ones (I’m sweet enough already), the micronutrient profiles tell a different story:

    In terms of vitamins, oranges have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B9, E, and choline. In contrast, lemons have a (very) little more vitamin B6. You might be wondering about vitamin C, since both fruits are famous for that—they’re equal on vitamin C. But, with that stack we listed above, oranges clearly win the vitamin category easily.

    As for minerals, oranges boast more calcium, copper, magnesium, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while lemons have more iron, manganese, and phosphorus.

    Technically lemons also have more sodium, but the numbers are truly miniscule (by coincidence, we discover upon grabbing a calculator, you’d need to eat approximately your own bodyweight in whole lemons to get to the RDA of sodium—and that’s to reach the RDA, not the upper healthy limit) so we’ll overlook the tiny sodium difference as irrelevant. Which means, while closer than the vitamins category, oranges win on minerals with a 6:3 lead over lemons.

    Both fruits offer generous helpings of flavonoids and other polyphenols such as naringenin and hesperidin, which have anti-inflammatory properties and more specifically can also reduce allergy symptoms (unless, of course, you are allergic to citrus fruits, which is a relatively rare but extant allergy).

    In short: as ever, enjoy both; diversity is great for the health. But if you want to maximize the nutrients you get, it’s oranges.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Lemons vs Limes – Which is Healthier?

    Take care!

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  • Mental illness, psychiatric disorder or psychological problem. What should we call mental distress?

    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.

    We talk about mental health more than ever, but the language we should use remains a vexed issue.

    Should we call people who seek help patients, clients or consumers? Should we use “person-first” expressions such as person with autism or “identity-first” expressions like autistic person? Should we apply or avoid diagnostic labels?

    These questions often stir up strong feelings. Some people feel that patient implies being passive and subordinate. Others think consumer is too transactional, as if seeking help is like buying a new refrigerator.

    Advocates of person-first language argue people shouldn’t be defined by their conditions. Proponents of identity-first language counter that these conditions can be sources of meaning and belonging.

    Avid users of diagnostic terms see them as useful descriptors. Critics worry that diagnostic labels can box people in and misrepresent their problems as pathologies.

    Underlying many of these disagreements are concerns about stigma and the medicalisation of suffering. Ideally the language we use should not cast people who experience distress as defective or shameful, or frame everyday problems of living in psychiatric terms.

    Our new research, published in the journal PLOS Mental Health, examines how the language of distress has evolved over nearly 80 years. Here’s what we found.

    Engin Akyurt/Pexels

    Generic terms for the class of conditions

    Generic terms – such as mental illness, psychiatric disorder or psychological problem – have largely escaped attention in debates about the language of mental ill health. These terms refer to mental health conditions as a class.

    Many terms are currently in circulation, each an adjective followed by a noun. Popular adjectives include mental, mental health, psychiatric and psychological, and common nouns include condition, disease, disorder, disturbance, illness, and problem. Readers can encounter every combination.

    These terms and their components differ in their connotations. Disease and illness sound the most medical, whereas condition, disturbance and problem need not relate to health. Mental implies a direct contrast with physical, whereas psychiatric implicates a medical specialty.

    Mental health problem, a recently emerging term, is arguably the least pathologising. It implies that something is to be solved rather than treated, makes no direct reference to medicine, and carries the positive connotations of health rather than the negative connotation of illness or disease.

    Therapist talks to young man
    Is ‘mental health problem’ actually less pathologising? Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

    Arguably, this development points to what cognitive scientist Steven Pinker calls the “euphemism treadmill”, the tendency for language to evolve new terms to escape (at least temporarily) the offensive connotations of those they replace.

    English linguist Hazel Price argues that mental health has increasingly come to replace mental illness to avoid the stigma associated with that term.

    How has usage changed over time?

    In the PLOS Mental Health paper, we examine historical changes in the popularity of 24 generic terms: every combination of the nouns and adjectives listed above.

    We explore the frequency with which each term appears from 1940 to 2019 in two massive text data sets representing books in English and diverse American English sources, respectively. The findings are very similar in both data sets.

    The figure presents the relative popularity of the top ten terms in the larger data set (Google Books). The 14 least popular terms are combined into the remainder.

    Relative popularity of alternative generic terms in the Google Books corpus. Haslam et al., 2024, PLOS Mental Health.

    Several trends appear. Mental has consistently been the most popular adjective component of the generic terms. Mental health has become more popular in recent years but is still rarely used.

    Among nouns, disease has become less widely used while illness has become dominant. Although disorder is the official term in psychiatric classifications, it has not been broadly adopted in public discourse.

    Since 1940, mental illness has clearly become the preferred generic term. Although an assortment of alternatives have emerged, it has steadily risen in popularity.

    Does it matter?

    Our study documents striking shifts in the popularity of generic terms, but do these changes matter? The answer may be: not much.

    One study found people think mental disorder, mental illness and mental health problem refer to essentially identical phenomena.

    Other studies indicate that labelling a person as having a mental disease, mental disorder, mental health problem, mental illness or psychological disorder makes no difference to people’s attitudes toward them.

    We don’t yet know if there are other implications of using different generic terms, but the evidence to date suggests they are minimal.

    Dark field
    The labels we use may not have a big impact on levels of stigma. Pixabay/Pexels

    Is ‘distress’ any better?

    Recently, some writers have promoted distress as an alternative to traditional generic terms. It lacks medical connotations and emphasises the person’s subjective experience rather than whether they fit an official diagnosis.

    Distress appears 65 times in the 2022 Victorian Mental Health and Wellbeing Act, usually in the expression “mental illness or psychological distress”. By implication, distress is a broad concept akin to but not synonymous with mental ill health.

    But is distress destigmatising, as it was intended to be? Apparently not. According to one study, it was more stigmatising than its alternatives. The term may turn us away from other people’s suffering by amplifying it.

    So what should we call it?

    Mental illness is easily the most popular generic term and its popularity has been rising. Research indicates different terms have little or no effect on stigma and some terms intended to destigmatise may backfire.

    We suggest that mental illness should be embraced and the proliferation of alternative terms such as mental health problem, which breed confusion, should end.

    Critics might argue mental illness imposes a medical frame. Philosopher Zsuzsanna Chappell disagrees. Illness, she argues, refers to subjective first-person experience, not to an objective, third-person pathology, like disease.

    Properly understood, the concept of illness centres the individual and their connections. “When I identify my suffering as illness-like,” Chappell writes, “I wish to lay claim to a caring interpersonal relationship.”

    As generic terms go, mental illness is a healthy option.

    Nick Haslam, Professor of Psychology, The University of Melbourne and Naomi Baes, Researcher – Social Psychology/ Natural Language Processing, The University of Melbourne

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

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  • 28-Day FAST Start Day-by-Day – by Gin Stephens

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    We have previously reviewed Gin Stephens’ other book, “Fast. Feast. Repeat.”, so what’s so special about this one that it deserves reviewing too?

    This one is all about troubleshooting the pitfalls that many people find when taking up intermittent fasting.

    To be clear: the goal here is not a “28 days and yay you did it, put that behind you now”, but rather “28 days and you are now intermittently fasting easily each day and can keep it up without difficulty”. As for the difficulties that may arise early in the 28 days…

    Not just issues of willpower, but also the accidental breaks. For example, some artificial sweeteners, while zero-calorie, trigger an insulin response, which breaks the fast on the metabolic level (avoiding that is the whole point of IF). Lots of little tips like that peppered through the book help the reader to stop accidentally self-sabotaging their progress.

    The author does talk about psychological issues too, and also how it will feel different at first while the liver is adapting, than later when it has already depleted its glycogen reserves and the body must burn body fat instead. Information like that makes it easier to understand that some initial problems (hunger, getting “hangry”, feeling twitchy, or feeling light-headed) will last only a few weeks and then disappear.

    So, understanding things like that makes a big difference too.

    The style of the book is simple and clear pop-science, with lots of charts and bullet points and callout-boxes and the like; it makes for very easy reading, and very quick learning of all the salient points, of which there are many.

    Bottom line: if you’ve tried intermittent fasting but struggled to make it stick, this book can help you get to where you want to be.

    Click here to check out 28-Day FAST Start, and start!

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  • Is Cutting Calories The Key To Healthy Long Life?

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    Caloric Restriction with Optimal Nutrition

    Yesterday, we asked you “What is your opinion of caloric restriction as a health practice?” and got the above-depicted, below-described spread of responses:

    • 48% said “It is a robust, scientifically proven way to live longer and healthier”
    • 23% said “It may help us to live longer, but at the cost of enjoying it fully”
    • 17% said “It’s a dangerous fad that makes people weak, tired, sick, and unhealthy”
    • 12% said “Counting calories is irrelevant to good health; the body compensates”

    So… What does the science say?

    A note on terms, first

    “Caloric restriction” (henceforth: CR), as a term, sees scientific use to mean anything from a 25% reduction to a 50% reduction, compared to metabolic base rate.

    This can also be expressed the other way around, “dropping to 60% of the metabolic base rate” (i.e., a 40% reduction).

    Here we don’t have the space to go into much depth, so our policy will be: if research papers consider it CR, then so will we.

    A quick spoiler, first

    The above statements about CR are all to at least some degree True in one way or another.

