Feel The Difference: Mobility Mistakes That Are Making You Tighter
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Marina Sarenac, mobility coach, shows us how to do it better:
It makes a big difference
Some common mistakes and their solutions:
- Stretching too aggressively: forcing a stretch can trigger your body’s protective response so your muscles tighten instead of relaxing.
- Frog hip rock: sounds like a music genre, but instead is an exercise whereby you sit on the floor in a frog position with your knees aligned with your hips and your feet turned outward, lower onto your elbows with a natural spine, slowly push your hips backwards without rotating them or rounding your lower back, pause briefly at your deepest stretch, then return.
- Foam roller thoracic extension: lie on your stomach with a foam roller in front of you and your hands resting on it, move your hands closer towards your body to lift your chest into a back extension while maintaining pressure on the roller, then raise one arm near your ear and then the other without letting your torso collapse, before lowering and relaxing.
- Only passive stretching: holding stretches without activation doesn’t teach your nervous system to use that range, so your body doesn’t maintain the mobility.
- Seated hip activation with kettlebells: sit with your feet close to your hips and let your knees fall outward, place kettlebells on your legs, keep your posture upright, then slowly lift and lower your legs to activate your hips (while maintaining the stretch).
- Lunge rotation with kettlebell: step into a lunge with both knees at about 90° and a neutral spine, place a kettlebell on the shoulder opposite your front leg, rotate your torso while pressing the kettlebell upward with your arm close to your ear, keep your hips stable, and move slowly.
- Skipping progression levels: jumping directly into advanced stretches can make your body defensive because it isn’t prepared for the range.
- Start at “too easy”: it’s fine to do something that’s too easy first, just progress little by little, and you’ll find where it stops being easy; work onwards from there.
- Ignoring strength: tight muscles sometimes reflect weakness rather than shortness, so your body resists relaxing in positions where it doesn’t feel strong.
- Dumbbell hip hinge: hold dumbbells in front of your body with your feet about shoulder-width apart and your spine neutral, push your hips backwards while your torso leans forwards with a slight knee bend, go only as far as you can without rounding your back, briefly hold the bottom position, then return to an upright position.
- Cable lunge rotation: step into a lunge with both knees around 90° and a neutral spine, hold a cable handle in the same hand as your front leg, rotate your torso towards that side while keeping your hips and front leg stable, and keep your elbow close to your body throughout the movement.
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:
Why Stretching Doesn’t Work After 50 (Unless You Fix These 3 Mistakes)
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Three Daily Servings of Beans?
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Not crazy about the Dr.s food advice. Beans 3X a day?❞
For reference, this is in response to our recent article on the topic of 12 things to aim to get a certain amount of each day:
So, there are a couple of things to look at here:
Firstly, don’t worry, it’s a guideline and an aim. If you don’t hit it on a given day, there is always tomorrow. It’s just good to know what one is aiming for, because without knowing that, achieving it will be a lot less likely!
Secondly, the beans/legumes/pulses category says three servings, but the example serving sizes are quite small, e.g. ½ cup cooked beans, or ¼ cup hummus. And also as you notice, dips/pastes/sauces made from beans count too. So given the portion sizes, you could easily get two servings in by breakfast (and two servings of whole grains, too) if you enjoy frijoles refritos, for example. Many of the recipes we share on this site have “stealth” beans/legumes/pulses in this fashion
Take care!
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What happens to your vagina as you age?
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The vagina is an internal organ with a complex ecosystem, influenced by circulating hormone levels which change during the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause.
Around and after menopause, there are normal changes in the growth and function of vaginal cells, as well as the vagina’s microbiome (groups of bacteria living in the vagina). Many women won’t notice these changes. They don’t usually cause symptoms or concern, but if they do, symptoms can usually be managed.
Here’s what happens to your vagina as you age, whether you notice or not.
Let’s clear up the terminology
We’re focusing on the vagina, the muscular tube that goes from the external genitalia (the vulva), past the cervix, to the womb (uterus). Sometimes the word “vagina” is used to include the external genitalia. However, these are different organs and play different roles in women’s health.
What happens to the vagina as you age?
Like many other organs in the body, the vagina is sensitive to female sex steroid hormones (hormones) that change around puberty, pregnancy and menopause.
Menopause is associated with a drop in circulating oestrogen concentrations and the hormone progesterone is no longer produced. The changes in hormones affect the vagina and its ecosystem. Effects may include:
- less vaginal secretions, potentially leading to dryness
- less growth of vagina surface cells resulting in a thinned lining
- alteration to the support structure (connective tissue) around the vagina leading to less elasticity and more narrowing
- fewer blood vessels around the vagina, which may explain less blood flow after menopause
- a shift in the type and balance of bacteria, which can change vaginal acidity, from more acidic to more alkaline.
What symptoms can I expect?
Many women do not notice any bothersome vaginal changes as they age. There’s also little evidence many of these changes cause vaginal symptoms. For example, there is no direct evidence these changes cause vaginal infection or bleeding in menopausal women.
Some women notice vaginal dryness after menopause, which may be linked to less vaginal secretions. This may lead to pain and discomfort during sex. But it’s not clear how much of this dryness is due to menopause, as younger women also commonly report it. In one study, 47% of sexually active postmenopausal women reported vaginal dryness, as did around 20% of premenopausal women.
Other organs close to the vagina, such as the bladder and urethra, are also affected by the change in hormone levels after menopause. Some women experience recurrent urinary tract infections, which may cause pain (including pain to the side of the body) and irritation. So their symptoms are in fact not coming from the vagina itself but relate to changes in the urinary tract.
Not everyone has the same experience
Women vary in whether they notice vaginal changes and whether they are bothered by these to the same extent. For example, women with vaginal dryness who are not sexually active may not notice the change in vaginal secretions after menopause. However, some women notice severe dryness that affects their daily function and activities.
In fact, researchers globally are taking more notice of women’s experiences of menopause to inform future research. This includes prioritising symptoms that matter to women the most, such as vaginal dryness, discomfort, irritation and pain during sex.
If symptoms bother you
Symptoms such as dryness, irritation, or pain during sex can usually be effectively managed. Lubricants may reduce pain during sex. Vaginal moisturisers may reduce dryness. Both are available over-the-counter at your local pharmacy.
While there are many small clinical trials of individual products, these studies lack the power to demonstrate if they are really effective in improving vaginal symptoms.
In contrast, there is robust evidence that vaginal oestrogen is effective in treating vaginal dryness and reducing pain during sex. It also reduces your chance of recurrent urinary tract infections. You can talk to your doctor about a prescription.
Vaginal oestrogen is usually inserted using an applicator, two to three times a week. Very little is absorbed into the blood stream, it is generally safe but longer-term trials are required to confirm safety in long-term use beyond a year.
Women with a history of breast cancer should see their oncologist to discuss using oestrogen as it may not be suitable for them.
Are there other treatments?
New treatments for vaginal dryness are under investigation. One avenue relates to our growing understanding of how the vaginal microbiome adapts and modifies around changes in circulating and local concentrations of hormones.
For example, a small number of reports show that combining vaginal probiotics with low-dose vaginal oestrogen can improve vaginal symptoms. But more evidence is needed before this is recommended.
Where to from here?
The normal ageing process, as well as menopause, both affect the vagina as we age.
Most women do not have troublesome vaginal symptoms during and after menopause, but for some, these may cause discomfort or distress.
While hormonal treatments such as vaginal oestrogen are available, there is a pressing need for more non-hormonal treatments.
Dr Sianan Healy, from Women’s Health Victoria, contributed to this article.
Louie Ye, Clinical Fellow, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The University of Melbourne and Martha Hickey, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, The University of Melbourne
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Put Crohn’s Disease Into Remission!
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
No question/request too big or small 😎
❝What to eat for Crohns Disease? I keep getting Doctors telling me different things❞
Frustrating, isn’t it? Doctors are usually more knowledgeable about drugs than they are about nutrition, of course.
First, it’s important to address the overlap between Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, and IBS in general. These things can often get diagnosed as each other, and while some advice stays the same for each, some differs. For example, probiotics have been found effective against symptoms of IBS and ulcerative colitis, but not Crohn’s:
- Probiotics for induction of remission in Crohn’s disease
- Probiotics in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: An Up-to-Date Systematic Review
- The role of probiotics in the prevention and treatment of IBS and other related diseases: a systematic review of randomized human clinical trials
- Safety and Potential Role of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG Administration as Monotherapy in Ulcerative Colitis Patients
Diet-specific matters
You asked about diet more generally though, and probiotics are of course only a small part of diet (one cannot live on kimchi alone), so let’s turn next to a closely related dietary matter, that is: fiber
For most people in most states of health, more fiber is usually better than less. With Crohn’s disease, the amount of fiber often needs to be limited
…and unfortunately, that changes everything, in terms of a whole-foods majority plant-based diet.
What stays the same:
- You still ideally want to eat a lot of plants
- You definitely want to avoid meat and dairy in general
- Eating fish is still usually* fine, same with eggs
- Get plenty of water
What needs to change:
- Consider swapping grains for potatoes or pasta (at least: avoid grains unless you’re really sure you’ll be fine after them)
- Peel vegetables that are peelable; discard the peel or use it to make stock
- Consider steaming fruit and veg for easier digestion
- Skip spicy foods (moderate spices, like ginger, turmeric, and black pepper, are usually fine in moderation)
Much of this latter list is opposite to the advice for people without Crohn’s Disease.
*A good practice, by the way, is to keep a food journal. There are apps that you can get for free, or you can do it the old-fashioned way on paper if prefer.
But the important part is: make a note not just of what you ate, but also of how you felt afterwards. That way, you can start to get a picture of patterns, and what’s working (or not) for you, and build up a more personalized set of guidelines than anyone else could give to you.
Fast-mimicking diet
This is where our headline came from, because in a medium-sized (n=97) study, this dietary approach enabled 64.6% to achieve remission over the course of a 3-month study. As well as symptom-based remission, key inflammatory biomarkers dropped too, including fecal calprotectin, along with reductions in inflammatory lipids and immune signaling.
While that latter item (“immune signaling”) sounds like an almost-empty add-on, it’s actually perhaps the most critical, bearing in mind that macrophages are part of the immune system, specialist white blood cells that “eat” things that need to be removed. There are two kinds, inflammatory and non-inflammatory. The former aggressively “eat” invaders. The latter are more like cellular janitors.
In Crohn’s disease, the balance of these two kinds of macrophage becomes imbalanced, and guess which kind goes on the rampage. If you guessed “not the janitors”, you guessed correctly.
As for why this happens: in a healthy gut, NOD2 gene binds to girdin in non-inflammatory macrophages, helping them suppress inflammation and promote tissue repair. The most common Crohn’s-linked mutation deletes the part of NOD2 that connects to girdin, disrupting this balance and allowing chronic inflammation to take over.
So, correct the signaling, and you correct the rampage!
But how to do that?
What the diet involved: participants ate a very low-calorie (about 700–1,100 kcal/day), plant-based diet for 5 consecutive days each month, then returned to their normal diet for the rest of the month.
The good news is you should know if it’s working quite quickly, because improvements were seen after just one 5-day cycle, looking promising with rather quick-to-appear benefits.
You can find the paper itself, here: A fasting-mimicking diet in patients with mild-to-moderate Crohn’s disease: a randomized controlled trial
Want to learn more?
We did a main feature about this diet (for other reasons) a while back: The Fast-Mimicking Diet
The expert featured in that article, Dr. Valter Longo, is the same “V. D. Longo” that you’ll see in amongst the “et al.” of the paper we linked above, and he’s also written some books you might like:
- The Longevity Diet: Discover The New Science To Slow Aging, Fight Disease, And Manage Your Weight – by Dr. Valter Longo
- Fasting Cancer:How Fasting and Nutritechnology Are Creating a Revolution in Cancer Prevention and Treatment – by Dr. Valter Longo
Take care!
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“4-Ingredient 10-Minute Bread” That’s High-Protein, High-Fiber, Gluten-Free
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.
Dr. Rupy Aujla, “The Kitchen Doctor”, shows us how:
Give us this day our daily bread…
By our counting, the four ingredients are:
- Flax
- Chia
- Psyllium
- Sunflowerseedswatersaltextravirginoliveoil
But we’ll let him off, because it is good:
- Flax: provides soluble fiber and omega-3 fats that are associated with lower inflammation and improved cholesterol markers, supporting cardiovascular health.
- Chia: soaked chia forms a gel that slows carbohydrate absorption, helping stabilize blood sugar and keeping you fuller for longer.
- Psyllium: absorbs water to form a gel that improves stool consistency and movement through your gut, with strong evidence showing effectiveness for constipation relief.
- Sunflower seeds: whole seeds add texture that increase chewing, which can improve digestion signals and has numerous benefits of its own.
