How Does Alcohol Cause Blackouts?
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Sometimes people who have never experienced an alcoholic blackout wonder “is it real, or is it just a convenient excuse to avoid responsibility/embarrassment with regard to things done while drunk?”
In 1969 (so, still in the era of incredibly unethical psychological experiments that ranged from the 50s into the 70s), Dr. Donald Goodwin conducted a study in which intoxicated participants were asked to recall an object they had just seen. Most succeeded initially, but half were unable to remember the object just 30 minutes later, demonstrating alcohol-induced memory blackouts.
But, is it any different from regular forgetting? And the answer is: yes, it is indeed different.
The memories that never got stored
Ethanol, the active compound in alcohol, is lipophilic, enabling it to cross the blood-brain barrier and disrupt brain function. It impairs all kinds of things, including decision-making, impulse control, motor skills, and, notably, memory networks—which is what we’re looking at today.
Memory formation (beyond “working memory”, which is the kind that enables you to have an idea of what you were just doing, and carry out simple plans like “pick up this cup, raise it to my mouth, and take a sip”, without forgetting partway through) relies on a process called long-term potentiation (LTP), which strengthens neural connections to store information. Ethanol disrupts this process, preventing memory storage and causing blackouts.
In effect, this means you didn’t just forget a memory; you never stored it in the first place. For this reason, experiences from during an alcoholic blackout cannot be retrieved in the same ways we might retrieve other memories (e.g. in regular forgetting, it’s possible that a context clue jogs our memory and then we remember the experience—because in regular forgetting, the memory was in there; we just didn’t recall it until we were reminded).
Blackouts (in which the memory is never stored in the first place) typically occur when blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeds 0.16, while lower levels can result in partial memory loss (brownouts) in which some things may be recalled, but not others. Factors such as dehydration, genetics, medications, food consumption, and age influence the likelihood of complete blackouts.
While alcohol’s residual effects typically subside within a day, repeated over-drinking can cause permanent neuron damage, as well as of course plenty of damage to other organs in the body (especially the liver and gut).
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Alcohol
Take care!
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Fast Like A Girl – by Dr. Mindy Pelz
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A lot of information out there when it comes to intermittent fasting is very much centered on men in the 25–35 years age range. What about the rest of us?
Our physiological needs are not the same, and it’d be foolhardy to ignore that. But what things do still stand the same, and what things would benefit from a different approach in our cases?
Dr. Pelz has our back with this book packed with information based on the best science currently out there. She gives a general overview of fasting with full consideration to the fact that we the reader may well be female or over a certain age or both. In addition, the book offers:
- Metabolic switching (the “missing key to weight loss”)
- Building a fasting lifestyle (that works with your actual life, not just on paper)
- How to time fasting according to your menstrual cycle (if you don’t have a cycle, she has you covered too)
- How to break a fast—properly (and many other hacks/tips/tricks to make fasting so much easier)
Bottom line: if you want to do intermittent fasting and want to work with rather than against your body, then this book is a fine option.
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Almonds vs Peanuts – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing almonds to peanuts, we picked the almonds.
Why?
No, it’s not just our pro-almonds bias… But it’s also not as one-sided, nutritionally speaking, as you might think!
In terms of macros, almonds have a lot more fiber, and moderately more carbs, the ratio of which give almonds the lower glycemic index. On the other hand, peanuts have a little more protein. Both of these nuts are equally fatty, but peanuts have the higher saturated fat content. All in all, we say the biggest deciding factor is the fiber, and hand this one to the almonds.
In the category of vitamins, almonds have more of vitamins B2 and E, while peanuts have more of vitamins B1, B3, B5, B6, B7, and B9. An easy win for peanuts this time.
When it comes to minerals, almonds have more calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium, while peanuts have more copper, iron, selenium, and zinc. Thus, a 5:4 marginal win for almonds.
Adding up the sections makes for an overall win for almonds, but as you can see, it was close and peanuts certainly have their merits too, so by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Unless you are allergic, in which case, obviously please don’t do that.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
Enjoy!
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Heavy Metal Detox In A Pill?
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We have previous discussed assorted approaches to “detoxing”:
Detox: What’s Real, What’s Not, What’s Useful, What’s Dangerous?
Today we’re going to be looking at one we didn’t cover there, which is zeolite.
What is zeolite?
Zeolite is a mineral that occurs naturally and can also be synthesized, and it’s famous for absorbing other stuff from around it. Because of this property, it’s used in many things, including:
- Petrochemical catalysis
- Water treatment
- Nuclear waste reprocessing
- Cat litter
- Supplements (for detox purposes)
That’s, uh… An interesting list, isn’t it? So, we were curious as to whether this mineral that’s also used in fish tank filters is, in fact, overpriced gravel being sold to the gullible as a health supplement.
We had to do some digging on this one
Our journey didn’t start well, with this very dubious-looking paper being cited by a company selling zeolite supplements:
This immediately prompted two questions:
- Who is eating graphene?!* That stuff does not occur in nature (or at least; it hasn’t ever been found; the universe is a big place so it might exist elsewhere), has only relatively recently been synthesized, is very difficult to produce, is two-dimensional while being hard as diamonds, and exists only in truly tiny lab-made quantities worldwide. It would be orders of magnitude easier to find and eat uranium.
- Is this a reputable journal? Which question was easier to answer than the former one, and the answer is “no”; we hadn’t heard of this journal (ACTA Scientific), and neither it seems had most of the Internet, but we did find it on a list of predatory journals, here.
*The citation given in the above paper should by rights answer the question of who is eating graphene, since by rights they must have demonstrated it somehow, but it just doesn’t. Instead, it links to what it claims is a paper titled “Oxygenated Zeolite (Clinoptilite) Efficiently Removes Aluminum & Graphene Oxide”, but is in reality just someone’s blog post with a screenshot of an actual paper entitled “Novel, oxygenated clinoptilolite material efficiently removes aluminium from aluminium chloride-intoxicated rats in vivo”). Looking up this real paper in its real journal, it does not mention graphene.
All this to say: sometimes, unscrupulous people will just plain lie to you, which is why peer review is important, as is sourcing data from reputable journals. Which is what we do for you so that you don’t have to 🙂
It does, actually, work though (for heavy metal detox)
Notwithstanding the aforementioned bunk, we found this from a more reputable publisher:
❝In this study, we have presented clinical evidence supporting the use of an activated clinoptilolite (zeolite) suspension to safely and effectively increase the urinary excretion of potentially toxic heavy metals in healthy volunteers without negatively impacting the electrolyte profiles of the participants.
Significant increases in the urinary excretion of aluminum, antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, lead, mercury, nickel and tin were observed in the subjects participating in the two study groups as compared to placebo controls.❞
Also good for the gut and against inflammation
Specifically, it’s good for gut barrier integrity, i.e., against “leaky gut syndrome”:
❝Twelve weeks of zeolite supplementation exerted beneficial effects on intestinal wall integrity as indicated via decreased concentrations of the tight junction modulator zonulin.
This was accompanied by mild anti-inflammatory effects in this cohort of aerobically trained subjects.❞
May also be good against neurodegenerative diseases
If it is (which is plausible), it’ll probably because of removing heavy metals and improving gut barrier integrity—in other words, the things we just looked at in the two reputable peer-reviewed studies we examined above.
But the science is young for this one; here’s the current state of things:
Zeolite and Neurodegenerative Diseases
Is it safe?
Safety reviews have found it to be safe, for example:
Critical Review on Zeolite Clinoptilolite Safety and Medical Applications in vivo
However, if you are taking regular medications, we recommend checking with your pharmacist or doctor to ensure that zeolite will not also remove those medications from your system!
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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Reasons to Stay Alive – by Matt Haig
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We’ve previously reviewed Matt Haig’s (excellent) The Comfort Book, and now it’s time for his more famous book: Reasons To Stay Alive. So, what’s this one, beyond the obvious?
It narrates the experience of anxiety, depression, and suicidality, and discovering how to find beauty and joy in the world despite it all. It’s not that the author found a magical cure—he still experiences depression and anxiety (cannot speak for suicidality) but he knows now how to manage it, and live his life.
You may be wondering: is this book instructional; is it reproducible, or is it just an autobiography? It’s centered around his own experience and learnings, but it gives a huge sense of not feeling alone, of having hope, and it gives a template for making sense of one’s own experience, even if every person will of course have some points of differences, the commonalities are nonetheless of immense value.
The writing style is similar to The Comfort Book; it’s lots of small chapters, and all very easy-reading. Well, the subject matter is sometimes rather heavy, but the language is easy-reading! In other words, just the thing for when one is feeling easily overwhelmed, or not feeling up to reading a lot.
Bottom line: whether or not you suffer with anxiety and/or depression, whether or not you sometimes feel suicidal, the contents of this book are important, valuable insights for everyone.
Click here to check out Reasons To Stay Alive, and see through the highs and lows of life.
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Fruit & Veg In The Fridge: Pros & Cons
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
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
❝What effect does refrigeration have on the nutritional value of fruit and vegetables??❞
It’s difficult to give a single definitive answer, because naturally there are a lot of different fruits and vegetables, and a lot of different climates. The answer may be different for tomatoes in Alaska vs bananas in Arizona!
However, we can still generalize at least somewhat
Refrigeration will generally slow down any degradation process, and in the case of fruit and vegetables, that can mean slowing down their “ripening” too, as applicable.
However…
Refrigeration will also impede helpful bioactivity too, and that includes quite a list of things.
Here’s a good study that’s quite illustrative; we’d summarize the conclusions but the rather long title already does that nicely:
So, this really is a case of “there are pros and cons, but probably more cons on balance”.
In practical terms, a good take-away from this can be twofold:
- don’t keep fruit and veg in the fridge unless the ambient temperature really requires it
- if the ambient temperature does require it, it’s best to get the produce in fresh each day if that’s feasible, to minimize time spent in the fridge
An extra thing not included there: often when it comes to the spoilage of fruit and veg, the problem is that it respires and oxidizes; reducing the temperature does lower the rate of those, but often a far better way is to remove the oxygen. So for example, if you get carried away and chop too many carrot batons for your hummus night, then putting them in a sealed container can go a long way to keeping them fresh.
See also: How Does the Nutritional Value of Fruits and Vegetables Change Over Time?
Enjoy!
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The Oh She Glows Cookbook – by Angela Liddon
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Let’s get the criticism out of the way first: notwithstanding the subtitle promising over 100 recipes, there are about 80-odd here, if we discount recipes that are no-brainer things like smoothies, sides such as for example “roasted garlic”, or meta-ingredients such as oat flour (instructions: blend the oats and you get oat flour).
The other criticism is more subjective: if you are like this reviewer, you will want to add more seasonings than recommended to most of the recipes. But that’s easy enough to do.
As for the rest: this is a very healthy cookbook, and quite wide-ranging and versatile, with recipes that are homely, with a lot of emphasis on comfort foods (but still, healthy), though certainly some are perfectly worthy of entertaining too.
A nice bonus of this book is that it offers a lot of available substitutions (much like we do at 10almonds), and also ways of turning the recipe into something else entirely with just a small change. This trait more than makes up for the slight swindle in terms of number of recipes, since some of the recipes have bonus recipes snuck in.
Bottom line: if you’d like to broaden your plant-based cooking range, this book is a fine option for expanding your repertoire.
Click here to check out The Oh She Glows Cookbook, and indeed glow!
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