Focusing On Health In Our Sixties

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? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

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

❝What happens when you age in your sixties?❞

The good news is, a lot of that depends on you!

But, speaking on averages:

While it’s common for people to describe being over 50 as being “over the hill”, halfway to a hundred, and many greetings cards and such reflect this… Biologically speaking, our 60s are more relevant as being halfway to our likely optimal lifespan of 120. Humans love round numbers, but nature doesn’t care for such.

  • In our 60s, we’re now usually the “wrong” side of the menopausal metabolic slump (usually starting at 45–55 and taking 5–10 years), or the corresponding “andropause” where testosterone levels drop (usually starting at 45 and a slow decline for 10–15 years).
  • In our 60s, women will now be at a higher risk of osteoporosis, due to the above. The risk is not nearly so severe for men.
  • In our 60s, if we’re ever going to get cancer, this is the most likely decade for us to find out.
  • In our 60s, approximately half of us will suffer some form of hearing loss
  • In our 60s, our body has all but stopped making new T-cells, which means our immune defenses drop (this is why many vaccines/boosters are offered to over-60s, but not to younger people)

While at first glance this does not seem a cheery outlook, knowledge is power.

  • We can take HRT to avoid the health impact of the menopause/andropause
  • We can take extra care to look after our bone health and avoid osteoporosis
  • We can make sure we get the appropriate cancer screenings when we should
  • We can take hearing tests, and if appropriate find the right hearing aids for us
    • We can also learn to lip-read (this writer relies heavily on lip-reading!)
  • We can take advantage of those extra vaccinations/boosters
  • We can take extra care to boost immune health, too

Your body has no idea how many times you’ve flown around the sun and nor does it care. What actually makes a difference to it, is how it has been treated.

See also: Milestone Medical Tests You Should Take in Your 60s, 70s, and Beyond

Don’t Forget…

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

Recommended

  • Why ’10almonds’? Newsletter Name Explained
  • Pistachios vs Pine Nuts – Which is Healthier?
    Pistachios trump pine nuts with double the protein, fiber, and a better balance of vitamins and minerals. A tight race, but pistachios win by a shell!

Learn to Age Gracefully

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

  • Sunflower Corn Burger

    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.

    Burgers are rarely a health food, but in this case, everything in the patty is healthy, and it’s packed with protein, fiber, and healthy fats.

    You will need

    • 1 can chickpeas
    • ¾ cup frozen corn
    • ½ cup chopped fresh parsley
    • ⅓ cup sunflower seeds
    • ⅓ cup cornichon pickles
    • ⅓ cup wholegrain bread crumbs (gluten-free, if desired/required)
    • ¼ bulb garlic (or more if you want a stronger flavor)
    • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more for frying
    • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast (or 1 tsp yeast extract)
    • 2 tsp ground cumin
    • 2 tsp red pepper flakes
    • 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 tsp Dijon mustard
    • To serve: 4 burger buns; these are not usually healthy, so making your own is best, but if you don’t have the means/time, then getting similarly shaped wholegrain bread buns works just fine.
    • Optional: your preferred burger toppings, e.g. greenery, red onion, tomato slices, avocado, jalapeños, whatever does it for you

    Note: there is no need to add salt; there is enough already in the pickles.

    Method

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

    1) Combine all the ingredients except the buns (and any optional toppings) in a food processor, pulsing a few times for a coarse texture (not a purée).

    2) Shape the mixture into 4 burger patties, and let them chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

    3) Heat a skillet over a medium-high heat with some olive oil, and fry the burgers on both sides until they develop a nice golden crust; this will probably take about 4 minutes per side.

    4) Assemble in the buns with any toppings you want, and serve:

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

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

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • Loaded Mocha Chocolate Parfait

    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.

    Packed with nutrients, including a healthy dose of protein and fiber, these parfait pots can be a healthy dessert, snack, or even breakfast!

    You will need (for 4 servings)

    For the mocha cream:

    • ½ cup almond milk
    • ½ cup raw cashews
    • ⅓ cup espresso
    • 2 tbsp maple syrup
    • 1 tsp vanilla extract

    For the chocolate sauce:

    • 4 tbsp coconut oil, melted
    • 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
    • 1 tbsp maple syrup
    • 1 tsp vanilla extract

    For the other layers:

    • 1 banana, sliced
    • 1 cup granola, no added sugar

    Garnish (optional): 3 coffee beans per serving

    Note about the maple syrup: since its viscosity is similar to the overall viscosity of the mocha cream and chocolate sauce, you can adjust this per your tastes, without affecting the composition of the dish much besides sweetness (and sugar content). If you don’t like sweetness, the maple syrup be reduced or even omitted entirely (your writer here is known for her enjoyment of very strong bitter flavors and rarely wants anything sweeter than a banana); if you prefer more sweetness than the recipe called for, that’s your choice too.

