Planning Festivities Your Body Won’t Regret

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.

The Festive Dilemma

For many, Christmas is approaching. Other holidays abound too, and even for the non-observant, it’d be hard to escape seasonal jollities entirely.

So, what’s the plan?

  1. Eat, drink, and be merry, and have New Year’s Resolutions for the first few days of January before collapsing in a heap?
  2. Approach the Yuletide with Spartan abstemiousness and miss all the fun while simultaneously annoying your relatives?

Let’s try to find a third approach instead…

What’s festive and healthy?

We’re doing this article this week, because many people will be shopping already, making plans, and so forth. So here are some things to bear in mind:

Make your own mindful choices

Coca-Cola company really did a number on Christmas, but it doesn’t mean their product is truly integral to the season. Same goes for many other things that flood the stores around this time of year. So much sugary confectionary! But remember, they’re not the boss of you. If you wouldn’t buy it ordinarily, why are you buying it now? Do you actually even want it?

If you really do, then you do you, but mindful choices will invariably be healthier than “because there were three additional aisles of confectionary now so I stopped and looked and picked some things”.

Pick your battles

If you’re having a big family gathering, likely there will be occasions with few healthy options available. But you can decide what’s most important for you to avoid, perhaps picking a theme, e.g:

  • No alcohol this year, or
  • No processed sugary foods, or
  • Eat/drink whatever, but practice intermittent fasting

Some resources:

Fight inflammation

This is a big one so it deserves its own category. In the season of sugar and alcohol and fatty meat, inflammation can be a big problem to come around and bite us in the behind. We’ve written on this previously:

Keep Inflammation At Bay

Positive dieting

In other words, less of a focus on what to exclude, and more of a focus on what to include in your diet. Fruity drinks and sweets are common at this time of year, but you know what’s also fruity? Fruit!

And it can be festive, too! Berries are great, and those tiny orange-like fruits that may be called clementines or tangerines or satsumas or, as Aldi would have it, “easy peelers”. Apple and cinnamon are also a great combination that both bring sweetness without needing added sugar.

And as for mains? Make your salads that bit fancier, get plenty of greens with your main, have hearty soups and strews with lentils and beams!

See also: Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)

Your gut will thank us later!

Get moving!

That doesn’t mean you have to beat the New Year rush to the gym (unless you want to!). But it could mean, for example, more time in your walking shoes (or dancing shoes! With a nod to today’s sponsor) and less time in the armchair.

See also: The doctor who wants us to exercise less; move more

Lastly…

Remember it’s supposed to be fun! And being healthy can be a lot more fun than suffering because of unfortunate choices that we come to regret.

Take care!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?
  • Stop Sabotaging Your Gut
    Live less sterile, ditch the antibiotics and rethink probiotics with Dr. Robynne Chutkan’s top gut health practices for real wellness.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Is ADHD Being Over-Diagnosed For Cash?

    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.

    Is ADHD Being Systematically Overdiagnosed?

    The BBC’s investigative “Panorama” program all so recently did a documentary in which one of their journalists—who does not have ADHD—went to three private clinics and got an ADHD diagnosis from each of them:

    So… Is it really a case of show up, pay up, and get a shiny new diagnosis?

    The BBC Panorama producers cherry-picked 3 private providers, and during those clinical assessments, their journalist provided answers that would certainly lead to a diagnosis.

    This was contrasted against a three-hour assessment with an NHS psychiatrist—something that rarely happens in the NHS. Which prompts the question…

    How did he walk into a 3-hour psychiatrist assessment, when most people have to wait in long waiting lists for a much more cursory appointment first with assorted gatekeepers, before going on another long waiting list, for an also-much-shorter appointment with a psychiatrist?

    That would be because the NHS psychiatrist was given advance notification that this was part of an investigation and would be filmed (the private clinics were not gifted the same transparency)

    So, maybe just a tad unequal treatment!

    In case you’re wondering, here’s what that very NHS psychiatrist had to say on the topic:

    Is it really too easy to be diagnosed with ADHD?

