Ex-Cyclone Alfred has left flooding in its wake. Here’s how floods affect our 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.
Ex-Cyclone Alfred is bringing significant rainfall to southeast Queensland and the Northern Rivers of New South Wales. Flooding has hit Lismore, Ballina, Grafton, Brisbane and Hervey Bay, which received 150 mm of rainfall in two hours this morning.
Tragically, a 61-year-old man died after being swept away in floodwaters near Dorrigo in northern New South Wales.
More heavy rain and flash flooding is expected in the coming days as the weather system moves inland and weakens.
Climate change is making these weather events more intense and frequent. Earlier this year, far north Queensland experienced major flooding. As residents of the Northern Rivers, this latest disaster is especially tough because only three years ago we faced the catastrophic 2022 floods.
We’ve studied the impact of floods on human health and wellbeing, and found floods are linked to a range of physical and mental health effects in both the short- and long-term.
So what might you experience if you live in an area affected by these floods?
We reviewed the evidence
We recently reviewed research on the physical and mental health impacts of floods across mainland Australia. We included 69 studies in our review, published over 70 years. The majority were from the past ten years, examining the effects of floods in Queensland and NSW.
These studies suggest people can expect a range of health impacts. Immediate physical health effects of floods include drowning, falls and injuries.
Chronic diseases such as diabetes or renal disease can also worsen due to factors such as reduced access to transport, health-care services, medications and hospitals.
Exposure to contaminated floodwaters can lead to skin infections, while respiratory problems can occur due to mould and damp housing in the aftermath of floods.
Floods also create ideal conditions for mosquito borne infections such as Ross River virus and Murray Valley encephalitis, while also spreading infectious diseases including leptospirosis, a bacterial infection from contaminated soil.
There are mental health consequences too
Our review showed floods also affect mental health. The more you’re exposed to floodwaters in your home or business, the worse the mental health impacts are likely to be.
The After the Flood study examined mental health and wellbeing outcomes six months after the 2017 flood in the Northern Rivers. It found people who had floodwater in their home, yard or business, or who were displaced from their home for a more than six months, were much more likely to have probable post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety or depression, compared to those who didn’t experience flooding or weren’t displaced.
Repeated natural disasters could compound these mental health consequences. Southeast Queensland and the Northern Rivers in NSW have experienced multiple disasters over recent years. The Northern Rivers faced major flooding in 2017, bushfires in 2020, further major floods in 2022, and now Cyclone Alfred in 2025. These repeated disasters have taken a toll on our community, creating a seemingly never-ending cycle of recovery, rebuilding and preparation for the next disaster.
Our understanding of the unique challenges faced by communities which experience multiple disasters is still growing. However, a recent Australian study showed exposure to repeated disasters has a compounding effect on people’s mental health, leading to worse mental health outcomes compared to people who experience a single disaster.
Mums and babies
The health effects of floods extend far beyond the initial emergency and beyond the infections and mental health consequences you might expect.
The Queensland Flood Study tracked pregnant women exposed to the 2011 Brisbane floods. Researchers assessed mothers’ stress related to the flood and tracked them and their children at six weeks old, six months, 16 months, 2.5 years, four and six years. It found some links between prenatal stress and developmental outcomes in children.
While the health effects after flooding are diverse, the research to date is not comprehensive. We need to learn more about how floods contribute to or exacerbate existing chronic illnesses, disability and long-term mental health issues.
The impacts are inequitable
Flooding exposes and worsens existing inequalities. Socially vulnerable groups are more likely to be exposed to flooding in their homes and have less access to resources to respond and recover from these events, putting some groups at higher risk of negative health impacts afterwards.
Some research has looked at the disproportionate impacts on people with disabilities and their carers, First Nations communities and people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
After the 2017 Northern Rivers floods, for example, people with disability and their carers were more likely than others to:
- experience disrupted access to food, support networks and essentials such as health care and social services
- continue to be distressed about the flood six months after it happened
- be at relatively high risk of post-traumatic stress disorder six months after the flood.
However, targeted flood research exploring the experiences of these vulnerable groups in Australia is limited.
Moving forward, it’s vital we examine the varied impacts of flood events for more vulnerable groups, so we can better support them in the wake of devastating events such as Cyclone Alfred.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Jodie Bailie, Senior Research Fellow, The University Centre for Rural Health and The Centre for Disability Research and Policy, University of Sydney; Jo Longman, Senior Research Fellow, The University Centre for Rural Health, University of Sydney; Rebecca McNaught, Research Fellow, Rural and Remote Health, University of Sydney, and Ross Bailie, School of Public Health, Honorary Professor, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Science of Yoga – by Ann Swanson
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.
There are a lot of yoga books out there to say “bend this way, hold this that way” and so forth, but few that really explain what is going on, how, and why. And understanding those things is of course key to motivation and adherence. So that’s what this book provides!