    Method

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

    1) Blend all the mocha cream ingredients. If you have time, doing this in advance and keeping it in the fridge for a few hours (or even up to a week) will make the flavor richer. But if you don’t have time, that’s fine too.

    2) Stir all the chocolate sauce ingredients together in a small bowl, and set it aside. This one should definitely not be refrigerated, or else the coconut oil will solidify and separate itself.

    3) Gently swirl the the mocha cream and chocolate sauce together. You want a marble effect, not a full mixing. Omit this step if you want clearer layers.

    4) Assemble in dessert glasses, alternating layers of banana, mocha chocolate marble mixture (or the two parts, if you didn’t swirl them together), and granola.

    5) Add the coffee-bean garnish, if using, and serve!

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

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

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • Blood-Brain Barrier Breach Blamed For Brain-Fog

    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.

    Move Over, Leaky Gut. Now It’s A Leaky Brain.

    …which is not a headline that promises good news, and indeed, the only good news about this currently is “now we know another thing that’s happening, and thus can work towards a treatment for it”.

    Back in February (most popular media outlets did not rush to publish this, as it rather goes against the narrative of “remember when COVID was a thing?” as though the numbers haven’t risen since the state of emergency was declared over), a team of Irish researchers made a discovery:

    ❝For the first time, we have been able to show that leaky blood vessels in the human brain, in tandem with a hyperactive immune system may be the key drivers of brain fog associated with long covid❞

    ~ Dr. Matthew Campbell (one of the researchers)

    Let’s break that down a little, borrowing some context from the paper itself:

    • the leaky blood vessels are breaching the blood-brain-barrier
      • that’s a big deal, because that barrier is our only filter between our brain and Things That Definitely Should Not Go In The Brain™
    • a hyperactive immune system can also be described as chronic inflammation
      • in this case, that includes chronic neuroinflammation which, yes, is also a major driver of dementia

    You may be wondering what COVID has to do with this, and well:

    • these blood-brain-barrier breaches were very significantly associated (in lay terms: correlated, but correlated is only really used as an absolute in write-ups) with either acute COVID infection, or Long Covid.
    • checking this in vitro, exposure of brain endothelial cells to serum from patients with Long Covid induced the same expression of inflammatory markers.

    How important is this?

    As another researcher (not to mention: professor of neurology and head of the school of medicine at Trinity) put it:

    ❝The findings will now likely change the landscape of how we understand and treat post-viral neurological conditions.

    It also confirms that the neurological symptoms of long covid are measurable with real and demonstrable metabolic and vascular changes in the brain.❞

    ~ Dr. Colin Doherty (see mini-bio above)

    You can read a pop-science article about this here:

    Irish researchers discover underlying cause of “brain fog” linked with long covid

    …and you can read the paper in full here:

    Blood–brain barrier disruption and sustained systemic inflammation in individuals with long COVID-associated cognitive impairment

    Want to stay safe?

    Beyond the obvious “get protected when offered boosters/updates” (see also: The Truth About Vaccines), other good practices include the same things most people were doing when the pandemic was big news, especially avoiding enclosed densely-populated places, washing hands frequently, and looking after your immune system. For that latter, see also:

    Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!

    Take care!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Why ’10almonds’? Newsletter Name Explained
  • Hemp Seeds vs Flax Seeds – Which is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing hemp seeds to flax seeds, we picked the flax.

    Why?

    Both are great, but quite differently so! In other words, they both have their advantages, but on balance, we prefer the flax’s advantages.

    Part of this come from the way in which they are sold/consumedhemp seeds must be hulled first, which means two things as a result:

    • Flax seeds have much more fiber (about 8x more)
    • Hemp seeds have more protein (about 2x more), proportionally, at least ← this is partly because they lost a bunch of weight by losing their fiber to the hulling, so the “per 100g” values of everything else go up, even though the amount per seed didn’t change

    Since people’s diets are more commonly deficient in fiber than protein, and also since 8x is better than 2x, we consider this a win for flax.

