Curing Hiccups And Headaches At Home With Actual Science
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Quick fixes for bodily annoyances
Do you ever find yourself desperately trying to cure hiccups, and advice on the Internet is like “breathe in through your ears while drinking vinegar upside-down through your nose”?
If so, you’re not alone. So, today we’re going to look at some science-based approaches to dealing with common bodily annoyances.
Hiccups
Unfortunately, most popular advices simply don’t work, and the only near-guaranteed way to cure these is with anti-convulsive medications whose side-effects may be worse than the hiccups.
However, before you head to the pharmacy, there is one breathing exercise that has a very simple scientific underpinning: 4:4 breathing. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s just:
- Breathe slowly in through your nose to a count of four
- Hold your breath for a count of four
- Breathe slowly out through your nose to a count of four
- Hold your breath for a count of four
…and repeat. The slower the better. At first, your hiccups will interrupt this, but just “keep calm and carry on”.
The reason this can work is that breathing is an autonomic function (e.g., it happens without us thinking about it) that, unlike most other autonomic functions, we can all control directly. By taking control of one, others will tend to fall into line with it.
For example, it is normal that your heart rate will tend to slow or quicken as your breathing slows or quickens, respectively.
Your hiccups? Autonomic function. Actually a very, very old evolutionary left-over trait, that’s only useful for protecting lungs while breathing underwater. In other words, it’s the bodily function thinks you’re a fish (or a tadpole-like amphibious creature) in the process of developing lungs. Unfortunately, because hiccuping doesn’t harm our chances of passing on our genes, it never got naturally de-selected so we still have it.
Anyway, the bottom line is: take control of your breathing in the aspects you can directly control, and the aspects you can’t directly control will fall into line. You may need to give it some minutes, don’t give up too quickly.
Headaches
If you ever get a headache and you don’t have painkillers or perhaps they’re not helping or you have another reason for not wanting to take them, there’s “one quick trick” that can cure most headaches in seconds.
First, the limitation: this will only cure headaches that have been caused by increased localized blood pressure in the forehead. However, that’s more than half of most common headaches.
Next, how it works…
We’re mentioning this first, because understanding how it works will give you more confidence in using it.
Your body has a wonderful homeostatic system, which is the system by which your body maintains its “Goldilocks zones” of not too hot or cold, not to acidine or alkaline, not too hydrated or dehydrated, blood pressure not too high or too low, etc. Sometimes, however, it can get confused, and needs a nudge back to where it should be.
One of the ways it maintains blood pressure is biofeedback from receptors in blood vessel walls, called baroreceptors. They are what it sounds like; they measure blood pressure internally.
In certain places, there are clusters of baroreceptors in one place. And if we press on that one place, the body will think “Oh no! Super high blood pressure in this bit!” and reduce the blood pressure immediately.
This is called the baroreflex, and that’s what you need to cure a hypertensive headache.
So, what to do:
With your thumb, carefully feel the upper inside corner of your eye socket. So, at the top, and about ¼ of the way out from the bridge of your nose. You should feel a groove. No, not like the Emperor’s New, but, an actual groove in your eye socket. That’s the supraorbital notch (or foramen), and it allows the supraorbital artery, veins, and nerve to run through.
Press it firmly (you can do both sides at once, assuming you have two thumbs) for about three seconds, and then massage it gently. Repeat as necessary, but it shouldn’t take more than about three goes to have cured the headache.
As a bonus, this is a great party trick for curing other people’s headaches, when the need arises!
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How Metformin Slows Aging
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Metformin And How It Slows Down Aging
That’s a bold claim for a title, but the scientific consensus is clear, and this Research Review Monday we’re going to take a look at exactly that!
Metformin is a common diabetes-management drug, used to lower blood sugar levels in people who either don’t have enough insulin or the insulin isn’t being recognized well enough by the body.
However, it also slows aging, which is a quality it’s also been studied for for more than a decade. We’ll look at some of the more recent research, though. Let’s kick off with an initial broad statement, from the paper “The Use of Metformin to Increase the Human Healthspan”, as part of the “Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology” series:
In recent years, more attention has been paid to the possibility of using metformin as an anti-aging drug. It was shown to significantly increase the lifespan in some model organisms and delay the onset of age-associated declines. Growing amounts of evidence from clinical trials suggest that metformin can effectively reduce the risk of many age-related diseases and conditions, including cardiometabolic disorders, neurodegeneration, chronic inflammation and frailty.
How does it work?
That’s still being studied, but the scientific consensus is that it works by inducing hormesis—the process by which minor stress signals cells to start repairing themselves. How does it induce that hormesis? Again, still being studied, but it appears to do it by activating a specific enzyme; namely, the AMP-activated protein kinase:
Read: Metformin-enhances resilience via hormesis
It also has been found to slow aging by means of an anti-inflammatory effect, as a bonus!
Any bad news?
Well, firstly, in most places it’s only prescribed for diabetes management, not for healthy life extension. A lot of anti-aging enthusiasts have turned to the grey market online to get it, and we can’t recommend that.
Secondly, it does have some limitations:
- Its bioavailability isn’t great in tablet form (the form in which it is most commonly given)
- It has quite a short elimination half-life (around 6 hours), which makes it great to fix transient hyperglycemia in diabetics—job done and it’s out—but presents a logistical challenge when it comes to something so pernicious as aging.
- Some people are non-responders (a non-responder, in medicine, is someone for whom a drug simply doesn’t work, for no obvious reason)
Want to know more? Check out:
Metformin in aging and aging-related diseases: clinical applications and relevant mechanism
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Brain Benefits in 3 Months…through walking?
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Keeping it Simple
Today’s video (below) is another Big Think production (can you tell that we love their work?). Wendy Suzuki does a wonderful job of breaking down the brain benefits of exercise into three categories, within three minutes.
The first question to ask yourself is: what is your current level of fitness?
Low Fitness
Exercising, even if it’s just going on a walk, 2-3 times a week improves baseline mood state, as well as enhances prefrontal and hippocampal function. These areas of the brain are crucial for complex behaviors like planning and personality development, as well as memory and learning.
Mid Fitness
The suggested regimen is, without surprise, to slightly increase your regular workouts over three months. Whilst you’re already getting the benefits from the low-fitness routine, there is a likelihood that you’ll increase your baseline dopamine and serotonin levels–which, of course, we love! Read more on dopamine here, here, or here.
High Fitness
If you consider yourself in the high fitness bracket then well done, you’re doing an amazing job! Wendy Suzuki doesn’t make many suggestions for you; all she mentions is that there is the possibility of “too much” exercise actually having negative effects on the brain. However, if you’re not competing at an Olympic level, you should be fine.
Fitness and Exercise in General
Of course, fitness and exercise are both very broad terms. We would suggest that you find an exercise routine that you genuinely enjoy–something that is easy to continue over the long term. Try browsing different areas of exercise to see what resonates with you. For instance, Total Fitness After 40 is a great book on all things fitness in the second half of your life. Alternatively, search through our archive for fitness-related material.
Anyway, without further ado, here is today’s video:
How was the video? If you’ve discovered any great videos yourself that you’d like to share with fellow 10almonds readers, then please do email them to us!
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Taurine’s Benefits For Heart Health And More
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Taurine: Research Review
First, what is taurine, beyond being an ingredient in many energy drinks?
It’s an amino acid that many animals, including humans, can synthesize in our bodies. Some other animals—including obligate carnivores such as cats (but not dogs, who are omnivorous by nature) cannot synthesize taurine and must get it from food.
So, as humans are very versatile omnivorous frugivores by nature, we have choices:
- Synthesize it—no need for any conscious action; it’ll just happen
- Eat it—by eating meat, which contains taurine
- Supplement it—by taking supplements, including energy drinks, which generally (but not always) use a bioidentical lab-made taurine. Basically, lab-made taurine is chemically identical to the kind found in meat, it’s just cheaper and doesn’t involve animals as a middleman.
What does it do?
Taurine does a bunch of essential things, including:
- Maintaining hydration/electrolyte balance in cells
- Regulating calcium/magnesium balance in cells
- Forming bile salts, which are needed for digestion
- Supporting the integrity of the central nervous system
- Regulating the immune system and antioxidative processes
Thus, a shortage of taurine can lead to such issues as kidney problems, eye tissue damage (since the eyes are a particularly delicate part of the CNS), and cardiomyopathy.
If you want to read more, here’s an academic literature review:
Taurine: A “very essential” amino acid
On the topic of eye health, a 2014 study found that taurine is the most plentiful amino acid in the eye, and helps protect against retinal degeneration, in which they say:
❝We here review the evidence for a role of taurine in retinal ganglion cell survival and studies suggesting that this compound may be involved in the pathophysiology of glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy. Along with other antioxidant molecules, taurine should therefore be seriously reconsidered as a potential treatment for such retinal diseases❞
Read more: Taurine: the comeback of a neutraceutical in the prevention of retinal degenerations
Taurine for muscles… In more than sports!
We’d be remiss not to mention that taurine is enjoyed by athletes to enhance athletic performance; indeed, it’s one of its main selling-points:
See: Taurine in sports and exercise
But! It’s also useful for simply maintaining skeleto-muscular health in general, and especially in the context of age-related decline and chronic disease:
Taurine: the appeal of a safe amino acid for skeletal muscle disorders
On the topic of safety… How safe is it?
There’s an interesting answer to that question. Within safe dose ranges (we’ll get to that), taurine is not only relatively safe, but also, studies that looked to explore its risks found new benefits in the process. Specifically of interest to us were that it appears to promote better long-term memory, especially as we get older (as taurine levels in the brain decline with age):
Taurine, Caffeine, and Energy Drinks: Reviewing the Risks to the Adolescent Brain
^Notwithstanding the title, we assure you, the research got there; they said:
❝Interestingly, the levels of taurine in the brain decreased significantly with age, which led to numerous studies investigating the potential neuroprotective effects of supplemental taurine in several different experimental models❞
What experimental models were those? These ones:
- Taurine protects cerebellar neurons of the external granular layer
- Effects of taurine on alterations of neurobehavior and neurodevelopment key proteins expression
- Neuroprotective role of taurine in developing offspring affected by maternal alcohol consumption
…which were all animal studies, however.
The same systematic review also noted that not only was more research needed on humans, but also, existing studies have had a strong bias to male physiology (in both human and assorted other animal studies), so more diverse study is needed too.
What are the safe dose ranges?
Before we get to toxicity, let’s look at some therapeutic doses. In particular, some studies that found that 500mg 3x daily, i.e. 1.5g total daily, had benefits for heart health:
- Taurine and atherosclerosis
- The Anti-Inflammatory Effect of Taurine on Cardiovascular Disease
- Taurine supplementation has anti-atherogenic and anti-inflammatory effects before and after incremental exercise in heart failure
- Taurine Supplementation Lowers Blood Pressure and Improves Vascular Function in Prehypertension
- Taurine improves the vascular tone through the inhibition of TRPC3 function in the vasculature
Bottom line on safety: 3g/day has been found to be safe:
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Oh, Honey
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The Bee’s Knees?
If you’d like to pre-empt that runny nose, some say that local honey is the answer. The rationale is that bees visiting the local sources of pollen and making honey will introduce the same allergens to you in a non allergy-inducing fashion (the honey). The result? Inoculation against the allergens in question.
But does it work?
Researching this, we found a lot of articles saying there was no science to back it up.
And then! We found one solitary study from 2013, and the title was promising:
But we don’t stop at titles; that’s not the kind of newsletter we are. We pride ourselves on giving good information!
And it turned out, upon reading the method and the results, that:
- Both the control and test groups also took loratadine for the first 4 weeks of the study
- The test group additionally took 1g/kg bodyweight of honey, daily—so for example if you’re 165lb (75kg), that’s about 4 tablespoons per day
- The control group took the equivalent amount of honey-flavored syrup
- Both groups showed equal improvements by week 4
- The test group only showed continued improvements (over the control group) by week 8
The researchers concluded from this:
❝Honey ingestion at a high dose improves the overall and individual symptoms of AR, and it could serve as a complementary therapy for AR.❞
We at 10almonds concluded from this:
❝That’s a lot of honey to eat every day for months!❞
We couldn’t base an article on one study from a decade ago, though! Fortunately, we found a veritable honeypot of more recent research, in the form of this systematic review:
Read: The Potential Use Of Honey As A Remedy For Allergic Diseases
…which examines 13 key studies and 43 scientific papers over the course of 21 years. That’s more like it! This was the jumping-off point we needed into more useful knowledge.
We’re not going to cite all those here—we’re a health and productivity newsletter, not an academic journal of pharmacology, but we did sift through them so that you don’t have to, and:
The researchers (of that review) concluded:
❝Although there is limited evidence, some studies showed remarkable improvements against certain types of allergic illnesses and support that honey is an effective anti-allergic agent.❞
Our (10almonds team) further observations included:
- The research review notes that a lot of studies did not confirm which phytochemical compounds specifically are responsible for causing allergic reactions and/or alleviating such (so: didn’t always control for what we’d like to know, i.e. the mechanism of action)
- Some studies showed results radically different from the rest. The reviewers put this down to differences that were not controlled-for between studies, for example:
- Some studies used very different methods to others. There may be an important difference between a human eating a tablespoon of honey, and a rat having aerosolized honey shot up its nose, for instance. We put more weight to human studies than rat studies!
- Some kinds of honey (such as manuka) contain higher quantities of gallic acid which itself can relieve allergies by chemically inhibiting the release of histamine. In other words, never mind pollen-based inoculations… it’s literally an antihistamine.
- Certain honeys (such as tualang, manuka and gelam) contain higher quantities of quercetin. What’s quercetin? It’s a plant flavonoid that a recent study has shown significantly relieves symptoms of seasonal allergies. So again, it works, just not for the reason people say!
In summary:
The “inoculation by local honey” thing specifically may indeed remain “based on traditional use only” for now.
But! Honey as a remedy for allergies, especially manuka honey, has a growing body of scientific evidence behind it.
Bottom line:
If you like honey, go for it (manuka seems best)! It may well relieve your symptoms.
If you don’t, off-the-shelf antihistamines remain a perfectly respectable option.
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Fatty Acids For The Eyes & Brain: The Good And The Bad
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Good For The Eyes; Good For The Brain
We’ve written before about omega-3 fatty acids, covering the basics and some lesser-known things:
What Omega-3 Fatty Acids Really Do For Us
…and while we discussed its well-established benefits against cognitive decline (which is to be expected, because omega-3 is good against inflammation, and a large part of age-related neurodegeneration is heavily related to neuroinflammation), there’s a part of the brain we didn’t talk about in that article: the eyes.
We did, however, talk in another article about supplements that benefit the eyes and [the rest of the] brain, and the important links between the two, to the point that an examination of the levels of lutein in the retina can inform clinicians about the levels of lutein in the brain as a whole, and strongly predict Alzheimer’s disease (because Alzheimer’s patients have significantly less lutein), here:
Now, let’s tie these two ideas together
In a recent (June 2024) meta-analysis of high-quality observational studies from the US and around the world, involving nearly a quarter of a million people over 40 (n=241,151), researchers found that a higher intake of omega-3 is significantly linked to a lower risk of macular degeneration.
To put it in numbers, the highest intake of omega-3s was associated with an 18% reduced risk of early stage macular degeneration.
They also looked at a breakdown of what kinds of omega-3, and found that taking a blend DHA and EPA worked best of all, although of people who only took one kind, DHA was the best “single type” option.
You can read the paper in full, here:
Association between fatty acid intake and age-related macular degeneration: a meta-analysis
A word about trans-fatty acids (TFAs)
It was another feature of the same study that, while looking at fatty acids in general, they also found that higher consumption of trans-fatty acids was associated with a higher risk of advanced age-related macular degeneration.
Specifically, the highest intake of TFAs was associated with a more than 2x increased risk.
There are two main dietary sources of trans-fatty acids:
- Processed foods that were made with TFAs; these have now been banned in a lot of places, but only quite recently, and the ban is on the processing, not the sale, so if you buy processed foods that contain ingredients that were processed before 2021 (not uncommon, given the long life of many processed foods), the chances of them having TFAs is higher.
- Most animal products. Most notably from mammals and their milk, so beef, pork, lamb, milk, cheese, and yes even yogurt. Poultry and fish technically do also contain TFAs in most cases, but the levels are much lower.
Back to the omega-3 fatty acids…
If you’re wondering where to get good quality omega-3, well, we listed some of the best dietary sources in our main omega-3 article (linked at the top of today’s).
However, if you want to supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon that’s high in DHA and EPA, following the science of what we shared today 😎
Take care!
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Mimosa For Healing Your Body & Mind
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Today we’re looking at mimosa (no relation to the cocktail!), which is a name given to several related plant species that belong to the same genus or general clade, look similar, and have similar properties and behavior.
As a point of interest that’s not useful: mimosa is one of those plants whereby if you touch it, it’ll retract its leaves and shrink away from you. The leaves also droop at nighttime (perfectly healthily; they’re not wilting or anything; this too is just plant movement), and spring back up in the daytime.
So that’s what we mean when we say “and behavior” 😉
Antidepressant & anxiolytic
Mimosa bark and leaves have long been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as (albeit different species) in the North-East of Brazil, and (again, sometimes different species) in Mexico.
Animal studies, in vivo studies, and clinical practice in humans, have found this to be effective, for example:
❝[Mimosa pudica extract] has anti-anxiety, anti-depressant and memory enhancing activities that are mediated through multiple mechanisms❞
Source: Effects of Mimosa pudica L. leaves extract on anxiety, depression and memory
Research is ongoing with regard to how, exactly, mimosa does what it does. Here’s a paper about another species mimosa:
(notwithstanding the genus name, it’s still part of the mimosa clade)
Anti-inflammatory & analgesic
In this case, mimosa has traditionally been used as a topical tincture (for skin damage of many kinds, ranging from cuts and abrasions to burns to autoimmune conditions and more), so what does the science say about that?
❝In summary, the present study provided evidence that the [mimosa extract], its fractions and the isolated compound sakuranetin showed significant anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive activities❞
Wound healing
About those various skin damages, here’s another application, and a study showing that it doesn’t just make it feel better, it actually helps it to heal, too:
❝Therapeutic effectiveness occurred in all patients of the extract group; after the 8th treatment week, ulcer size was reduced by 92% as mean value in this group, whereas therapeutic effectiveness was observed only in one patient of the control group (chi(2), p=0.0001). No side effects were observed in any patient in either group.❞
Very compelling stats!
Read more: Therapeutic effectiveness of a Mimosa tenuiflora cortex extract in venous leg ulceration treatment
Is it safe?
Yes, for most people, with some caveats:
- this one comes with a clear “don’t take if pregnant or breastfeeding” warning, as for unknown reasons it has caused a high incidence of fetal abnormalities or fetal death in animal studies.
- while the stem bark (the kind used in most mimosa supplements and most readily found online) has negligible psychoactivity, as do many species of mimosa in general, the root of M. tenuiflora has psychedelic effects similar to ayahuasca if taken orally, for example as a decoction, if in the presence of a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), as otherwise MAO would metabolize the psychoactive component in the gut before it can enter the bloodstream.
That’s several “ifs”, meaning that the chances of unwanted psychedelic effects are slim if you’re paying attention, but as ever, do check with your doctor/pharmacist to be sure.
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎
Enjoy!
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