The book is divided into sections, and in the first part we have a tour of human anatomy and physiology. This may seem almost unrelated to yoga, but is valuable necessary-knowledge to get the most out of the next section:
The next few parts are given over to yoga asanas (stretches, positions, poses, call them what you will in English) and now we are given a clear idea of what it is doing: we get to understand exactly what’s being stretched, what blood flow is being increased and how, what organs are being settled into their correct place, and many other such things.
Importantly, this means we also understand why certain things are the way they are, and why they can’t be done in some other slightly different but perhaps superficially easier way.
The style of the book is like a school textbook, really, but without patronizing the reader. The illustrations, of which there are many, are simple enough to be clear while being detailed enough to be informative.
Bottom line: if you’re ever doing yoga at home and wondering if you should cut a certain corner, this is the book that will tell you why you shouldn’t.
Click here to check out Science of Yoga, and optimize your practice!
Share This Post
-
The FIRST Program: Fighting Insulin Resistance with Strength Training – by Dr. William Shang
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.
A lot of advice about fighting insulin resistance focuses on diet. And, that’s worthwhile! How we eat does make a huge difference to our insulin responses (as does fasting). But, we expect our regular 10almonds readers either know these things now, or can read one of several very good books we’ve already reviewed about such.
This one’s different: it focuses, as the title promises, on fighting insulin resistance with strength training. And why?
It’s because of the difference that our body composition makes to our metabolism. Now, our body fat percentage is often talked about (or, less usefully but more prevalently, even if woefully misleadingly, our BMI), but Dr. Shang makes the case for it being our musculature that has the biggest impact; because of how it hastens our metabolism, and because of how it is much healthier for the body to store glycogen in muscle tissue, than just cramming whatever it can into the liver and visceral fat. It becomes relevant, then, that there’s a limit to how much glycogen can be stored in muscle tissue, and that limit is how much muscle you have.
This is not, however, 243 pages to say “lift some weights, lazybones”. Rather, he explains the relevant pathophysiology (we will be more likely to adhere to things we understand, than things we do not), and gives practical advice on exercising the different kinds of muscle fibers, arguing that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, as well as outlining an exercise program for the gym, plus a chapter on no-gym exercises too.
The style is quite dense, which may be offputting for some, but it suffices to take one’s time and read thoughtfully; the end result is worth it.
Bottom line: if you’d like to keep insulin resistance at bay, this book is an excellent extra tool for that.
Share This Post
-
The Hidden Danger Of Sorbitol
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.
Sorbitol, a common sweetener in many foods, is a sugar alcohol, which means it is neither a sugar nor an alcohol in the sense that most people understand those words, but chemists have their classification systems and sorbitol’s chemical structure is such that, with its hydroxyl groups each attached to one carbon atom, it’s a sugar alcohol.
So, what’s the problem?
We’ll cut right to the chase: it can be indirectly quite harmful to the liver.
To understand why, first understand how fructose is so bad for the liver. It’s so bad, because while glucose and fructose (the monosaccharides found in equal parts in the disaccharide that is sucrose, i.e. table sugar) both ultimately get converted into glycogen (if not used immediately for energy), but for fructose, this happens mostly* in the liver, which a) taxes it b) goes very unregulated by the pancreas, causing potentially dangerous blood sugar spikes.
This has several interesting effects:
- Because fructose doesn’t directly affect insulin levels, it doesn’t cause insulin insensitivity (yay)
- Because fructose doesn’t directly affect insulin levels, this leaves hyperglycemia untreated (oh dear)
- Because fructose is metabolized by the liver and converted to glycogen which is stored there, it’s one of the main contributors to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (at this point, we’re retracting our “yay”)
Read more: Fructose and sugar: a major mediator of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
*”Mostly” in the liver being about 80% in the liver. The remaining 20%ish is processed by the kidneys, where it contributes to kidney stones instead. So, still not fabulous.
Now know this: sorbitol can be converted very quickly and easily into fructose (oops!)
Researchers (Dr. Madelyn Jackstadt et al.) found that if you have sufficient quantities of certain Aeromonas bacteria, they degrade sorbitol into harmless byproducts, but without them sorbitol passes to the liver, where it is converted into fructose and fructose derivatives.
However, you cannot rely on “well, I’m pretty sure my gut is in good shape”, because excess sorbitol—whether eaten directly or generated from high glucose intake—can overwhelm even those beneficial bacteria.
You can find the paper itself, here: Intestine-derived sorbitol drives steatotic liver disease in the absence of gut bacteria
What should we use instead?
Honestly, there are no sweeteners that we’re aware of that have no drawbacks.
Simply sweetness itself can cause problems: we can build tolerance to sweetness. Many sugar substitutes are many times (in some cases, hundreds of times) sweeter than sugar. This leads to people craving increasingly sweeter foods for the same experiential sweetness level.
Because of this, the World Health Organization has released a report offering guidance regards the use of sugar-free sweeteners.
In a nutshell, the guidance is: don’t
- Here’s the report itself: Use of non-sugar sweeteners: WHO guideline
- And it was based on this huge systematic review: Health effects of the use of non-sugar sweeteners: a systematic review and meta-analysis
- Here’s the WHO’s own press release about it: WHO advises not to use non-sugar sweeteners for weight control in newly released guideline
Nevertheless, if you really want to, we previously did a rundown on:
- Sucrose (metabolic problems)
- Sucralose (genotoxic)
- Erythritol (ischemiagenic)
- Xylitol (gut disruptor)
- Acesulfame K (gut disruptor)
- Stevia (strong risk of sweetness tolerance problem)
- Glycine (beneficial in moderation, sweetness problem though)
For more details than those one-or-few-word summaries, see: What’s The Healthiest Sweetener?
We’ve also talked about: The Fascinating Truth About Aspartame, Cancer, & Neurotoxicity
…which covers how the most popular beliefs about aspartame are myths, and in large part stemming from a single viral hoax chain letter in the 90s!
Want to do more for your liver?
Consider: N-Acetyl Cysteine For The Liver & More
Or if you prefer a purely dietary approach, then: How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
Take care!
Share This Post
-
5 Reasons Why You Can’t Squat Deep
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.
If you’re struggling, these are the likely stumbling blocks and how to get past them:
Drop it like it’s squat
The deep squat (also called resting squat, sitting squat, Slav squat, Asian squat, and more) is a natural resting position that most Western adults lose due to lack of regular use, leading to reduced mobility in associated areas too. And because of how the body works in terms of musculoskeletal system and fascia, “associated areas” ends up being pretty much the whole body.
So, with that in mind, here are the 5 things, and what to do about them:
- Ankle mobility: this becomes a problem when limited ankle dorsiflexion stops your shin from moving forward, causing your heel to lift and your weight to shift forwards
- ankle test: stand about 10cm from a wall, and move your knee forwards while keeping your heel flat; if your knee can touch the wall without your heel lifting, your ankle dorsiflexion is sufficient; if not, then work is needed on it
- ankle fix: do elevated heel raises, by lowering your body from a step and rising onto your toes (and repeat), to build strength and mobility through full range
- Knee flexion: insufficient knee bend beyond 120° stops depth early, usually due to tight quads, joint stiffness, or prior injury
- knee fix: do the “couch stretch” by elevating your back foot, putting your back knee down, squeezing your glutes, and driving your hip forwards, to restore knee and hip mobility
- Hip mobility, general: limited hip flexion or tight adductors prevent your pelvis from dropping between your thighs, often causing lower back rounding or hip compression
- hip fix (CARs): do controlled articular rotations (CARs) by lifting your knee, rotating it out, and moving it through a full circular range, to train active control
- hip fix (sumo squat): hold a weight, take a wide stance with toes turned out, sink deep, and push your knees outwards to build strength and mobility at the end of your range of motion
- Hip external rotation: weak or tight external rotators cause your knees to collapse inwards, and your squat to feel unstable
- stance adjustment: turn your toes outwards until your knees track naturally over your feet, to match your individual hip structure
- external rotation fix: do side-lying banded clamshells, by opening your top knee while keeping your feet together, to strengthen your glutes
- Thoracic mobility: a stiff upper back causes your chest to collapse forwards, even if your lower body mobility is sufficient
- thoracic fix (foam roller): extend your upper back over a foam roller, segment by segment, to improve extension
- thoracic fix (counterbalance squat): hold a light weight in front of your chest while squatting, to keep your center of mass forwards and maintain an upright torso
For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
- Ankle mobility: this becomes a problem when limited ankle dorsiflexion stops your shin from moving forward, causing your heel to lift and your weight to shift forwards
-
Arthritis-Proof Your Life – by Dr. Michelle Cook
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, a note about that title of doctor. Sometimes we will mention “you may be wondering, is that an MD or a PhD? It’s both!” because there is some physician-scientist with an MD plus a PhD in, say, neurology or biochemistry of some kind or be it what it may. In this case, the author has two claims to doctorship: a PhD in traditional natural medicine, and a “DNP”, the “doctor of naturopathic medicine” qualification which is usually a four-year degree, and/but is not generally considered a medical degree, or equivalent, or similar.
This may explain some medical errors in the book, such as the claims that “Fibromyalgia is a type of arthritis” (it isn’t, and in fact by definition will only be diagnosed as such if other disorders such as arthritis have been ruled out as the cause of the symptoms) and “Tylenol is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug” (it isn’t, it’s an antipyretic analgesic, which despite the similar uses and shared reference to the imagery of fire, is a completely different class of drugs and works differently to NSAIDs).
However, it’s not all bad. One thing this book has as a strength is that it offers a lot of things to try, if you’ve already tried everything else, ranging from dietary tweaks to try outside of the usual anti-inflammatory recommendations (but yes, those too), complementary medicine methods such as acupressure and aromatherapy, and the two-way relationship between arthritis and mental health.
The style is bold and lively, and proceeds without citations to interrupt one’s flow, though there is a bibliography at the back, mostly for references to herbalism.
Bottom line: if you have arthritis, have tried many things, and are looking for more things to try, this book may have options you wouldn’t have thought of!
Click here to check out Arthritis-Proof Your Life, and get creative with your problem-solving!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Do you taste words or hear colours? Here’s the neuroscience behind synaesthesia
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.
Have you ever tasted a word, or seen colours while listening to music?
If you have, you may be among the 1% to 4% of people who have a fascinating trait known as synaesthesia.
Synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon where the activation of one sense, such as hearing, triggers the activation of another usually unrelated sense, such as sight. This means people with synaesthesia often experience additional sensations compared to the rest of us.
We’ve devoted a lot of time to understanding this rare phenomenon. While there’s much more to unpack, what we do know shows we don’t all perceive the world in the same way.
Vitally Gariev/Unsplash What is synaesthesia?
People with synaesthesia are known as synaesthetes. Research suggests synaesthesia may be more common among women, although this could reflect sampling biases, and may be influenced by genetics.
There are many different types of synaesthesia. Some people have auditory-visual synaesthesia, meaning they see colours when they hear sounds. Others see colours when they read, hear or think about letters or numbers. This is known as grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Another example is mirror-touch synaesthesia, where a person feels sensations on their own body when they see another person being touched.
All of us naturally combine information from different senses. For instance, when you watch someone speak, your brain blends what you see and hear to understand them better. In synaesthesia these links are a bit different – a sound might, for example, trigger a visual experience – but may still depend on the same mechanisms.
People with synaesthesia don’t have any control over how their senses collide. Instead, these are spontaneous, vivid experiences that usually stay the same over time. For example, today a person with grapheme-colour synaesthesia may perceive the letter “A” as being red. And they’ll most likely see it as being the same shade even years later.
It’s worth noting synaesthesia is not an illness or disorder. And it doesn’t cause harm or impairment, although some people may find their synaesthesia overwhelming at times. For example, if they feel pain every time they see someone else in pain, going to the movies can be quite disturbing. However, on the whole it does not seem to interfere with daily life. In fact, many people don’t realise they have synaesthesia because it’s simply how they perceive the world.
What causes it?
We don’t yet know exactly what causes synaesthesia. But scientists have come up with two main theories.
1. Synaesthetes have more connections in their brain
According to this view, known as the cross-activation theory, people with synaesthesia have more connections between different parts of their brain. This could happen because their brain hasn’t gotten rid of unused connections between brain cells. This process, known as synaptic pruning, helps the brain work more efficiently and is part of normal development.
Under this theory, a person with grapheme-colour synaesthesia for example, would have the region that recognises letters directly linked to the part that processes colour. So when they see a letter, they perceive it with a colour.
2. Synaesthetes have slightly different activity in their brain
The other main theory is that people with synaesthesia have the same neural connections as non-synaesthetes, but certain pathways might be stronger or more active. Synaesthesia does seem to build on mechanisms we all have. For example, when you see a picture of a grey banana, you know bananas are usually yellow. We even see patterns of brain activity that reflect this. Grapheme-colour synaesthetes might also do this with letters so that when they see black letters, their brain activates specific colours.
Simply put, the debate about what causes synaesthesia comes down to whether synaesthetes have a different brain structure or just use their brains in an alternative way.
Does it make you more creative?
You might’ve heard artists such as Kandinsky or musicians such as Lorde describe their synaesthesia-like experiences. And there is some evidence to suggest synaesthesia is more common among people in creative fields.
One large survey of Australian synaesthetes found roughly 24% had creative occupations, such as being an artist, musician, architect or graphic designer. This is compared to the less than 2% of people in the general population who have these jobs. This gap is striking, even though we don’t understand what’s behind it. One reason may be synaesthetes link ideas and sensations in unusual ways, helping them think more creatively. Research suggests people with certain kinds of synaesthesia may form stronger memories or have more vivid imaginations, but only to a limited extent.
Synaesthesia is a powerful window into how our brains make sense of the world. It reminds us perception is not a fixed, one-size-fits-all process. Rather, it’s something the brain actively builds in ways that are often more varied, and far richer, than we might expect.
Sophie Smit, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Sydney and Anina Rich, Associate Professor and Head of Synaesthesia Research Group, Macquarie University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