    Of course, many people enjoy hemp or flax specifically for the healthy fatty acids, so how do they stack up in that regard?

    • Flax seeds have more omega-3s
    • Hemp seeds have more omega-6s

    This, for us, is a win for flax too, as the omega-3s are generally what we need more likely to be deficient in. Hemp enthusiasts, however, may argue that the internal balance of omega-3s to omega-6s is closer to an ideal ratio in hemp—but nutrition doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so we have to consider things “as part of a balanced diet” (because if one were trying to just live on hemp seeds, one would die), and most people’s diets are skewed far too far in favor or omega-6 compared to omega-3. So for most people, the higher levels of omega-3s are the more useful.

    Want to learn more?

    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:

  • Women and Minorities Bear the Brunt of Medical Misdiagnosis

    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.

    Charity Watkins sensed something was deeply wrong when she experienced exhaustion after her daughter was born.

    At times, Watkins, then 30, had to stop on the stairway to catch her breath. Her obstetrician said postpartum depression likely caused the weakness and fatigue. When Watkins, who is Black, complained of a cough, her doctor blamed the flu.

    About eight weeks after delivery, Watkins thought she was having a heart attack, and her husband took her to the emergency room. After a 5½-hour wait in a North Carolina hospital, she returned home to nurse her baby without seeing a doctor.

    When a physician finally examined Watkins three days later, he immediately noticed her legs and stomach were swollen, a sign that her body was retaining fluid. After a chest X-ray, the doctor diagnosed her with heart failure, a serious condition in which the heart becomes too weak to adequately pump oxygen-rich blood to organs throughout the body. Watkins spent two weeks in intensive care.

    She said a cardiologist later told her, “We almost lost you.”

    Watkins is among 12 million adults misdiagnosed every year in the U.S.

    In a study published Jan. 8 in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers found that nearly 1 in 4 hospital patients who died or were transferred to intensive care had experienced a diagnostic error. Nearly 18% of misdiagnosed patients were harmed or died.

    In all, an estimated 795,000 patients a year die or are permanently disabled because of misdiagnosis, according to a study published in July in the BMJ Quality & Safety periodical.

    Some patients are at higher risk than others.

    Women and racial and ethnic minorities are 20% to 30% more likely than white men to experience a misdiagnosis, said David Newman-Toker, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the lead author of the BMJ study. “That’s significant and inexcusable,” he said.

    Researchers call misdiagnosis an urgent public health problem. The study found that rates of misdiagnosis range from 1.5% of heart attacks to 17.5% of strokes and 22.5% of lung cancers.

    Weakening of the heart muscle — which led to Watkins’ heart failure — is the most common cause of maternal death one week to one year after delivery, and is more common among Black women.

    Heart failure “should have been No. 1 on the list of possible causes” for Watkins’ symptoms, said Ronald Wyatt, chief science and chief medical officer at the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, a nonprofit research and advocacy group.

    Maternal mortality for Black mothers has increased dramatically in recent years. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, non-Hispanic Black mothers are 2.6 times as likely to die as non-Hispanic white moms. More than half of these deaths take place within a year after delivery.

    Research shows that Black women with childbirth-related heart failure are typically diagnosed later than white women, said Jennifer Lewey, co-director of the pregnancy and heart disease program at Penn Medicine. That can allow patients to further deteriorate, making Black women less likely to fully recover and more likely to suffer from weakened hearts for the rest of their lives.

    Watkins said the diagnosis changed her life. Doctors advised her “not to have another baby, or I might need a heart transplant,” she said. Being deprived of the chance to have another child, she said, “was devastating.”

    Racial and gender disparities are widespread.

    Women and minority patients suffering from heart attacks are more likely than others to be discharged without diagnosis or treatment.

    Black people with depression are more likely than others to be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia.

    Minorities are less likely than whites to be diagnosed early with dementia, depriving them of the opportunities to receive treatments that work best in the early stages of the disease.

    Misdiagnosis isn’t new. Doctors have used autopsy studies to estimate the percentage of patients who died with undiagnosed diseases for more than a century. Although those studies show some improvement over time, life-threatening mistakes remain all too common, despite an array of sophisticated diagnostic tools, said Hardeep Singh, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine who studies ways to improve diagnosis.

    “The vast majority of diagnoses can be made by getting to know the patient’s story really well, asking follow-up questions, examining the patient, and ordering basic tests,” said Singh, who is also a researcher at Houston’s Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center. When talking to people who’ve been misdiagnosed, “one of the things we hear over and over is, ‘The doctor didn’t listen to me.’”

    Racial disparities in misdiagnosis are sometimes explained by noting that minority patients are less likely to be insured than white patients and often lack access to high-quality hospitals. But the picture is more complicated, said Monika Goyal, an emergency physician at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., who has documented racial bias in children’s health care.

    In a 2020 study, Goyal and her colleagues found that Black kids with appendicitis were less likely than their white peers to be correctly diagnosed, even when both groups of patients visited the same hospital.

    Although few doctors deliberately discriminate against women or minorities, Goyal said, many are biased without realizing it.

    “Racial bias is baked into our culture,” Goyal said. “It’s important for all of us to start recognizing that.”

    Demanding schedules, which prevent doctors from spending as much time with patients as they’d like, can contribute to diagnostic errors, said Karen Lutfey Spencer, a professor of health and behavioral sciences at the University of Colorado-Denver. “Doctors are more likely to make biased decisions when they are busy and overworked,” Spencer said. “There are some really smart, well-intentioned providers who are getting chewed up in a system that’s very unforgiving.”

    Doctors make better treatment decisions when they’re more confident of a diagnosis, Spencer said.

    In an experiment, researchers asked doctors to view videos of actors pretending to be patients with heart disease or depression, make a diagnosis, and recommend follow-up actions. Doctors felt far more certain diagnosing white men than Black patients or younger women.

    “If they were less certain, they were less likely to take action, such as ordering tests,” Spencer said. “If they were less certain, they might just wait to prescribe treatment.”

    It’s easy to see why doctors are more confident when diagnosing white men, Spencer said. For more than a century, medical textbooks have illustrated diseases with stereotypical images of white men. Only 4.5% of images in general medical textbooks feature patients with dark skin.

    That may help explain why patients with darker complexions are less likely to receive a timely diagnosis with conditions that affect the skin, from cancer to Lyme disease, which causes a red or pink rash in the earliest stage of infection. Black patients with Lyme disease are more likely to be diagnosed with more advanced disease, which can cause arthritis and damage the heart. Black people with melanoma are about three times as likely as whites to die within five years.

    The covid-19 pandemic helped raise awareness that pulse oximeters — the fingertip devices used to measure a patient’s pulse and oxygen levelsare less accurate for people with dark skin. The devices work by shining light through the skin; their failures have delayed critical care for many Black patients.

    Seven years after her misdiagnosis, Watkins is an assistant professor of social work at North Carolina Central University in Durham, where she studies the psychosocial effects experienced by Black mothers who survive severe childbirth complications.

    “Sharing my story is part of my healing,” said Watkins, who speaks to medical groups to help doctors improve their care. “It has helped me reclaim power in my life, just to be able to help others.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

    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:

  • Beat Sugar Addiction Now! – by Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum & Chrystle Fiedler

    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.

    Sugar isn’t often thought of as an addiction in the same category as alcohol or nicotine, but it’s actually very similar in some ways…

    A bold claim, but: in each case, it has to do with dopamine responses to something that has:

    • an adverse effect on our health,
    • a quickly developed tolerance to same,
    • and unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when quitting.

    However, not all sugar addictions are created equal, and Dr. Teitelbaum lays four different types of sugar addiction out for us:

    1. Most related to “I need to perform and I need to perform now”
    2. Most related to “I just need something to get me through one more stressful day, again, just like every day before it”
    3. Most related to “ate too much sugar because of the above, and now a gut overgrowth of C. albicans is at the wheel”
    4. Most related to “ate too much sugar because of the above, and now insulin resistance is a problem that perpetuates itself too”

    Of course, these may overlap, and indeed, they tend to stack cumulatively as time goes by.

    However, Dr. Teitelbaum notes that as readers we may recognize ourselves as being at a particular point in the above, and there are different advices for each of them.

    You thought it was just going to be about going cold turkey? Nope!

    Instead, a multi-vector approach is recommended, including adjustments to sleep, nutrition, immune health, hormonal health, and more.

    In short: if you’ve been trying to to kick the “White Death” habit as Gloria Swanson called it (sugar, that is, not the WW2 Finnish sniper of the same name—we can’t help you with that one), then this book is really much more helpful than others that take the “well, just don’t eat it, then” approach!

    Pick up your copy of Beat Sugar Addiction Now from Amazon, and start your journey!

    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: