Glycemic Index vs Glycemic Load vs Insulin Index

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How To Actually Use Those Indices

Carbohydrates are essential for our life, and/but often bring about our early demise. It would be a very conveniently simple world if it were simply a matter of “enjoy in moderation”, but the truth is, it’s not that simple.

To take an extreme example, for the sake of clearest illustration: The person who eats an 80% whole fruit diet (and makes up the necessary protein and fats etc in the other 20%) will probably be healthier than the person who eats a “standard American diet”, despite not practising moderation in their fruit-eating activities. The “standard American diet” has many faults, and one of those faults is how it promotes sporadic insulin spikes leading to metabolic disease.

If your breakfast is a glass of orange juice, this is a supremely “moderate” consumption, but an insulin spike is an insulin spike.

Quick sidenote: if you’re wondering why eating immoderate amounts of fruit is unlikely to cause such spikes, but a single glass of orange juice is, check out:

Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

Glycemic Index

The first tool in our toolbox here is glycemic index, or GI.

GI measures how much a carb-containing food raises blood glucose levels, also called blood sugar levels, but it’s just glucose that’s actually measured, bearing in mind that more complex carbs will generally get broken down to glucose.

Pure glucose has a GI of 100, and other foods are ranked from 0 to 100 based on how they compare.

Sometimes, what we do to foods changes its GI.

  • Some is because it changed form, like the above example of whole fruit (low GI) vs fruit juice (high GI).
  • Some is because of more “industrial” refinement processes, such as whole grain wheat (medium GI) vs white flour and white flour products (high GI)
  • Some is because of other changes, like starches that were allowed to cool before being reheated (or eaten cold).

Broadly speaking, a daily average GI of 45 is considered great.

But that’s not the whole story…

Glycemic Load

Glycemic Load, or GL, takes the GI and says “ok, but how much of it was there?”, because this is often relevant information.

Refined sugar may have a high GI, but half a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee isn’t going to move your blood sugar levels as much as a glass of Coke, say—the latter simply has more sugar in, and just the same zero fiber.

GL is calculated by (grams of carbs / 100) x GI, by the way.

But it still misses some important things, so now let’s look at…

Insulin Index

Insulin Index, which does not get an abbreviation (probably because of the potentially confusing appearance of “II”), measures the rise in insulin levels, regardless of glucose levels.

This is important, because a lot of insulin response is independent of blood glucose:

  • Some is because of other sugars, some some is in response to fats, and yes, even proteins.
  • Some is a function of metabolic base rate.
  • Some is a stress response.
  • Some remains a mystery!

Another reason it’s important is that insulin drives weight gain and metabolic disorders far more than glucose.

Note: the indices of foods are calculated based on average non-diabetic response. If for example you have Type 1 Diabetes, then when you take a certain food, your rise in insulin is going to be whatever insulin you then take, because your body’s insulin response is disrupted by being too busy fighting a civil war in your pancreas.

If your diabetes is type 2, or you are prediabetic, then a lot of different things could happen depending on the stage and state of your diabetes, but the insulin index is still a very good thing to be aware of, because you want to resensitize your body to insulin, which means (barring any urgent actions for immediate management of hyper- or hypoglycemia, obviously) you want to eat foods with a low insulin index where possible.

Great! What foods have a low insulin index?

Many factors affect insulin index, but to speak in general terms:

  • Whole plant foods are usually top-tier options
  • Lean and/or white meats generally have lower insulin index than red and/or fatty ones
  • Unprocessed is generally lower than processed
  • The more solid a food is, generally the lower its insulin index compared to a less solid version of the same food (e.g. baked potatoes vs mashed potatoes; cheese vs milk, etc)

But do remember the non-food factors too! This means where possible:

  • reducing/managing stress
  • getting frequent exercise
  • getting good sleep
  • practising intermittent fasting

See for example (we promise you it’s relevant):

Fix Chronic Fatigue & Regain Your Energy, By Science

…as are (especially recommendable!) the two links we drop at the bottom of that page; do check them out if you can

Take care!

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  • The Medicinal Properties Of Bay Leaves

    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 humble bay leaf has more uses than just culinary!

    How about for hair growth?

    Popularly recommended on social media with the promise of long and glowing hair… Guess how many scientific studies back up this claim!