    (we’ll give you a hint—remember Betteridge’s Law!)

    ❝Since the documentary aired, I have heard from people concerned that GPs could now be more likely to question legitimate diagnoses.

    But as an NHS psychiatrist it is clear to me that the root of this issue is not overdiagnosis.

    Instead, we are facing the combined challenges of remedying decades of underdiagnosis and NHS services that were set up when there was little awareness of ADHD.❞

    ~ Dr. Mike Smith, Psychiatrist

    The ADHD foundation, meanwhile, has issued its own response, saying:

    ❝We are disappointed that BBC Panorama has opted to broadcast a poorly researched, sensationalist piece of television journalism.❞

    Click here to read their full statement!

    Share This Post

  • Stay off My Operating Table – by Dr. Philip Ovadia

    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.

    With heart disease as the #1 killer worldwide, and 88% of adults being metabolically unhealthy (leading cause of heart disease), this is serious!

    Rather than taking a “quick fix” advise-and-go approach, Dr. Ovadia puts the knowledge and tools in our hands to do better in the long term.

    As a heart surgeon himself, his motto here is:

    ❝What foods to put on your table so you don’t end up on mine❞

    There’s a lot more to this book than the simple “eat the Mediterranean diet”:

    • While the Mediterranean diet is generally considered the top choice for heart health, he also advises on how to eat healthily on all manner of diets… Carnivore, Keto, Paleo, Atkins, Gluten-Free, Vegan, you-name-it.
    • A lot of the book is given to clearing up common misconceptions, things that sounded plausible but are just plain dangerous. This information alone is worth the price of the book, we think.
    • There’s also a section given over to explaining the markers of metabolic health, so you can monitor yourself effectively
    • Rather than one-size-fits-all, he also talks about common health conditions and medications that may change what you need to be doing
    • He also offers advice about navigating the health system to get what you need—including dealing with unhelpful doctors!

    Bottom line: A very comprehensive (yet readable!) manual of heart health.

    Get your copy of Stay Off My Operating Table from Amazon today!

    Share This Post

  • Rehab Science – by Dr. Tom Walters 

    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.

    Many books of this kind deal with the injury but not the pain; some source talk about pain but not the injury; this one does both, and more.

    Dr. Walters discusses in detail the nature of pain, various different kinds of pain, the factors that influence pain, and, of course, how to overcome pain.

    He also takes us on a tour of various different categories of injury, because some require very different treatment than others, and while there are some catch-all “this is good/bad for healing” advices, sometimes what will help with one injury with hinder healing another. So, this information alone would make the book a worthwhile read already.

    After this two-part theory-heavy introduction, the largest part of the book is given over to rehab itself, in a practical fashion.

    We learn about how to make an appropriate rehab plan, get the material things we need for it (if indeed we need material things), and specific protocols to follow for various different body parts and injuries.

    The style is very much that of a textbook, well-formatted and with plenty of illustrations throughout (color is sometimes relevant, so we recommend a print edition over Kindle for this one).

    Bottom line: if you have an injury to heal, or even just believe in being prepared, this book is an excellent guide.

    Click here to check out Rehab Science, to overcome pain and heal from injury!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?
  • A Hospital Kept a Brain-Damaged Patient on Life Support to Boost Statistics. His Sister Is Now Suing for Malpractice.

    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.

    ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

    In 2018, Darryl Young was hoping for a new lease on life when he received a heart transplant at a New Jersey hospital after years of congestive heart failure. But he suffered brain damage during the procedure and never woke up.

    The following year, a ProPublica investigation revealed that Young’s case was part of a pattern of heart transplants that had gone awry at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in 2018. The spate of bad outcomes had pushed the center’s percentage of patients still alive one year after surgery — a key benchmark — below the national average. Medical staff were under pressure to boost that metric. ProPublica published audio recordings from meetings in which staff discussed the need to keep Young alive for a year, because they feared another hit to the program’s survival rate would attract scrutiny from regulators. On the recordings, the transplant program’s director, Dr. Mark Zucker, cautioned his team against offering Young’s family the option of switching from aggressive care to comfort care, in which no lifesaving efforts would be made. He acknowledged these actions were “very unethical.”

    ProPublica’s revelations horrified Young’s sister Andrea Young, who said she was never given the full picture of her brother’s condition, as did the findings of a subsequent federal regulator’s probe that determined that the hospital was putting patients in “immediate jeopardy.” Last month, she filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital and members of her brother’s medical team.

    The lawsuit alleges that Newark Beth Israel staff were “negligent and deviated from accepted standards of practice,” leading to Young’s tragic medical outcome.

    Defendants in the lawsuit haven’t yet filed responses to the complaint in court documents. But spokesperson Linda Kamateh said in an email that “Newark Beth Israel Medical Center is one of the top heart transplant programs in the nation and we are committed to serving our patients with the highest quality of care. As this case is in active litigation, we are unable to provide further detail.” Zucker, who is no longer on staff at Newark Beth Israel, didn’t respond to requests for comment. His attorney also didn’t respond to calls and emails requesting comment.

    Zucker also didn’t respond to requests for comment from ProPublica in 2018; Newark Beth Israel at the time said in a statement, made on behalf of Zucker and other staff, that “disclosures of select portions of lengthy and highly complex medical discussions, when taken out of context, may distort the intent of conversations.”

    The lawsuit alleges that Young suffered brain damage as a result of severely low blood pressure during the transplant surgery. In 2019, when the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services scrutinized the heart transplant program following ProPublica’s investigation, the regulators found that the hospital had failed to implement corrective measures even after patients suffered, leading to further harm. For example, one patient’s kidneys failed after a transplant procedure in August 2018, and medical staff made recommendations internally to increase the frequency of blood pressure measurement during the procedure, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that the hospital didn’t implement its own recommendations and that one month later, “these failures were repeated” in Young’s surgery, leading to brain damage.

    The lawsuit also alleges that Young wasn’t asked whether he had an advance directive, such as a preference for a do-not-resuscitate order, despite a hospital policy stating that patients should be asked at the time of admission. The lawsuit also noted that CMS’ investigation found that Andrea Young was not informed of her brother’s condition.

    Andrea Young said she understands that mistakes can happen during medical procedures, “however, it’s their duty and their responsibility to be honest and let the family know exactly what went wrong.” Young said she had to fight to find out what was going on with her brother, at one point going to the library and trying to study medical books so she could ask the right questions. “I remember as clear as if it were yesterday, being so desperate for answers,” she said.

    Andrea Young said that she was motivated to file the lawsuit because she wants accountability. “Especially with the doctors never, from the outset, being forthcoming and truthful about the circumstances of my brother’s condition, not only is that wrong and unethical, but it took a lot away from our entire family,” she said. “The most important thing to me is that those responsible be held accountable.”

    ProPublica’s revelation of “a facility putting its existence over that of a patient is a scary concept,” said attorney Jonathan Lomurro, who’s representing Andrea Young in this case with co-counsel Christian LoPiano. Besides seeking damages for Darryl Young’s children, “we want to call attention to this so it doesn’t happen again,” Lomurro said.

    The lawsuit further alleges that medical staff at Newark Beth Israel invaded Young’s privacy and violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more commonly known as HIPAA, by sharing details of his case with the media without his permission. “We want people to be whistleblowers and want information out,” but that information should be told to patients and their family members directly, Lomurro said.

    The 2019 CMS investigation determined that Newark Beth Israel’s program placed patients in “immediate jeopardy,” the most serious level of violation, and required the hospital to implement corrective plans. Newark Beth Israel did not agree with all of the regulator’s findings and in a statement at the time said that the CMS team lacked the “evidence, expertise and experience” to assess and diagnose patient outcomes.

    The hospital did carry out the corrective plans and continues to operate a heart transplant program today. The most recent federal data, based on procedures from January 2021 through June 2023, shows that the one year probability of survival for a patient at Newark Beth is lower than the national average. It also shows that the number of graft failures, including deaths, in that time period was higher than the expected number of deaths for the program.

    Andrea Young said she’s struggled with a feeling of emptiness in the years after her brother’s surgery. They were close and called each other daily. “There’s nothing in the world that can bring my brother back, so the only solace I will have is for the ones responsible to be held accountable,” she said. Darryl Young died on Sept 12, 2022, having never woken up after the transplant surgery.

    A separate medical malpractice lawsuit filed in 2020 by the wife of another Newark Beth Israel heart transplant patient who died after receiving an organ infected with a parasitic disease is ongoing. The hospital has denied the allegations in court filing. The state of New Jersey, employer of the pathologists named in the case, settled for $1.7 million this month, according to the plaintiff’s attorney Christian LoPiano. The rest of the case is ongoing.

    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:

  • The Not-So-Sweet Science Of Sugar Addiction

    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.

    One Lump Mechanism Of Addiction Or Two?

    In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you to what extent, if any, you believe sugar is addictive; we got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

    • About 47% said “Sugar is chemically addictive, comparable to alcohol”
    • About 34% said “Sugar is chemically addictive, comparable to cocaine”
    • About 11% said “Sugar is not addictive; that’s just excuse-finding hyperbole”
    • About 9% said “Sugar is a behavioral addiction, comparable to video gaming”

    So what does the science say?

    Sugar is not addictive; that’s just excuse-finding hyperbole: True or False?

    False, by broad scientific consensus. As ever, the devil’s in the details definitions, but while there is still discussion about how best to categorize the addiction, the scientific consensus as a whole is generally: sugar is addictive.

    That doesn’t mean scientists* are a hive mind, and so there will be some who disagree, but most papers these days are looking into the “hows” and “whys” and “whats” of sugar addiction, not the “whether”.

    *who are also, let us remember, a diverse group including chemists, neurobiologists, psychologists, social psychologists, and others, often collaborating in multidisciplinary teams, each with their own focus of research.

    Here’s what the Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies has to say, for example:

    Sugar Addiction: More Serious Than You Think

    Sugar is a chemical addiction, comparable to alcohol: True or False?

    True, broadly, with caveats—for this one, the crux lies in “comparable to”, because the neurology of the addiction is similar, even if many aspects of it chemically are not.

    In both cases, sugar triggers the release of dopamine while also (albeit for different chemical reasons) having a “downer” effect (sugar triggers the release of opioids as well as dopamine).

    Notably, the sociology and psychology of alcohol and sugar addictions are also similar (both addictions are common throughout different socioeconomic strata as a coping mechanism seeking an escape from emotional pain).

    See for example in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs:

    Sweet Preference, Sugar Addiction and the Familial History of Alcohol Dependence: Shared Neural Pathways and Genes

    On the other hand, withdrawal symptoms from heavy long-term alcohol abuse can kill, while withdrawal symptoms from sugar are very much milder. So there’s also room to argue that they’re not comparable on those grounds.

    Sugar is a chemical addiction, comparable to cocaine: True or False?

    False, broadly. There are overlaps! For example, sugar drives impulsivity to seek more of the substance, and leads to changes in neurobiological brain function which alter emotional states and subsequent behaviours:

    The impact of sugar consumption on stress driven, emotional and addictive behaviors

    However!

    Cocaine triggers a release of dopamine (as does sugar), but cocaine also acts directly on our brain’s ability to remove dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine:

    The Neurobiology of Cocaine Addiction

    …meaning that in terms of comparability, they (to use a metaphor now, not meaning this literally) both give you a warm feeling, but sugar does it by turning up the heating a bit whereas cocaine does it by locking the doors and burning down the house. That’s quite a difference!

    Sugar is a behavioral addiction, comparable to video gaming: True or False?

    True, with the caveat that this a “yes and” situation.