    However, there are very important distinctions, so let’s press on…

    CR is a robust, scientifically proven way to live longer and healthier: True or False?

    True! This has been well-studied and well-documented. There’s more science for this than we could possibly list here, but here’s a good starting point:

    ❝Calorie restriction (CR), a nutritional intervention of reduced energy intake but with adequate nutrition, has been shown to extend healthspan and lifespan in rodent and primate models.

    Accumulating data from observational and randomized clinical trials indicate that CR in humans results in some of the same metabolic and molecular adaptations that have been shown to improve health and retard the accumulation of molecular damage in animal models of longevity.

    In particular, moderate CR in humans ameliorates multiple metabolic and hormonal factors that are implicated in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer, the leading causes of morbidity, disability and mortality❞

    Source: Ageing Research Reviews | Calorie restriction in humans: an update

    See also: Caloric restriction in humans reveals immunometabolic regulators of health span

    We could devote a whole article (or a whole book, really) to this, but the super-short version is that it lowers the metabolic “tax” on the body and allows the body to function better for longer.

    CR may help us to live longer, but at the cost of enjoying it fully: True or False?

    True or False, contingently, depending on what’s important to you. And that depends on psychology as much as physiology, but it’s worth noting that there is often a selection bias in the research papers; people ill-suited to CR drop out of the studies and are not counted in the final data.

    Also, relevant for a lot of our readers, most (human-based) studies recruit people over 18 and under 60. So while it is reasonable to assume the same benefits will be carried over that age, there is not nearly as much data for it.

    Studies into CR and Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) have been promising, and/but have caveats:

    ❝In non-obese adults, CR had some positive effects and no negative effects on HRQoL.❞

    Source: Effect of Calorie Restriction on Mood, Quality of Life, Sleep, and Sexual Function in Healthy Non-obese Adults

    ❝We do not know what degree of CR is needed to achieve improvements in HRQoL, but we do know it requires an extraordinary amount of support.

    Therefore, the incentive to offer this intervention to a low-risk, normal or overweight individual is lacking and likely not sustainable in practice.❞

    Source: Caloric restriction improves health-related quality of life in healthy normal weight and overweight individuals

    CR a dangerous fad that makes people weak, tired, sick, and unhealthy: True or False?

    True if it is undertaken improperly, and/or without sufficient support. Many people will try CR and forget that the idea is to reduce metabolic load while still getting good nutrition, and focus solely on the calorie-counting.

    So for example, if a person “saves” their calories for the day to have a night out in a bar where they drink their calories as alcohol, then this is going to be abysmal for their health.

    That’s an extreme example, but lesser versions are seen a lot. If you save your calories for a pizza instead of a night of alcoholic drinks, then it’s not quite so woeful, but for example the nutrition-to-calorie ratio of pizza is typically not great. Multiply that by doing it as often as not, and yes, someone’s health is going to be in ruins quite soon.

    Counting calories is irrelevant to good health; the body compensates: True or False?

    True if by “good health” you mean weight loss—which is rarely, if ever, what we mean by “good health” here at 10almonds (unless we clarify such), but it’s a very common association and indeed, for some people it’s a health goal. You cannot sustainably and healthily lose weight by CR alone, especially if you’re not getting optimal nutrition.

    Your body will notice that you are starving, and try to save you by storing as much fat as it can, amongst other measures that will similarly backfire (cortisol running high, energy running low, etc).

    For short term weight loss though, yes, it’ll work. At a cost. That we don’t recommend.

    ❝By itself, decreasing calorie intake will have a limited short-term influence.❞

    Source: Reducing Calorie Intake May Not Help You Lose Body Weight

    See also…

    ❝Caloric restriction is a commonly recommended weight-loss method, yet it may result in short-term weight loss and subsequent weight regain, known as “weight cycling”, which has recently been shown to be associated with both poor sleep and worse cardiovascular health❞

    Source: Dieting Behavior Characterized by Caloric Restriction

    In summary…

    Caloric restriction is a well-studied area of health science. We know:

    • Practised well, it can extend not only lifespan, but also healthspan
    • Practised well, it can improve mood, energy, sexual function, and the other things people fear losing
    • Practised badly, it can be ruinous to the health—it is critical to practise caloric restriction with optimal nutrition.
    • Practised badly, it can lead to unhealthy weight loss and weight regain

    One final note…

    If you’ve tried CR and hated it, and you practised it well (e.g., with optimal nutrition), then we recommend just not doing it.

    You could also try intermittent fasting instead, for similar potential benefits. If that doesn’t work out either, then don’t do that either!

    Sometimes, we’re just weird. It can often be because of a genetic or epigenetic quirk. There are usually workarounds, and/but not everything that’s right for most people will be right for all of us.

    Take care!

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