    If you guessed zero, you guessed correctly. At least, we were not able to find any. In fact, the only paper on the entirety of PubMed (a large online database of available scientific literature from most, if not all, reputable scientific journals) to return a hit for the search string “bay leaf hair growth” was this one:

    Suppression of Propionibacterium acnes-Induced Skin Inflammation by Laurus nobilis Extract and Its Major Constituent Eucalyptol

    You may notice that that has nothing to do with hair growth, and rather returned the hit because the acne bacteria are known to “proliferate within sebum-blocked skin hair follicles”.

    So let’s talk about that instead:

    Against acne & skin inflammation

    Well, for that, it works! The research that we mentioned above concluded that:

    ❝LNE significantly suppressed the expression of P. acnes-mediated proinflammatory cytokines, such as IL-1β, IL-6, and NLRP3. We also found that LNE inhibited the inflammatory transcription factor NF-κB in response to P. acnes. In addition, eucalyptol, which is the main constituent of LNE, consistently inhibited P. acnes-induced inflammatory signaling pathways. Moreover, LNE significantly ameliorated P. acnes-induced inflammation in a mouse model of acne. We suggest for the first time that LNE hold therapeutic value for the improvement of P. acnes-induced skin inflammation.❞

    LNE = Laurus nobilis extract, i.e. bay leaf extract

    Now, that’s all about acne-induced skin inflammation, but what about other kinds?

    Against inflammation in general

    Bay leaves have an abundance of antioxidant polyphenols, and what’s good against oxidation is good against inflammation. For example:

    Laurus nobilis leaf extract controls inflammation by suppressing NLRP3 inflammasome activation

    That anti-inflammatory action is more than skin-deep though, because…

    Against IBD / ulcerative colitis

    It’s good for the gut, too, for example in this study (with mice, but the bacteria affected are the same as we have), which found:

    ❝…bay leaves showed the best treatment effects on gut microbiota compositions; promoting the growth of Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus in addition to producing high butyric acid levels. Meanwhile, the number of Clostridium and sulfate-reducing bacteria was significantly reduced. Conclusively, consuming bay leaves brought significant colon health benefits other than stimulating appetite for a better taste.❞

    Read in full: Anti‐inflammatory effects of bay laurel (Laurus nobilis L.) towards the gut microbiome in dextran sodium sulfate induced colitis animal models

    Note that all of those gut-related changes are beneficial to us, increasing things that are best increased, and reducing things that are best reduced.

    Against diabetes

    It’s good for the blood—and for the heart, but more on that later. First, about diabetes:

    ❝All three levels of bay leaves reduced serum glucose with significant decreases ranging from 21 to 26% after 30 d.

    Total cholesterol decreased, 20 to 24%, after 30 days with larger decreases in low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol of 32 to 40%. High density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol increased 29 and 20% in the groups receiving 1 and 2 g of bay leaves, respectively. Triglycerides also decreased 34 and 25% in groups consuming 1 and 2 g of bay leaves, respectively, after 30 d. There were no significant changes in the placebo group.

    In summary, this study demonstrates that consumption of bay leaves, 1 to 3 g/d for 30 days, decreases risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases and suggests that bay leaves may be beneficial for people with type 2 diabetes.❞

    Again, all those changes are good:

    Bay Leaves Improve Glucose and Lipid Profile of People with Type 2 Diabetes

    Good for the heart

    This one’s quite straight forward. Bay leaf tea is indeed good for the heart,

    Of course, even that latter is also good for the heart literally, just, indirectly, by reducing anxiety and stress, thus indirectly benefiting the heart itself.

    But even before that, it’s already very directly beneficial to cardiovascular health, per its significant improvements to the lipid profile.

    Anything else?

    So much else, but there’s only so much we can feature in one day, so if you’d like to learn more, we recommend this very comprehensive paper:

    Chromatography analysis, in light of vitro antioxidant, antidiabetic, antiobesity, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, anticancer, and three-dimensional cancer spheroids’ formation blocking activities of Laurus nobilis aromatic oil from Palestine

    …which discusses many benefits in considerable detail, including…

    ❝The LN leaves have various biological activities, such as antioxidant, wound healing, antibacterial, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory activities. However, oxidative stress, cancer, diabetes, microbial infections, and inflammatory diseases are closely linked. The objective of this research is to characterize Laurus nobilis (LN) aromatic oil (AO) and evaluate its antioxidant, antidiabetic, antiobesity, antimicrobial, and antimutagenic bioactivities.

    The plant AO showed potent antioxidant activity (IC50 = 2.2 ± 1.38) and has moderate anti-amylase (IC50 = 60.25 ± 1.25), anti-glucosidase (IC50 = 131.82 ± 0.1), and antilipase (IC50 = 83.17 ± 0.06) activities.

    Moreover, LNAO showed potent antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Proteus vulgaris (MICs = 1.56 µg/mL), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (MIC = 3.125 µg/mL) and Candida albicans (MIC = 0.195 µg/mL). The cytotoxicity results demonstrated that at a concentration of 1 mg/mL, LNAO has potent breast cancer (MCF-7), and hepatocellular carcinoma (Hep 3B) cancer cells inhibitory activities of 98% and 95%, respectively.

    Importantly, we are the first to show that LNAO significantly hinders hepatocellular carcinoma spheroids’ formation capacity in a 3D model.

    These results show that LNAO is a promising natural source with powerful antioxidant, antidiabetic, anticancer, and antimicrobial activities that could be exploited in the future to treat a variety of diseases.❞

    Want to try some?

    We don’t sell it, but you can buy leaves from your local supermarket and make bay leaf tea, or alternatively, if you prefer essential oil form, here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎

    Enjoy!

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  • GABA Against Stress/Anxiety

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    A Neurotransmitter Less Talked-About

    GABA is taken by many people as a supplement, mostly as a mood modifier, though its health claims go beyond the recreational—and also, we’re of the opinion that mental health is also just health, and if it works, it works. We’ll explore some of the claims and science behind them today…

    What is GABA?

    GABA stands for gamma-aminobutyric acid, and it’s a neurotransmitter. It’s a lot less talked-about than for example dopamine or serotonin, but it’s very important nonetheless.

    We make it ourselves inside our body, and we can also get it from our food, or supplement it, and some drugs will also have an effect on its presence and/or activity in our body.

    What foods is it found in?

    • Animals, obviously (just like in human brains*)
    • Fermented foods (many kinds)
    • Yeast
    • Tea
    • Tomatoes
    • Mulberries

    For more details, see:

    γ-Aminobutyric acid found in fermented foods and beverages: current trends

    *However, we do not recommend eating human brains, due to the risk of CJD and prion diseases in general.

    What claims are made about it and are they true?

    For brevity, we’ll give a little spoiler up-front: all the popular claims for it appear to be valid, though there’s definitely room for a lot more human trials (we skipped over a lot of rodent studies today!).

    So we’ll just drop some of its main benefits, and human studies to back those.

    Reduction of stress and anxiety

    GABA decreases task-related stress and anxiety within 30 minutes of being taken, both in subjective measures (i.e., self-reports) and in objective clinical physiological measures:

    Oral intake of γ-aminobutyric acid affects mood and activities of central nervous system during stressed condition induced by mental tasks

    Cognitive enhancement

    It’s not a does-everything nootropic like some, but it does have clear benefits to episodic memory:

    ❝GABA intake might help to distribute limited attentional resources more efficiently, and can specifically improve the identification and ordering of visual events that occur in close temporal succession

    One of the things that makes this one important is that it also deals with the often-asked question of “does GABA pass the blood-brain barrier”:

    ❝The present findings do give further credence to the idea that oral ingestion does allow GABA to reach the brain and exert direct effects on cognition, which in the present case were specific to temporal attention.❞

    Read more:

    Supplementation of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) affects temporal, but not spatial visual attention

    Potential for more

    We take care to give good quality sources, so the following study comes with a big caveat that it has since been retracted. Why was it retracted, you wonder?

    It’s about the sample; they cite “30 healthy adults”, but neglected tp mention that this figure was initially 46. What happened to the other 16 participants is unclear, but given that this was challenged and the challenge not answered, it was sufficient for the journal (Nature) to pull the study, in case of deliberate sample bias.

    However! Running the numbers in their results section, a probability of 0.03 is very compelling unless the disappearance of 16 subjects was outright fraudulent (which we regrettably cannot know either way).

    Here’s the study (so take it with a pinch of salt, considering the above), and taken at face value, it shows how GABA supplementation improves accurate reactions to fast-moving visual and auditory stimuli:

    RETRACTED ARTICLE: γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) administration improves action selection processes: a randomised controlled trial

    …so, hopefully this experiment will be repeated, without disappearing participants!

    The sweet spot

    You may be wondering how something that slows a person down (having a relaxing effect) can also speed a person up. This has to do with what it is and isn’t affecting; think of it like a “focus mode” on your computer or other device that greys-out everything else a bit so that you can focus on what you’re doing.