Further, the combination of soluble fibers (flax, chia, psyllium) acts as prebiotics that support beneficial gut bacteria and digestive function.
To see how he makes it, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
- Healthy Homemade Flatbreads ← a different healthy bread recipe of ours, if you prefer things in text
- Delicious Quinoa Avocado Bread ← another one, also in text
- Why Psyllium Is Healthy Through-And-Through
- The Tiniest Seeds With The Most Value: If You’re Not Taking Chia, You’re Missing Out ← update since writing this article, this writer just bought 5kg of chia seeds because they’re a lot cheaper in bulk!
Enjoy 😋
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Gum disease, decay, missing teeth: why people with mental illness have poorer oral health
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People with poor mental health face many challenges. One that’s perhaps lesser known is that they’re more likely than the overall population to have poor oral health.
Research has shown people with serious mental illness are four times more likely than the general population to have gum disease. They’re nearly three times more likely to have lost all their teeth due to problems such as gum disease and tooth decay.
Serious mental illnesses include major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. These conditions affect about 800,000 Australians.
People living with schizophrenia have, on average, eight more teeth that are decayed, missing or filled than the general population.
So why does this link exist? And what can we do to address the problem?
mihailomilovanovic/Getty Images Why is this a problem?
Oral health problems are expensive to fix and can make it hard for people to eat, socialise, work or even just smile.
What’s more, dental issues can land people in hospital. Our research shows dental conditions are the third most common reason for preventable hospital admissions among people with serious mental illness.
Meanwhile, poor oral health is linked with long-term health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, and even cognitive problems. This is because the bacteria associated with gum diseases can cause inflammation throughout the body, which affects other systems in the body.
Why are mental health and oral health linked?
Poor mental and oral health share common risk factors. Social factors such as isolation, unemployment and housing insecurity can worsen both oral and mental health.
For example, unemployment increases the risk of oral disease. This can be due to financial difficulties, reduced access to oral health care, or potential changes to diet and hygiene practices.
At the same time, oral disease can increase barriers to finding employment, due to stigma, discrimination, dental pain and associated long-term health conditions.
It’s clear the relationship between oral health and mental health goes both ways. Dental disease can reduce self-esteem and increase psychological distress. Meanwhile, symptoms of mental health conditions, such as low motivation, can make engaging in good oral health practices, including brushing, flossing, and visiting the dentist, more difficult.
And like many people, those with serious mental illness can experience significant anxiety about going to the dentist. They may also have experienced trauma in the past, which can make visiting a dental clinic a frightening experience.
Separately, poor oral health can be made worse by some medications for mental health conditions. Certain medications can interfere with saliva production, reducing the protective barrier that covers the teeth. Some may also increase sugar cravings, which heightens the risk of tooth decay.
Some medications people take for mental health conditions can affect oral health. Gladskikh Tatiana/Shutterstock Our research
In a recent study, we interviewed young people with mental illness. Our findings show the significant personal costs of dental disease among people with mental illness, and highlight the relationship between oral and mental health.
Smiling is one of our best ways to communicate, but we found people with serious mental illness were sometimes embarrassed and ashamed to smile due to poor oral health.
One participant told us:
[poor oral health is] not only [about] the physical aspects of restricting how you eat, but it’s also about your mental health in terms of your self-esteem, your self-confidence, and basic wellbeing, which sort of drives me to become more isolated.
Another said:
for me, it was that serious fear of – God my teeth are looking really crap, and in the past they’ve [dental practitioners] asked, “Hey, you’ve missed this spot; what’s happening?”. How do I explain to them, hey, I’ve had some really shitty stuff happening and I have a very serious episode of depression?
What can we do?
Another of our recent studies focused on improving oral health awareness and behaviours among young adults experiencing mental health difficulties. We found a brief online oral health education program improved participants’ oral health knowledge and attitudes.
Improving oral health can result in improved mental wellbeing, self-esteem and quality of life. But achieving this isn’t always easy.
Limited Medicare coverage for dental care means oral diseases are frequently treated late, particularly among people with mental illness. By this time, more invasive treatments, such as removal of teeth, are often required.
It’s crucial the health system takes a holistic approach to caring for people experiencing serious mental illness. That means we have mental health staff who ask questions about oral health, and dental practitioners who are trained to manage the unique oral health needs of people with serious mental illness.
It also means increasing government funding for oral health services – promotion, prevention and improved interdisciplinary care. This includes better collaboration between oral health, mental health, and peer and informal support sectors.
Bonnie Clough, Senior Lecturer, School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University; Amanda Wheeler, Professor of Mental Health, Griffith University; Caroline Victoria Robertson, Research Fellow, Griffith Research Centre for Mental Health, Griffith University; Santosh Tadakamadla, Professor & Head of Dentistry and Oral Health, La Trobe University, and Steve Kisely, Professor, School of Medicine, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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New Alzheimer’s Test Makes Diagnoses 94.5% Accurate
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We’ve written before about early Alzheimer’s screening by means of blood tests:
So, what’s the latest?
Protein P-Tau217 has something to say
Researchers (Dr. Sara Matarranz-González et al.) followed 200 consecutive new patients aged 50 and older with adverse cognitive symptoms to test whether adding a blood biomarker (p-tau217) improves Alzheimer’s diagnosis in routine clinical settings.
In few words: elevated levels of this protein in the blood are one of the most accurate early warning signs of Alzheimer’s.
What it actually is: phosphorylated tau 217 (so, p-tau217) is a form of tau protein that becomes abnormally modified and forms tangles in the brain, inconveniently disrupting communication between neurons, and/but conveniently serving as a highly accurate biomarker of the underlying Alzheimer’s pathology (and thus, a top-tier diagnostic clue).
We wrote a bit about tau tangles before, here: Spermine vs Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s!
As for the accuracy of p-tau217 test results as a predictor of Alzheimer’s disease, accuracy rose from 75.5% using standard clinical evaluation alone to 94.5% accuracy after incorporating p-tau217 blood test results.
For those who like more detailed numbers:
- Confidence levels: neurologists’ average diagnostic confidence increased from 6.90 ± 1.74 to 8.49 ± 1.68 on a 10-point scale after seeing the biomarker data.
- Clinical findings: benefits were seen in both general neurology clinics and specialized memory units, and across all stages—subjective cognitive complaints (38.5%), mild cognitive impairment (47.5%), and dementia (14%).
- Agreement stats: pre-biomarker diagnoses matched final diagnoses in 71 of 200 cases (75.5%, kappa = 0.576), while post-biomarker diagnoses matched in 189 of 200 cases (94.5%, kappa = 0.906).
About that “kappa”: this is about Cohen’s kappa coefficient, a statistical measure of agreement. And in this case…
- Pre-biomarker diagnosis: kappa = 0.576, which indicates moderate agreement.
- Post-biomarker diagnosis: kappa = 0.906, which indicates almost perfect agreement.
So in other words, after adding the p-tau217 blood test, doctors’ diagnoses didn’t just improve in percentage accuracy, they also aligned much more strongly with the final confirmed diagnosis, far beyond what would be expected by chance.
And as for how much difference all this makes in real-world terms, 51 out of 200 patients had their diagnostic category changed after clinicians reviewed the p-tau217 results, correcting both false positives and missed Alzheimer’s cases.
In summary, a simple blood test for p-tau217 can provide a more accessible, less invasive alternative to expensive brain scans or deeply unpleasant spinal taps, improving early and accurate Alzheimer’s diagnosis and with it, improving people’s chances of getting a head start on managing the condition.
You can read the paper in full, here: Impact of blood p-tau217 testing on diagnosis and diagnostic confidence in cognitive disorders: a real-world clinical study
Want something more accessible than the latest blood tests?
People often forget and/or get confused about what the signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s are, especially when it comes to forgetting and/or getting confused.
For example, dementia-related memory loss is less “where did I put my car keys?”, and more“what is this thing for?” (it’s your car keys). Or at a less advanced stage: “whose are these car keys?” (they are yours).
To learn more about this sort of distinction, see:
Is It Dementia? Spot The Signs (Because None Of Us Are Immune) ← If you’d like an objective test of memory and other cognitive impairments, this article also has a link to the industry’s gold standard test (it’s free)
(The Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam (SAGE) is designed to detect early signs of cognitive, memory or thinking impairments)
Want to learn more?
For a much more in-depth coverage of the topic of Alzheimer’s treatment on the level of the personal rather than the molecular, you might like this excellent book we reviewed a while back:
…and if you just want to reduce your risk, then check out:
Take care!
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