    There are behavioral aspects of sugar addiction that can reasonably be compared to those of video gaming, e.g. compulsion loops, always the promise of more (without limiting factors such as overdosing), anxiety when the addictive element is not accessible for some reason, reduction of dopaminergic sensitivity leading to a craving for more, etc. Note that the last is mentioning a chemical but the mechanism itself is still behavioral, not chemical per se.

    So, yes, it’s a behavioral addiction [and also arguably chemical in the manners we’ve described earlier in this article].

    For science for this, we refer you back to:

    The impact of sugar consumption on stress driven, emotional and addictive behaviors

    Want more?

    You might want to check out:

    Beating Food Addictions: When It’s More Than “Just” Cravings

    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:

  • Eating Disorders: More Varied (And Prevalent) Than People Think

    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.

    Disordered Eating Beyond The Stereotypes

    Around 10% of Americans* have (or have had) an eating disorder. That might not seem like a high percentage, but that’s one in ten; do you know 10 people? If so, it might be a topic that’s near to you.

    *Source: Social and economic cost of eating disorders in the United States of Americ

    Our hope is that even if you yourself have never had such a problem in your life, today’s article will help arm you with knowledge. You never know who in your life might need your support.

    Very misunderstood

    Eating disorders are so widely misunderstood in so many ways that we nearly made this a Friday Mythbusting edition—but we preface those with a poll that we hope to be at least somewhat polarizing or provide a spectrum of belief. In this case, meanwhile, there’s a whole cluster of myths that cannot be summed up in one question. So, here we are doing a Psychology Sunday edition instead.

    “Eating disorders aren’t that important”

    Eating disorders are the second most deadly category of mental illness, second only to opioid addiction.

    Anorexia specifically has the highest case mortality rate of any mental illness:

    Source: National Association of Anorexia Nervosa & Associated Disorders: Eating Disorder Statistics

    So please, if someone needs help with an eating disorder (including if it’s you), help them.

    “Eating disorders are for angsty rebellious teens”

    While there’s often an element of “this is the one thing I can control” to some eating disorders (including anorexia and bulimia), eating disorders very often present in early middle-age, very often amongst busy career-driven individuals using it as a coping mechanism to have a feeling of control in their hectic lives.

    13% of women over 50 report current core eating disorder symptoms, and that is probably underreported.

    Source: as above; scroll to near the bottom!

    “Eating disorders are a female thing”

    Nope. Officially, men represent around 25% of people diagnosed with eating disorders, but women are 5x more likely to get diagnosed, so you can do the math there. Women are also 1.5% more likely to receive treatment for it.

    By the time men do get diagnosed, they’ve often done a lot more damage to their bodies because they, as well as other people, have overlooked the possibility of their eating being disordered, due to the stereotype of it being a female thing.

    Source: as above again!

    “Eating disorders are about body image”

    They can be, but that’s far from the only kind!

    Some can be about control of diet, not just for the sake of controlling one’s body, but purely for the sake of controlling the diet itself.

    Still yet others can be not about body image or control, like “Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder”, which in lay terms sometimes gets dismissed as “being a picky eater” or simply “losing one’s appetite”, but can be serious.

    For example, a common presentation of the latter might be a person who is racked with guilt and/or anxiety, and simply stops eating, because either they don’t feel they deserve it, or “how can I eat at a time like this, when…?” but the time is an ongoing thing so their impromptu fast is too.

    Still yet even more others might be about trying to regulate emotions by (in essence) self-medicating with food—not in the healthy “so eat some fruit and veg and nuts etc” sense, but in the “Binge-Eating Disorder” sense.

    And that latter accounts for a lot of adults.

    You can read more about these things here:

    Psychology Today | Types of Eating Disorder ← it’s pop-science, but it’s a good overview

    Take care! And if you have, or think you might have, an eating disorder, know that there are organizations that can and will offer help/support in a non-judgmental fashion. Here’s the ANAD’s eating disorder help resource page, for example.

    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: