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
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
In Defense of Food – by Michael Pollan
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.
Eat more like the French. Or the Italians. Or the Japanese. Or…
Somehow, whatever we eat is not good enough, and we should always be doing it differently!
Michael Pollan takes a more down-to-Earth approach.
He kicks off by questioning the wisdom of thinking of our food only in terms of nutritional profiles, and overthinking healthy-eating. He concludes, as many do, that a “common-sense, moderate” approach is needed.
And yet, most people who believe they are taking a “common-sense, moderate” approach to health are in fact over-fed yet under-nourished.
So, how to fix this?
He offers us a reframe: to think of food as a relationship, and health being a product of it:
- If we are constantly stressing about a relationship, it’s probably not good.
- On the other hand, if we are completely thoughtless about it, it’s probably not good either.
- But if we can outline some good, basic principles and celebrate it with a whole heart? It’s probably at the very least decent.
The style is very casual and readable throughout. His conclusions, by the way, can be summed up as “Eat real food, make it mostly plants, and make it not too much”.
However, to summarize it thusly undercuts a lot of the actual value of the book, which is the principles for discerning what is “real food” and what is “not too much”.
Bottom line: if you’re tired of complicated eating plans, this book can help produce something very simple, attainable, and really quite good.
Click here to check out In Defense of Food, for some good, hearty eating.
Share This Post
-
ADHD… As An Adult?
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.
ADHD—not just for kids!
Consider the following:
- If a kid has consistent problems paying attention, it’s easy and common to say “Aha, ADHD!”
- If a young adult has consistent problems paying attention, it’s easy and common to say “Aha, a disinterested ne’er-do-well!”
- If an older adult has consistent problems paying attention, it’s easy and common to say “Aha, a senior moment!”
Yet, if we recognize that ADHD is fundamentally a brain difference in children (and we do; there are physiological characteristics that we can test), and we can recognize that as people get older our brains typically have less neuroplasticity (ability to change) than when we are younger rather than less, then… Surely, there are just as many adults with ADHD as kids!
After all, that rather goes with the linear nature of time and the progressive nature of getting older.
So why do kids get diagnoses so much more often than adults?
Parents—and schools—can find children’s ADHD challenging, and it’s their problem, so they look for an explanation, and ADHD isn’t too difficult to find as a diagnosis.
Meanwhile, adults with ADHD have usually developed coping mechanisms, have learned to mask and/or compensate for their symptoms, and we expect adults to manage their own problems, so nobody’s rushing to find an explanation on their behalf.
Additionally, the stigma of neurodivergence—especially something popularly associated with children—isn’t something that many adults will want for themselves.
But, if you have an ADHD brain, then recognizing that (even if just privately to yourself) can open the door to much better management of your symptoms… and your life.
So what does ADHD look like in adults?
ADHD involves a spread of symptoms, and not everyone will have them all, or have them in the same magnitude. However, very commonly most noticeable traits include:
- Lack of focus (ease of distraction)
- Conversely: high focus (on the wrong things)
- To illustrate: someone with ADHD might set out to quickly tidy the sock drawer, and end up Marie Kondo-ing their entire wardrobe… when they were supposed to doing something else
- Conversely: high focus (on the wrong things)
- Poor time management (especially: tendency to procrastinate)
- Forgetfulness (of various kinds—for example, forgetting information, and forgetting to do things)
Want To Take A Quick Test? Click Here ← this one is reputable, and free. No sign in required; the test is right there.
Wait, where’s the hyperactivity in this Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?
It’s often not there. ADHD is simply badly-named. This stems from how a lot of mental health issues are considered by society in terms of how much they affect (and are observable by) other people. Since ADHD was originally noticed in children (in fact being originally called “Hyperkinetic Reaction of Childhood”), it ended up being something like:
“Oh, your brain has an inconvenient relationship with dopamine and you are driven to try to correct that by shifting attention from boring things to stimulating things? You might have trouble-sitting-still disorder”
Hmm, this sounds like me (or my loved one); what to do now at the age of __?
Some things to consider:
- If you don’t want medication (there are pros and cons, beyond the scope of today’s article), you might consider an official diagnosis not worth pursuing. That’s fine if so, because…
- More important than whether or not you meet certain diagnostic criteria, is whether or not the strategies recommended for it might help you.
- Whether or not you talk to other people about it is entirely up to you. Maybe it’s a stigma you’d rather avoid… Or maybe it’ll help those around you to better understand and support you.
- Either way, you might want to learn more about ADHD in adults. Today’s article was about recognizing it—we’ll write more about managing it another time!
In the meantime… We recommended a great book about this a couple of weeks ago; you might want to check it out:
Click here to see our review of “The Silent Struggle: Taking Charge of ADHD in Adults”!
Note: the review is at the bottom of that page. You’ll need to scroll past the video (which is also about ADHD) without getting distracted by it and forgetting you were there to see about the book. So:
- Click the above link
- Scroll straight to the review!
Share This Post
-
Foam Rolling – by Karina Inkster
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.
If you’ve ever bought a foam roller only to place it under your lower back once and then put it somewhere for safekeeping and never use it again, this book will help fix that.
Karina Inkster (what a cool name) is a personal trainer, and the book also features tips and advice from physiotherapists and sports medicine specialist doctors too, so all bases are well and truly covered.
This is not, in case you’re wondering, a book that could have been a pamphlet, with photos of the exercises and one-liner explanation and that’s it. Rather, Inkster takes us through the anatomy and physiology of what’s going on, so that we can actually use this thing correctly and get actual noticeable improvements to our health from it—as promised in the subtitle’s mention of “for massage, injury prevention, and core strength”. To be clear, a lot of it is also about soft tissue mobilization, and keeping our fascia healthy (an oft-underestimated aspect of general mobility).
We would mention that since the photos are pleasantly colorful (like those on the cover) and this adds to the clarity, we’d recommend springing for the (quite inexpensive) physical copy, rather than a Kindle edition (if your e-reader is a monochrome e-ink device like this reviewer’s, anyway).
Bottom line: this book will enable your foam roller to make a difference to your life.
Click here to check out Foam Rolling, and get rolling (correctly)!
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
Sweet Potato & Black Bean Tacos
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.
Fiber, protein, and polyphenols! What more could one ask for? Well, great taste and warm healthy goodness, which these deliver:
You will need
For the sweet potatoes:
- 2 medium sweet potatoes, cubed (we recommend leaving the skin on, but you can peel them if you really want to)
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
For the black beans:
- 2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed (or 2 cups black beans that you cooked yourself)
- ¼ bulb garlic, minced
- 1 fresh jalapeño finely chopped (or ¼ cup jalapeños from a jar, finely chopped) ← adjust quantities per your preference and per the quality of the pepper(s) you’re using; we can’t judge that from here without tasting them, so we give a good basic starting suggestion.
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp red chili flakes
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
For serving:
- 8 small corn tortillas, or your preference if substituting
- 1 avocado, pitted, peeled, cubed, and tossed in lime juice ← we’re mentioning this here because you want to do this as soon as you cut it, to avoid oxidation
- Any other salad you’d like to include; fresh parsley is also a good option when it comes to greenery, or cilantro if you don’t have the soap gene
- Tomato salsa (quantity and spice level per your preference)
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat the oven to 400°F / 200°C.
2) Toss the sweet potato cubes in a large bowl with the rest of the ingredients from the sweet potato section above, ensuring they are evenly coated.
3) Bake them in the oven, on a baking tray lined with baking paper, for about 30 minutes or until tender inside and crispy at the edges. Turn them over halfway through.
4) While that’s happening, mix the black beans in a bowl with the other ingredients from the black bean section above, and heat them gently. You could do this in a saucepan, but honestly, while it’s not glamorous, the microwave is actually better for this. Note: many people find the microwave cooks food unevenly, but there are two reasons for this and they’re both easily fixable:
- instead of using high power for x minutes, use medium power for 2x minutes; this will produce better results
- instead of putting the food just in a bowl, jug, or similar, use a wide bowl or similar container, and then inside that, place a small empty microwave-safe glass jar or similar upturned in the middle, and then add the food around it, so that the food is arranged in a donut shape rather than a wide cylinder shape. This means there is no “middle bit” to go underheated while the edges are heated excessively; instead, it will heat through evenly.
If you really don’t want to do that though, use a saucepan on a very low heat, add a small amount of liquid (or tomato salsa), and stir constantly.
5) Heat the tortillas in a dry skillet for about 30 seconds each on each side, when ready to serve.
6) Assemble the tacos; you can do this how you like but a good order of operations is: tortilla, leafy salad (if using), potato, beans, non-leafy salad including avocado, salsa or other topping per your preference.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- White Potato vs Sweet Potato – Which is Healthier?
- Kidney Beans or Black Beans – Which is Healthier?
- Coconut vs Avocado – Which is Healthier?
- Glutathione: More Than An Antioxidant
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits? ← we hit 4/5 today!
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Vaping: A Lot Of Hot Air?
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.
Vaping: A Lot Of Hot Air?
Yesterday, we asked you for your (health-related) opinions on vaping, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:
- A little over a third of respondents said it’s actually more dangerous than smoking
- A little under a third of respondents said it’s no better nor worse, just different
- A little over 10% of respondents said it’s marginally less harmful, but still very bad
- A little over 10% of respondents said it’s a much healthier alternative to smoking
So what does the science say?
Vaping is basically just steam inhalation, plus the active ingredient of your choice (e.g. nicotine, CBD, THC, etc): True or False?
False! There really are a lot of other chemicals in there.
And “chemicals” per se does not necessarily mean evil green glowing substances that a comicbook villain would market, but there are some unpleasantries in there too:
- Potential harmful health effects of inhaling nicotine-free shisha-pen vapor: a chemical risk assessment of the main components propylene glycol and glycerol
- Inflammatory and Oxidative Responses Induced by Exposure to Commonly Used e-Cigarette Flavoring Chemicals and Flavored e-Liquids without Nicotine
So, the substrate itself can cause irritation, and flavorings (with cinnamaldehyde, the cinnamon flavoring, being one of the worst) can really mess with our body’s inflammatory and oxidative responses.
Vaping can cause “popcorn lung”: True or False?
True and False! Popcorn lung is so-called after it came to attention when workers at a popcorn factory came down with it, due to exposure to diacetyl, a chemical used there.
That chemical was at that time also found in most vapes, but has since been banned in many places, including the US, Canada, the EU and the UK.
Vaping is just as bad as smoking: True or False?
False, per se. In fact, it’s recommended as a means of quitting smoking, by the UK’s famously thrifty NHS, that absolutely does not want people to be sick because that costs money:
Of course, the active ingredients (e.g. nicotine, in the assumed case above) will still be the same, mg for mg, as they are for smoking.
Vaping is causing a health crisis amongst “kids nowadays”: True or False?
True—it just happens to be less serious on a case-by-case basis to the risks of smoking.
However, it is worth noting that the perceived harmlessness of vapes is surely a contributing factor in their widespread use amongst young people—decades after actual smoking (thankfully) went out of fashion.
On the other hand, there’s a flipside to this:
Flavored vape restrictions lead to higher cigarette sales
So, it may indeed be the case of “the lesser of two evils”.
Want to know more?
For a more in-depth science-ful exploration than we have room for here…
BMJ | Impact of vaping on respiratory health
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:
-
Treadmill vs Road
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.
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 😎
❝Why do I get tired much more quickly running outside, than I do on the treadmill? Every time I get worn out quickly but at home I can go for much longer!❞
Short answer: the reason is Newton’s laws of motion.
In other words: on a treadmill, you need only maintain your position in space relative the the Earth while the treadmill moves beneath you, whereas on the road, you need to push against the Earth with sufficient force to move it relative to your body.
Illustrative thought experiment to make that clearer: if you were to stand on a treadmill with roller skates, and hold onto the bar with even just one finger, you would maintain your speed as far as the treadmill’s computer is concerned—whereas to maintain your speed on a flat road, you’d still need to push with your back foot every few yards or so.
More interesting answer: it’s a qualitatively different exercise (i.e. not just quantitively different). This is because of all that pushing you’re having to do on the road, while on a treadmill, the only pushing you have to do is just enough to counteract gravity (i.e. to keep you upright).
As such, both forms of running are a cardio exercise (because simply moving your legs quickly, even without having to apply much force, is still something that requires oxygenated blood feeding the muscles), but road-running adds an extra element of resistance exercise for the muscles of your lower body. Thus, road-running will enable you to build-maintain muscle much more than treadmill-running will.
Some extra things to bear in mind, however:
1) You can increase the resistance work for either form of running, by adding weight (such as by wearing a weight vest):
Weight Vests Against Osteoporosis: Do They Really Build Bone?
…and while road-running will still be the superior form of resistance work (for the reasons we outlined above), adding a weight vest will still be improving your stabilization muscles, just as it would if you were standing still while holding the weight up.
2) Stationary cycling does not have the same physics differences as stationary running. By this we mean: an exercise bike will require your muscles to do just as much pushing as they would on a road. This makes stationary cycling an excellent choice for high intensity resistance training (HIRT):
3) The best form of exercise is the one that you will actually do. Thus, when it’s raining sidewise outside, a treadmill inside will get exercise done better than no running at all. Similarly, a treadmill exercise session takes a lot less preparation (“switch it on”) than a running session outside (“get dressed appropriately for the weather, apply sunscreen if necessary, remember to bring water, etc etc”), and thus is also much more likely to actually occur. The ability to stop whenever one wants is also a reassuring factor that makes one much more likely to start. See for example:
How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
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:
