Eyes for Alzheimer’s Diagnosis: New?

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It’s Q&A Time!

This is the bit whereby each week, we respond to subscriber questions/requests/etc

Have something you’d like to ask us, or ask us to look into? Hit reply to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom, and a Real Human™ will be glad to read it!

Q: As I am a retired nurse, I am always interested in new medical technology and new ways of diagnosing. I have recently heard of using the eyes to diagnose Alzheimer’s. When I did some research I didn’t find too much. I am thinking the information may be too new or I wasn’t on the right sites.

(this is in response to last week’s piece on lutein, eyes, and brain health)

We’d readily bet that the diagnostic criteria has to do with recording low levels of lutein in the eye (discernible by a visual examination of macular pigment optical density), and relying on the correlation between this and incidence of Alzheimer’s, but we’ve not seen it as a hard diagnostic tool as yet either—we’ll do some digging and let you know what we find! In the meantime, we note that the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (which may be of interest to you, if you’re not already subscribed) is onto this:

Read: Cognitive Function and Its Relationship with Macular Pigment Optical Density and Serum Concentrations of its Constituent Carotenoids

See also:

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  • Radical CBT

    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.

    Radical Acceptance!

    A common criticism of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is that much of it hinges on the following process:

    • You are having bad feelings
    • Which were caused by negative automatic thoughts
    • Which can be taken apart logically
    • Thus diffusing the feelings
    • And then feeling better

    For example:

    • I feel like I’m an unwanted burden to my friend
    • Because he canceled on me today
    • But a reasonable explanation is that he indeed accidentally double-booked himself and the other thing wasn’t re-arrangeable
    • My friend is trusting me to be an understanding friend myself, and greatly values my friendship
    • I feel better and look forward to our next time together

    But what if the negative automatic thoughts are, upon examination, reasonable?

    Does CBT argue that we should just “keep the faith” and go on looking at a cruel indifferent world through rose-tinted spectacles?

    Nope, there’s a back-up tool.

    This is more talked-about in Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT), and is called radical acceptance:

    !

    Radical acceptance here means accepting the root of things as true, and taking the next step from there. It follows a bad conclusion with “alright, and now what?”

    “But all evidence points to the fact that my friend has been avoiding me for months; I really can’t ignore it or explain it away any longer”


    “Alright. Now what?”

    • Maybe there’s something troubling your friend that you don’t know about (have you asked?)
    • Maybe that something is nothing to do with you (or maybe it really is about you!)
    • Maybe there’s a way you and he can address it together (how important is it to you?)
    • Maybe it’s just time to draw a line under it and move on (with or without him)

    Whatever the circumstances, there’s always a way to move forwards.

    Feelings are messengers, and once you’ve received and processed the message, the only reason to keep feeling the same thing, is if you want to.

    Note that this is true even when you know with 100% certainty that the Bad Thing™ is real and exactly as-imagined. It’s still possible for you to accept, for example:

    “Alright, so this person really truly hates me. Damn, that sucks; I think I’ve been nothing but nice to them. Oh well. Shit happens.”

    Feel all the feelings you need to about it, and then decide for yourself where you want to go from there.

    Get: 25 CBT Worksheets To Help You Find Solutions To A Wide Variety of Problems

    Recognizing Emotions

    We talked in a previous edition of 10almonds’ Psychology Sunday about how an important part of dealing with difficult emotions is recognizing them as something that you experience, rather than something that’s intrinsically “you”.

    But… How?

    One trick is to just mentally (or out loud, if your current environment allows for such) greet them when you notice them:

    • Hello again, Depression
    • Oh, hi there Anxiety, it’s you
    • Nice of you to join us, Anger

    Not only does this help recognize and delineate the emotion, but also, it de-tooths it and recognizes it for what it is—something that doesn’t actually mean you any harm, but that does need handling.

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  • How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)

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    How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)

    High-Intensity Interval Training, henceforth “HIIT”, is a well-researched and well-evidenced approach to exercise that gives powerful health benefits.

    Specifically, health benefits that we don’t get from moderate exercise (as important as that is too) or endurance training.