    It’s in some ways (by different neurochemical pathways, though) a similar effect to the “relaxed alertness” created by l-theanine supplementation.

    There’s also a sweet spot whereby GABA is toning some things down just the right amount, without adversely affecting performance in areas we don’t want slowed down. For the science of this, see:

    Too Little and Too Much: Hypoactivation and Disinhibition (Reduced GABAergic Inhibition) of Medial Prefrontal Cortex Cause Attentional Deficits

    Is it safe?

    GABA is “Generally Recognized As Safe”. However:

    • you should speak with your pharmacist if you are taking any medications for blood pressure or epilepsy, as GABA supplementation may cause them to work too well.
    • you should absolutely not take GABA with alcohol or opioids as (dose-dependent for all the substances involved, and also depending on your metabolic base rate and other factors) its acute depression of the CNS can mean you relax and slow down too much, and you may find yourself not breathing often enough to sustain life.

    Aside from that, it is considered safe up to at least 1g/kg/day*. Given that popular doses are 120–750mg, and most people weigh more than 750g, this is very safe for most people:

    United States Pharmacopeia (USP) Safety Review of Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA)

    Where can I get it?

    We don’t sell it, but for your convenience, here’s an example product on Amazon

    Enjoy!

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  • Women spend more of their money on health care than men. And no, it’s not just about ‘women’s issues’

    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.

    Medicare, Australia’s universal health insurance scheme, guarantees all Australians access to a wide range of health and hospital services at low or no cost.

    Although access to the scheme is universal across Australia (regardless of geographic location or socioeconomic status), one analysis suggests women often spend more out-of-pocket on health services than men.

    Other research has found men and women spend similar amounts on health care overall, or even that men spend a little more. However, it’s clear women spend a greater proportion of their overall expenditure on health care than men. They’re also more likely to skip or delay medical care due to the cost.

    So why do women often spend more of their money on health care, and how can we address this gap?

    Elizaveta Galitckaia/Shutterstock

    Women have more chronic diseases, and access more services

    Women are more likely to have a chronic health condition compared to men. They’re also more likely to report having multiple chronic conditions.

    While men generally die earlier, women are more likely to spend more of their life living with disease. There are also some conditions which affect women more than men, such as autoimmune conditions (for example, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis).

    Further, medical treatments can sometimes be less effective for women due to a focus on men in medical research.

    These disparities are likely significant in understanding why women access health services more than men.

    For example, 88% of women saw a GP in 2021–22 compared to 79% of men.

    As the number of GPs offering bulk billing continues to decline, women are likely to need to pay more out-of-pocket, because they see a GP more often.

    In 2020–21, 4.3% of women said they had delayed seeing a GP due to cost at least once in the previous 12 months, compared to 2.7% of men.

    Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has also shown women are more likely to delay or avoid seeing a mental health professional due to cost.

    A senior woman in a medical waiting room looking at a clipboard.
    Women are more likely to live with chronic medical conditions than men. Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock

    Women are also more likely to need prescription medications, owing at least partly to their increased rates of chronic conditions. This adds further out-of-pocket costs. In 2020–21, 62% of women received a prescription, compared to 37% of men.

    In the same period, 6.1% of women delayed getting, or did not get prescribed medication because of the cost, compared to 4.9% of men.

    Reproductive health conditions

    While women are disproportionately affected by chronic health conditions throughout their lifespan, much of the disparity in health-care needs is concentrated between the first period and menopause.

    Almost half of women aged over 18 report having experienced chronic pelvic pain in the previous five years. This can be caused by conditions such as endometriosis, dysmenorrhoea (period pain), vulvodynia (vulva pain), and bladder pain.

    One in seven women will have a diagnosis of endometriosis by age 49.

    Meanwhile, a quarter of all women aged 45–64 report symptoms related to menopause that are significant enough to disrupt their daily life.

    All of these conditions can significantly reduce quality of life and increase the need to seek health care, sometimes including surgical treatment.

    Of course, conditions like endometriosis don’t just affect women. They also impact trans men, intersex people, and those who are gender diverse.

    Diagnosis can be costly

    Women often have to wait longer to get a diagnosis for chronic conditions. One preprint study found women wait an average of 134 days (around 4.5 months) longer than men for a diagnosis of a long-term chronic disease.

    Delays in diagnosis often result in needing to see more doctors, again increasing the costs.

    Despite affecting about as many people as diabetes, it takes an average of between six-and-a-half to eight years to diagnose endometriosis in Australia. This can be attributed to a number of factors including society’s normalisation of women’s pain, poor knowledge about endometriosis among some health professionals, and the lack of affordable, non-invasive methods to accurately diagnose the condition.

    There have been recent improvements, with the introduction of Medicare rebates for longer GP consultations of up to 60 minutes. While this is not only for women, this extra time will be valuable in diagnosing and managing complex conditions.

    But gender inequality issues still exist in the Medicare Benefits Schedule. For example, both pelvic and breast ultrasound rebates are less than a scan for the scrotum, and no rebate exists for the MRI investigation of a woman’s pelvic pain.

    Management can be expensive too

    Many chronic conditions, such as endometriosis, which has a wide range of symptoms but no cure, can be very hard to manage. People with endometriosis often use allied health and complementary medicine to help with symptoms.

    On average, women are more likely than men to use both complementary therapies and allied health.

    While women with chronic conditions can access a chronic disease management plan, which provides Medicare-subsidised visits to a range of allied health services (for example, physiotherapist, psychologist, dietitian), this plan only subsidises five sessions per calendar year. And the reimbursement is usually around 50% or less, so there are still significant out-of-pocket costs.

    In the case of chronic pelvic pain, the cost of accessing allied or complementary health services has been found to average A$480.32 across a two-month period (across both those who have a chronic disease management plan and those who don’t).

    More spending, less saving

    Womens’ health-care needs can also perpetuate financial strain beyond direct health-care costs. For example, women with endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain are often caught in a cycle of needing time off from work to attend medical appointments.

    Our preliminary research has shown these repeated requests, combined with the common dismissal of symptoms associated with pelvic pain, means women sometimes face discrimination at work. This can lead to lack of career progression, underemployment, and premature retirement.

    A woman speaks over the counter to a male pharmacist.
    More women are prescribed medication than men. PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

    Similarly, with 160,000 women entering menopause each year in Australia (and this number expected to increase with population growth), the financial impacts are substantial.

    As many as one in four women may either shift to part-time work, take time out of the workforce, or retire early due to menopause, therefore earning less and paying less into their super.

    How can we close this gap?

    Even though women are more prone to chronic conditions, until relatively recently, much of medical research has been done on men. We’re only now beginning to realise important differences in how men and women experience certain conditions (such as chronic pain).

    Investing in women’s health research will be important to improve treatments so women are less burdened by chronic conditions.

    In the 2024–25 federal budget, the government committed $160 million towards a women’s health package to tackle gender bias in the health system (including cost disparities), upskill medical professionals, and improve sexual and reproductive care.

    While this reform is welcome, continued, long-term investment into women’s health is crucial.

    Mike Armour, Associate Professor at NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University; Amelia Mardon, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Reproductive Health, Western Sydney University; Danielle Howe, PhD Candidate, NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University; Hannah Adler, PhD Candidate, Health Communication and Health Sociology, Griffith University, and Michelle O’Shea, Senior Lecturer, School of Business, Western Sydney University

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

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  • One in twenty people has no sense of smell – here’s how they might get it back

    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.

    During the pandemic, a lost sense of smell was quickly identified as one of the key symptoms of COVID. Nearly four years later, one in five people in the UK is living with a decreased or distorted sense of smell, and one in twenty have anosmia – the total loss of the ability to perceive any odours at all. Smell training is one of the few treatment options for recovering a lost sense of smell – but can we make it more effective?

    Smell training is a therapy that is recommended by experts for recovering a lost sense of smell. It is a simple process that involves sniffing a set of different odours – usually essential oils, or herbs and spices – every day.

    The olfactory system has a unique ability to regenerate sensory neurons (nerve cells). So, just like physiotherapy where exercise helps to restore movement and function following an injury, repeated exposure to odours helps to recover the sense of smell following an infection, or other cause of smell loss (for example, traumatic head injury).

    Several studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of smell training under laboratory conditions. But recent findings have suggested that the real-world results might be disappointing.

    One reason for this is that smell training is a long-term therapy. It can take months before patients detect anything, and some people may not get any benefit at all.

    In one study, researchers found that after three months of smell training, participation dropped to 88%, and further declined to 56% after six months. The reason given was that these people did not feel as though they noticed any improvement in their ability to smell.

    Cross-modal associations

    To remedy this, researchers are now investigating how smell training can be improved. One interesting idea is that information from our other senses, or “cross-modal associations”, can be applied to smell training to promote odour perception and improve the results.

    Cross-modal associations are described as the tendency for sensory cues from different sensory systems to be matched. For example, brightness tends to be associated with loudness. Pitch is related to size. Colours are linked to temperature, and softness is matched with round shapes, while spiky shapes feel more rough. In previous studies, these associations have been shown to have a considerable influence on how sensory information is processed. Especially when it comes to olfaction.

    Recent research has shown that the sense of smell is influenced by a combination of different sensory inputs – not just odours. Sensory cues such as colour, shape, and pitch are believed to play a role in the ability to correctly identify and name odours, and can influence perceptions of odour pleasantness and intensity.

    In one study, participants were asked to complete a test that measured their ability to discriminate between different odours while they were presented with the colour red or yellow, an outline drawing of a strawberry or a lemon, or a combination of these colours and shapes. The results suggested that corresponding odour and colour associations (for example, the colour red and strawberry) were linked to increased olfactory performance compared with odours and colours that were not associated (for example, the colour yellow and strawberry).

    Strawberries
    People who associated strawberries with the colour red performed better on smell tests. GCapture/Shutterstock

    While projects focusing on harnessing these cross-modal associations to improve treatments for smell loss are underway, research has already started to deliver some promising results.

    In a recent study that aimed to investigate whether the effects of smell training could be improved with the addition of cross-modal associations, participants watched a guidance video containing sounds that matched the odours that they were training with. The results suggest that cross-modal interactions plus smell training improved olfactory function compared to smell training alone.

    The results reported in recent studies have been promising and offer new insights into the field of olfactory science. It is hoped that this will soon lead to the development of more effective treatment options for smell recovery.

    In the meantime, smell training is one of the best things you can do for a lost sense of smell, so patients are encouraged to stick with it so that they give themselves the best chance at recovery.

    Emily Spencer, PhD Candidate, Olfaction, Edinburgh Napier University

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

    The Conversation

    Don’t Forget…

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  • Healthy Habits for Managing & Reversing Prediabetes – by Dr. Marie Feldman

    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 book doesn’t assume prior knowledge, and does explain the science of diabetes, prediabetes, the terms and the symptoms, what’s going on inside, etc—before getting onto the main meat of the book, the tips.

    The promised 100 tips are varied in their application; they range from diet and exercise, to matters of sleep, stress, and even love.

    There are bonus tips too! For example, an appendix covers “tips for healthier eating out” (i.e. in restaurants etc) and a grocery list to ensure your pantry is good for defending you against prediabetes.

    The writing style is very accessible pop-science; this isn’t like reading some dry academic paper—though it does cite its sources for claims, which we always love to see.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to proof yourself against prediabetes, and are looking for “small things that add up” habits to get into to achieve that, this book is an excellent first choice.

    Click here to check out Healthy Habits For Managing & Reversing Prediabetes, and enjoy the measurable health results!

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  • Better Sex Through Mindfulness – by Dr. Lori Brotto

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    Female sexuality is such a taboo topic that, if one searches for (ob/gyn professor, women’s health research director, and psychologist) Dr. Brotto’s book on Google or Amazon, it suggests only “lori brotto mindfulness book”. So, for those brave enough to read a book that would have shocked Victorians, what does this one contain?

    The focus is on, as the title suggests, better sex, by and for women. That said, it’s mostly because typically women are more likely to experience the problems described in the book; it’s nothing actually intrinsic to womanhood. A man with the same problems could read this book and benefit just the same.

    While the book covers many possible problems between the sheets, the overarching theme is problems of the mind, such as:

    • Not getting into the mood in the first place
    • Losing the mood quickly and easily, such as by becoming distracted
    • Difficulty achieving orgasm even when mechanically everything’s delightful
    • Physical discomfort creating a barrier to enjoyment

    …and yes, that last one is in part mind-stuff too! Though Dr. Brotto isn’t arguing that mindfulness is a panacea, just an incredibly useful tool. And, it’s one she not only explains very well, but also explains from the position of a wealth of scientific evidence… Enough so, that we see a one-star Amazon reviewer from Canada complained that it was too well-referenced! For us, though, it’s what we like to see.

    Good science, presented clearly and usefully, giving practical tips that improve people’s lives.

    Bottom line: if you’ve ever lost the mood because you got distracted into thinking about taxes or that meeting on Tuesday, this is the book for you.

    Click here to check out Better Sex Through Mindfulness—you can thank us later!

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