    Super-quick overview of the benefits first:

    *remember that most forms of exercise aren’t very good for fat loss, because our metabolism will slow afterwards to compensate. So HIIT flipping this one is quite a big deal.

    What actually is it?

    HIIT means exercise sessions in which one alternates between high intensity “maximum effort” bursts, and short recovery periods during which more moderate exercise is performed.

    An example for runners could be switching between sprinting or jogging, changing mode each time one passes a street light.

    ❝A total of only two minutes of sprint interval exercise was sufficient to elicit similar responses as 30 minutes of continuous moderate intensity aerobic exercise❞

    ~ Trewin et al. (2018)

    Read more: Acute HIIT elicits similar changes in human skeletal muscle mitochondrial H₂O₂ release, respiration, and cell signaling as endurance exercise even with less work

    What did you mean about not wrecking your body? Is that… Likely?

    Hopefully not, but it’s a barrier to some! We are not all twenty-something college athletes, after all, and our bodies aren’t always as durable as they used to be.

    HIIT relies on intense exercise and short recovery periods, but what if our bodies are not accustomed to intense exercise, and need longer recovery periods? Can we still get the same benefits?

    The trick is not to change the intensity or the recovery periods, but the exercise itself.

    For HIIT to work the “intense” part has to be best-effort or approaching such. That part’s not negotiable. The recovery periods can be stretched a bit if you need to, but with the right tweaks, you ideally won’t have to do that.

    Great! How?

    First, note that you can do resistance interval training without impact. For example, if you crank up the resistance on an exercise bike or similar machine, you will be doing resistance training along with your cardio, and you’ll be doing it without the impact on your joints that you would if out pounding the pavement on foot.

    (Running is fine if your body is used to it, but please don’t make HIIT your first running exercise in a decade)

    Second, consider your environment. That exercise bike? You can get off it any time and you’re already at home (or perhaps your gym, with your car outside). Not so if you took up mountain biking or road racing.

    Third, go for what is gentle in motion, even if it’s not resistance work per se. Swimming is a fabulous option for most people, and can absolutely be done with HIIT principles. Since vision is often obscured while swimming, counting strokes can be a good way to do HIIT. For example, ten strokes max effort, ten strokes normal, repeat. Do make sure you are aware of where the end of the pool is, though!

    Fourth, make it fun! Ok, this one’s not about the safety quite so much, but it is about sustainability, and that’s critical for practical purposes too. You will only continue an exercise routine that you enjoy, after all.

    • Could you curate a musical playlist that shifts tempo to cue your exercise mode intervals?
    • Could you train with an exercise partner? Extra fun if this has a “relay race” feel to it, i.e. when one person completes a high intensity interval, the other person must now begin theirs.

    Need some pointers getting started?

    There are a lot of HIIT apps out there, so you can just search for that on your device of choice.

    But!

    We at 10almonds have recommended 7-Minute Workout before, which is available for iOS and for Android, and we stand by that as a great starting choice.

    Enjoy!

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  • Healthy Chocolate Fudge Energy Bites

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    While these are quite high-calorie, they’re also high in protein, and the fiber and healthy fats flatten the blood sugar curve:

    You will need

    • 1 cup peanut butter
    • 4 oz dark chocolate, melted (try to get dark chocolate with >80% cocoa, if you can; 85% is very respectable and 90% is perfect)
    • ⅓ cup maple syrup (you can safely reduce this, or even omit it, if you prefer less sweetness)
    • ¼ cup hazelnuts
    • ¼ cup almond milk (or your preferred milk, but we recommend almond for taste and health)
    • 1 tsp vanilla extract
    • Topping: ¼ cup hazelnuts, roughly chopped

    Method

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

    1) Combine all the ingredients (except the topping) in a food processor, and blend until smooth.

    2) Line a container (5″x7″ is a good size) with baking paper and spread the mixture evenly into it, pressing down gently.

    3) Sprinkle the topping onto it, press that even more gently into it.

    4) Refrigerate overnight (or chill it for 2hrs in the freezer).

    5) Cut into cubes to serve; they can be served frozen or thawed, per your preference:

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

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

    Take care!

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Related Posts

  • Small Changes For A Healthier Life
  • Is alcohol good or bad for you? Yes.

    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.

    This article originally appeared in Harvard Public Health magazine.

    It’s hard to escape the message these days that every sip of wine, every swig of beer is bad for your health. The truth, however, is far more nuanced.

    We have been researching the health effects of alcohol for a combined 60 years. Our work, and that of others, has shown that even modest alcohol consumption likely raises the risk for certain diseases, such as breast and esophageal cancer. And heavy drinking is unequivocally harmful to health. But after countless studies, the data do not justify sweeping statements about the effects of moderate alcohol consumption on human health.

    Yet we continue to see reductive narratives, in the media and even in science journals, that alcohol in any amount is dangerous. Earlier this month, for instance, the media reported on a new study that found even small amounts of alcohol might be harmful. But the stories failed to give enough context or probe deeply enough to understand the study’s limitations—including that it cherry-picked subgroups of a larger study previously used by researchers, including one of us, who concluded that limited drinking in a recommended pattern correlated with lower mortality risk.

    “We need more high-quality evidence to assess the health impacts of moderate alcohol consumption. And we need the media to treat the subject with the nuance it requires. Newer studies are not necessarily better than older research.”

    Those who try to correct this simplistic view are disparaged as pawns of the industry, even when no financial conflicts of interest exist. Meanwhile, some authors of studies suggesting alcohol is unhealthy have received money from anti-alcohol organizations.

    We believe it’s worth trying, again, to set the record straight. We need more high-quality evidence to assess the health impacts of moderate alcohol consumption. And we need the media to treat the subject with the nuance it requires. Newer studies are not necessarily better than older research.

    It’s important to keep in mind that alcohol affects many body systems—not just the liver and the brain, as many people imagine. That means how alcohol affects health is not a single question but the sum of many individual questions: How does it affect the heart? The immune system? The gut? The bones?

    As an example, a highly cited study of one million women in the United Kingdom found that moderate alcohol consumption—calculated as no more than one drink a day for a woman—increased overall cancer rates. That was an important finding. But the increase was driven nearly entirely by breast cancer. The same study showed that greater alcohol consumption was associated with lower rates of thyroid cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and renal cell carcinoma. That doesn’t mean drinking a lot of alcohol is good for you—but it does suggest that the science around alcohol and health is complex.

    One major challenge in this field is the lack of large, long-term, high-quality studies. Moderate alcohol consumption has been studied in dozens of randomized controlled trials, but those trials have never tracked more than about 200 people for more than two years. Longer and larger experimental trials have been used to test full diets, like the Mediterranean diet, and are routinely conducted to test new pharmaceuticals (or new uses for existing medications), but they’ve never been done to analyze alcohol consumption. 

    Instead, much alcohol research is observational, meaning it follows large groups of drinkers and abstainers over time. But observational studies cannot prove cause-and-effect because moderate drinkers differ in many ways from non-drinkers and heavy drinkers—in diet, exercise, and smoking habits, for instance. Observational studies can still yield useful information, but they also require researchers to gather data about when and how the alcohol is consumed, since alcohol’s effect on health depends heavily on drinking patterns.  

    For example, in an analysis of over 300,000 drinkers in the U.K., one of us found that the same total amount of alcohol appeared to increase the chances of dying prematurely if consumed on fewer occasions during the week and outside of meals, but to decrease mortality if spaced out across the week and consumed with meals. Such nuance is rarely captured in broader conversations about alcohol research—or even in observational studies, as researchers don’t always ask about drinking patterns, focusing instead on total consumption. To get a clearer picture of the health effects of alcohol, researchers and journalists must be far more attuned to the nuances of this highly complex issue. 

    One way to improve our collective understanding of the issue is to look at both observational and experimental data together whenever possible. When the data from both types of studies point in the same direction, we can have more confidence in the conclusion. For example, randomized controlled trials show that alcohol consumption raises levels of sex steroid hormones in the blood. Observational trials suggest that alcohol consumption also raises the risk of specific subtypes of breast cancer that respond to these hormones. Together, that evidence is highly persuasive that alcohol increases the chances of breast cancer.    

    Similarly, in randomized trials, alcohol consumption lowers average blood sugar levels. In observational trials, it also appears to lower the risk of diabetes. Again, that evidence is persuasive in combination. 

    As these examples illustrate, drinking alcohol may raise the risk of some conditions but not others. What does that mean for individuals? Patients should work with their clinicians to understand their personal risks and make informed decisions about drinking. 

    Medicine and public health would benefit greatly if better data were available to offer more conclusive guidance about alcohol. But that would require a major investment. Large, long-term, gold-standard studies are expensive. To date, federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health have shown no interest in exclusively funding these studies on alcohol.

    Alcohol manufacturers have previously expressed some willingness to finance the studies—similar to the way pharmaceutical companies finance most drug testing—but that has often led to criticism. This happened to us, even though external experts found our proposal scientifically sound. In 2018, the National Institutes of Health ended our trial to study the health effects of alcohol. The NIH found that officials at one of its institutes had solicited funding from alcohol manufacturers, violating federal policy.

    It’s tempting to assume that because heavy alcohol consumption is very bad, lesser amounts must be at least a little bad. But the science isn’t there, in part because critics of the alcohol industry have deliberately engineered a state of ignorance. They have preemptively discredited any research, even indirectly, by the alcohol industry—even though medicine relies on industry financing to support the large, gold-standard studies that provide conclusive data about drugs and devices that hundreds of millions of Americans take or use daily.

    Scientific evidence about drinking alcohol goes back nearly 100 years—and includes plenty of variability in alcohol’s health effects. In the 1980s and 1990s, for instance, alcohol in moderation, and especially red wine, was touted as healthful. Now the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction that contemporary narratives suggest every ounce of alcohol is dangerous. Until gold-standard experiments are performed, we won’t truly know. In the meantime, we must acknowledge the complexity of existing evidence—and take care not to reduce it to a single, misleading conclusion.

    This article first appeared on The Journalist’s Resource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

    Don’t Forget…

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  • The Whys and Hows of Cutting Meats Out Of Your Diet

    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.

    When it’s time to tell the meat to beat it…

    Meat in general, and red meat and processed meat in particular, have been associated with so many health risks, that it’s very reasonable to want to reduce, if not outright eliminate, our meat consumption.

    First, in case anyone’s wondering “what health risks?”

    The aforementioned culprits tend to turn out to be a villain in the story of every second health-related thing we write about here. To name just a few:

    Seasoned subscribers will know that we rarely go more than a few days without recommending the very science-based Mediterranean Diet which studies find beneficial for almost everything we write about. The Mediterranean Diet isn’t vegetarian per se—by default it consists of mostly plants but does include some fish and a very small amount of meat from land animals. But even that can be improved upon:

    So that’s the “why”; now for the “how”…

    It’s said that with a big enough “why” you can always find a “how”, but let’s make things easy!

    Meatless Mondays

    One of the biggest barriers to many people skipping the meat is “what will we even eat?”

    The idea of “Meatless Mondays” means that this question need only be answered once a week, and in doing that a few Mondays in a row, you’ll soon find you’re gradually building your repertoire of meatless meals, and finding it’s not so difficult after all.

    Then you might want to expand to “meat only on the weekends”, for example.

    Flexitarian

    This can be met with derision, “Yes and I’m teetotal, apart from wine”, but there is a practical aspect here:

    The idea is “I will choose vegetarian options, unless it’s really inconvenient for me to do so”, which wipes out any difficulty involved.

    After doing this for a while, you might find that as you get more used to vegetarian stuff, it’s almost never inconvenient to eat vegetarian.

    Then you might want to expand it to “I will choose vegan options, unless it’s really inconvenient for me to do so”

    Like-for-like substitutions

    Pretty much anything that can come from an animal, one can get a plant-based version of it nowadays. The healthiness (and cost!) of these substitutions can vary, but let’s face it, meat is neither the healthiest nor the cheapest thing out there these days either.

    If you have the money and don’t fancy leaping to lentils and beans, this can be a very quick and easy zero-effort change-over. Then once you’re up and running, maybe you can—at your leisure—see what all the fuss is about when it comes to tasty recipes with lentils and beans!

    That’s all we have time for today, but…

    We’re thinking of doing a piece making your favorite recipes plant-based (how to pick the right substitutions so the meal still tastes and “feels” the same), so let us know if you’d like that? Feel free to mention your favorite foods/meals too, as that’ll help us know what there’s a market for!

    You can do that by hitting reply to any of our emails, or using the handy feedback widget at the bottom!

    Curious to know more while you wait?

    Check out: The Vegan Diet: A Complete Guide for Beginnersthis is a well-sourced article from Healthline, who—just like us—like to tackle important health stuff in an easy-to-read, well-sourced format

    Don’t Forget…

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  • Tasty Tabbouleh with Tahini

    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.

    Tabbouleh is a salad, but it’s not “just a salad”. It’s a special kind of salad that’s as exciting for the tastebuds as it is healthy for the body and brain. Its core ingredients have been traditional for about a dozen generations, and seasonings are always a personal matter (not to mention that Lebanese tabbouleh-makers centuries ago might not have used miso and nooch, as we will today), but the overall feel of the Gestalt of tabbouleh seasonings remains the same, and this recipe is true to that.

    You will need

    For the tabbouleh:

    • 1 cup bulgur wheat
    • 1 cup plum tomatoes, chopped
    • 1 cucumber, peeled and chopped (add the peel to a jug of water and put it in the fridge; this will be refreshing cucumber water later!)
    • 1 cup chickpeas, cooked without salt
    • 1/2 cup parsley, chopped
    • 1/2 cup mint, chopped
    • 2 spring onions, finely chopped
    • 2oz fresh lemon juice
    • 1 tsp white miso paste
    • 1 tsp garlic powder
    • 1 tsp ground cumin
    • 1 tsp ground celery seeds
    • 1 tsp ground nigella seeds
    • 1 tsp ground black pepper
    • 1 tsp MSG, or 1/2 tsp low sodium salt (you can find it in supermarkets, the sodium chloride is cut with potassium chloride to make it have less sodium and more potassium)
    • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast (nooch), ground (it comes in flakes; you will have to grind it in a spice grinder or with a pestle and mortar)

    For the tahini sauce:

    • 3 garlic cloves, crushed
    • 3 tbsp tahini
    • 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
    • 1 tbsp white miso paste
    • 1 tsp ground cumin

    To serve:

    • A generous helping of leafy greens; we recommend collard greens, but whatever works for you is good; just remember that dark green is best. Consider cavolo nero, or even kale if that’s your thing, but to be honest this writer doesn’t love kale
    • 1 tsp coarsely ground nigella seeds
    • Balsamic vinegar, ideally aged balsamic vinegar (this is thicker and sweeter, but unlike most balsamic vinegar reductions, doesn’t have added sugar).

    Method

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

    1) Rinse the bulgur wheat and then soak it in warm water. There is no need to boil it; the warm water is enough to soften it and you don’t need to cook it (bulgur wheat has already been parboiled before it got to you).

    2) While you wait, take a small bowl and mix the rest of the ingredients from the tabbouleh section (so, the lemon juice, miso paste, and all those ground spices and MSG/salt and ground nutritional yeast); you’re making a dressing out of all the ingredients here.

    3) When the bulgur wheat is soft (expect it to take under 15 minutes), drain it and put it in a big bowl. Add the tomatoes, cucumber, chickpeas, parsley, mint, and spring onions. This now technically qualifies as tabbouleh already, but we’re not done.

    4) Add the dressing to the tabbouleh and mix thoroughly but gently (you don’t want to squash the tomatoes, cucumber, etc). Leave it be for at least 15 minutes while the flavors blend.

    5) Take the “For the tahini sauce” ingredients (all of them) and blend them with 4 oz water, until smooth. You’re going to want to drizzle this sauce, so if the consistency is too thick for drizzling, add a little more water and/or lemon juice (per your preference), 1 tbsp at a time.

    6) Roughly chop the leafy greens and put them in a bowl big enough for the tabbouleh to join them there. The greens will serve as a bed for the tabbouleh itself.

    7) Drizzle the tahini over the tabbouleh, and drizzle a little of the aged balsamic vinegar too.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

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

    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

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