How Much Difference Do Probiotic Supplements Make, Really?

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How Much Difference Do Probiotic Supplements Make?

There are three main things that get talked about with regard to gut health:

  • Prebiotics (fibrous foods)
  • Probiotics (things containing live “good” bacteria)
  • Postbiotics (things to help them thrive)

Today we’ll be talking about probiotics, but if you’d like a refresher on general gut health, here’s our previous main feature:

Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)

What bacteria are in probiotics?

There are many kinds, but the most common by far are Lactobacillus sp. and Bifidobacteria sp.

Taxonomical note:sp.” just stands for “species”. The first name is the genus, which contains a plurality of (sometimes, many) species.

Lactobacillus acidophilus, also written L. acidophilus, is a common species of Lactobacillus sp. in probiotics.

Bifidobacterium bifidum, also written B. bifidum, is a common species of Bifidobacterium sp. in probiotics.

What difference do they make?

First, and perhaps counterintuitively, putting more bacteria into your gut has a settling effect on the digestion. In particular, probiotics have been found effective against symptoms of IBS and ulcerative colitis, (but not Crohn’s):

Probiotics are also helpful against diarrhea, including that caused by infections and/or antibiotics, as well as to reduce antibiotic resistance:

Probiotics also boost the immune system outside of the gut, too, for example reducing the duration of respiratory infections:

Multi-Strain Probiotic Reduces the Duration of Acute Upper Respiratory Disease in Older People: A Double-Blind, Randomised, Controlled Clinical Trial

You may recallthe link between gut health and brain health, thanks in large part to the vagus nerve connecting the two:

The Brain-Gut Highway: A Two-Way Street

No surprises, then, that probiotics benefit mental health. See:

There are so many kinds; which should I get?

Diversity is good, so more kinds is better. However, if you have specific benefits you’d like to enjoy, you may want to go stronger on particular strains:

Choosing an appropriate probiotic product for your patient: An evidence-based practical guide

Where can I get them?

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

Alternatively, you can check out today’s sponsor, who also sell such; we recommend comparing products and deciding which will be best for you

Enjoy!

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  • How To Heal And Regrow Receding Gums

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    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

    ❝Hey Sheila – As always, your articles are superb !! So, I have a topic that I’d love you guys to discuss: green tea. I used to try + drink it years ago but I always got an allergic reaction to it. So the question I’d like answered is: Will I still get the same allergic reaction if I take the capsules ? Also, because it’s caffeinated, will taking it interfere with iron pills, other vitamins + meds ? I read that the health benefits of the decaffeinated tea/capsules are not as great as the caffeinated. Any info would be greatly appreciated !! Thanks much !!❞

    Hi! I’m not Sheila, but I’ll answer this one in the first person as I’ve had a similar issue:

    I found long ago that taking any kind of tea (not herbal infusions, but true teas, e.g. green tea, black tea, red tea, etc) on an empty stomach made me want to throw up. The feeling would subside within about half an hour, but I learned it was far better to circumvent it by just not taking tea on an empty stomach.

    However! I take an l-theanine supplement when I wake up, to complement my morning coffee, and have never had a problem with that. Of course, my physiology is not your physiology, and this “shouldn’t” be happening to either of us in the first place, so it’s not something there’s a lot of scientific literature about, and we just have to figure out what works for us.

    This last Monday I wrote (inspired in part by your query) about l-theanine supplementation, and how it doesn’t require caffeine to unlock its benefits after all, by the way. So that’s that part in order.

    I can’t speak for interactions with your other supplements or medications without knowing what they are, but I’m not aware of any known issue, beyond that l-theanine will tend to give a gentler curve to the expression of some neurotransmitters. So, if for example you’re talking anything that affects that (e.g. antidepressants, antipsychotics, ADHD meds, sleepy/wakefulness meds, etc) then checking with your doctor is best.

    ❝Can you do something on collagen and keep use posted on pineapple, and yes love and look forward to each issue❞

    Glad you’re enjoying! We did write a main feature on collagen a little while back! Here it is:

    We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of

    As for pineapple, there’s not a lot to keep you posted about! Pineapple’s protein-digesting, DNA-unzipping action is well-established and considered harmless (if your mouth feels weird when you eat pineapple or drink pineapple juice, this is why, by the way) because no meaningful damage was done.

    For example:

    • Pineapple’s bromelain action is akin to taking apart a little lego model brick by brick (easy to fix)
    • Clastogenic genotoxicity is more like taking a blowtorch to the lego model (less easy to fix)

    Fun fact: pineapple is good against inflammation, because of the very same enzyme!

    ❝I never knew anything about the l- tea. Where can I purchase it?❞

    You can get it online quite easily! Here’s an example on Amazon

    ❝The 3 most important exercises don’t work if you can’t get on the floor. I’m 78, and have knee replacements. What about 3 best chair yoga stretches? Love your articles!❞

    Here are six!

    We turn the tables and ask you a question!

    We’ll then talk about this tomorrow:

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  • A new emergency procedure for cardiac arrests aims to save more lives – here’s how it works

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    As of January this year, Aotearoa New Zealand became just the second country (after Canada) to adopt a groundbreaking new procedure for patients experiencing cardiac arrest.

    Known as “double sequential external defibrillation” (DSED), it will change initial emergency response strategies and potentially improve survival rates for some patients.

    Surviving cardiac arrest hinges crucially on effective resuscitation. When the heart is working normally, electrical pulses travel through its muscular walls creating regular, co-ordinated contractions.

    But if normal electrical rhythms are disrupted, heartbeats can become unco-ordinated and ineffective, or cease entirely, leading to cardiac arrest.

    Defibrillation is a cornerstone resuscitation method. It gives the heart a powerful electric shock to terminate the abnormal electrical activity. This allows the heart to re-establish its regular rhythm.

    Its success hinges on the underlying dysfunctional heart rhythm and the proper positioning of the defibrillation pads that deliver the shock. The new procedure will provide a second option when standard positioning is not effective.

    Using two defibrillators

    During standard defibrillation, one pad is placed on the right side of the chest just below the collarbone. A second pad is placed below the left armpit. Shocks are given every two minutes.

    Early defibrillation can dramatically improve the likelihood of surviving a cardiac arrest. However, around 20% of patients whose cardiac arrest is caused by “ventricular fibrillation” or “pulseless ventricular tachycardia” do not respond to the standard defibrillation approach. Both conditions are characterised by abnormal activity in the heart ventricles.

    DSED is a novel method that provides rapid sequential shocks to the heart using two defibrillators. The pads are attached in two different locations: one on the front and side of the chest, the other on the front and back.

    A single operator activates the defibrillators in sequence, with one hand moving from the first to the second. According to a recent randomised trial in Canada, this approach could more than double the chances of survival for patients with ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia who are not responding to standard shocks.

    The second shock is thought to improve the chances of eliminating persistent abnormal electrical activity. It delivers more total energy to the heart, travelling along a different pathway closer to the heart’s left ventricle.

    Evidence of success

    New Zealand ambulance data from 2020 to 2023 identified about 1,390 people who could potentially benefit from novel defibrillation methods. This group has a current survival rate of only 14%.

    Recognising the potential for DSED to dramatically improve survival for these patients, the National Ambulance Sector Clinical Working Group updated the clinical procedures and guidelines for emergency medical services personnel.

    The guidelines now specify that if ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia persist after two shocks with standard defibrillation, the DSED method should be administered. Two defibrillators need to be available, and staff must be trained in the new approach.

    Though the existing evidence for DSED is compelling, until recently it was based on theory and a small number of potentially biased observational studies. The Canadian trial was the first to directly compare DSED to standard treatment.

    From a total of 261 patients, 30.4% treated with this strategy survived, compared to 13.3% when standard resuscitation protocols were followed.

    The design of the trial minimised the risk of other factors confounding results. It provides confidence that survival improvements were due to the defibrillation approach and not regional differences in resources and training.

    The study also corroborates and builds on existing theoretical and clinical scientific evidence. As the trial was stopped early due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the researchers could recruit fewer than half of the numbers planned for the study.

    Despite these and other limitations, the international group of experts that advises on best practice for resuscitation updated its recommendations in 2023 in response to the trial results. It suggested (with caution) that emergency medical services consider DSED for patients with ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia who are not responding to standard treatment.

    Training and implementation

    Although the evidence is still emerging, implementation of DSED by emergency services in New Zealand has implications beyond the care of patients nationally. It is also a key step in advancing knowledge about optimal resuscitation strategies globally.

    There are always concerns when translating an intervention from a controlled research environment to the relative disorder of the real world. But the balance of evidence was carefully considered before making the decision to change procedures for a group of patients who have a low likelihood of survival with current treatment.

    Before using DSED, emergency medical personnel undergo mandatory education, simulation and training. Implementation is closely monitored to determine its impact.

    Hospitals and emergency departments have been informed of the protocol changes and been given opportunities to ask questions and give feedback. As part of the implementation, the St John ambulance service will perform case reviews in addition to wider monitoring to ensure patient safety is prioritised.

    Ultimately, those involved are optimistic this change to cardiac arrest management in New Zealand will have a positive impact on survival for affected patients.The Conversation

    Vinuli Withanarachchie, PhD candidate, College of Health, Massey University; Bridget Dicker, Associate Professor of Paramedicine, Auckland University of Technology, and Sarah Maessen, Research Associate, Auckland University of Technology

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

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  • When Age Is A Flexible Number

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    Aging, Counterclockwise!

    In the late 1970s, Dr. Ellen Langer hypothesized that physical markers of aging could be affected by psychosomatic means.

    Note: psychosomatic does not mean “it’s all in your head”.

    Psychosomatic means “your body does what your brain tells it to do, for better or for worse”

    She set about testing that, in what has been referred to since as…

    The Counterclockwise Study

    A small (n=16) sample of men in their late 70s and early 80s were recruited in what they were told was a study about reminiscing.

    Back in the 1970s, it was still standard practice in the field of psychology to outright lie to participants (who in those days were called “subjects”), so this slight obfuscation was a much smaller ethical aberration than in some famous studies of the same era and earlier (cough cough Zimbardo cough Milgram cough).

    Anyway, the participants were treated to a week in a 1950s-themed retreat, specifically 1959, a date twenty years prior to the experiment’s date in 1979. The environment was decorated and furnished authentically to the date, down to the food and the available magazines and TV/radio shows; period-typical clothing was also provided, and so forth.

    • The control group were told to spend the time reminiscing about 1959
    • The experimental group were told to pretend (and maintain the pretense, for the duration) that it really was 1959

    The results? On many measures of aging, the experimental group participants became quantifiably younger:

    ❝The experimental group showed greater improvement in joint flexibility, finger length (their arthritis diminished and they were able to straighten their fingers more), and manual dexterity.

    On intelligence tests, 63 percent of the experimental group improved their scores, compared with only 44 percent of the control group. There were also improvements in height, weight, gait, and posture.

    Finally, we asked people unaware of the study’s purpose to compare photos taken of the participants at the end of the week with those submitted at the beginning of the study. These objective observers judged that all of the experimental participants looked noticeably younger at the end of the study.❞

    ~ Dr. Ellen Langer

    Remember, this was after one week.

    Her famous study was completed in 1979, and/but not published until eleven years later in 1990, with the innocuous title:

    Higher stages of human development: Perspectives on adult growth

    You can read about it much more accessibly, and in much more detail, in her book:

    Counterclockwise: A Proven Way to Think Yourself Younger and Healthier – by Dr. Ellen Langer

    We haven’t reviewed that particular book yet, so here’s Linda Graham’s review, that noted:

    ❝Langer cites other research that has made similar findings.

    In one study, for instance, 650 people were surveyed about their attitudes on aging. Twenty years later, those with a positive attitude with regard to aging had lived seven years longer on average than those with a negative attitude to aging.

    (By comparison, researchers estimate that we extend our lives by four years if we lower our blood pressure and reduce our cholesterol.)

    In another study, participants read a list of negative words about aging; within 15 minutes, they were walking more slowly than they had before.❞

    ~ Linda Graham

    Read the review in full:

    Aging in Reverse: A Review of Counterclockwise

    The Counterclockwise study has been repeated since, and/but we are still waiting for the latest (exciting, much larger sample, 90 participants this time) study to be published. The research proposal describes the method in great detail, and you can read that with one click over on PubMed:

    PubMed | Ageing as a mindset: a study protocol to rejuvenate older adults with a counterclockwise psychological intervention

    It was approved, and has now been completed (as of 2020), but the results have not been published yet; you can see the timeline of how that’s progressing over on ClinicalTrials.gov:

    Clinical Trials | Ageing as a Mindset: A Counterclockwise Experiment to Rejuvenate Older Adults

    Hopefully it’ll take less time than the eleven years it took for the original study, but in the meantime, there seems to be nothing to lose in doing a little “Citizen Science” for ourselves.

    Maybe a week in a 20 years-ago themed resort (writer’s note: wow, that would only be 2004; that doesn’t feel right; it should surely be at least the 90s!) isn’t a viable option for you, but we’re willing to bet it’s possible to “microdose” on this method. Given that the original study lasted only a week, even just a themed date-night on a regular recurring basis seems like a great option to explore (if you’re not partnered then well, indulge yourself how best you see fit, in accord with the same premise; a date-night can be with yourself too!).

    Just remember the most important take-away though:

    Don’t accidentally put yourself in your own control group!

    In other words, it’s critically important that for the duration of the exercise, you act and even think as though it is the appropriate date.

    If you instead spend your time thinking “wow, I miss the [decade that does it for you]”, you will dodge the benefits, and potentially even make yourself feel (and thus, potentially, if the inverse hypothesis holds true, become) older.

    This latter is not just our hypothesis by the way, there is an established potential for nocebo effect.

    For example, the following study looked at how instructions given in clinical tests can be worded in a way that make people feel differently about their age, and impact the results of the mental and/or physical tests then administered:

    ❝Our results seem to suggest how manipulations by instructions appeared to be more largely used and capable of producing more clear performance variations on cognitive, memory, and physical tasks.

    Age-related stereotypes showed potentially stronger effects when they are negative, implicit, and temporally closer to the test of performance. ❞

    ~ Dr. Francesco Pagnini

    Read more: Age-based stereotype threat: a scoping review of stereotype priming techniques and their effects on the aging process

    (and yes, that’s the same Dr. Francesco Pagnini whose name you saw atop the other study we cited above, with the 90 participants recreating the Counterclockwise study)

    Want to know more about [the hard science of] psychosomatic health?

    Check out Dr. Langer’s other book, which we reviewed recently:

    The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health – by Dr. Ellen Langer

    Enjoy!

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    Like A Ship Loves An Anchor?

    Today’s article may seem a little bit of a downer to start with, but don’t worry, it picks up again too. Simply put, we’ve written before about many of the good parts of relationships, e.g:

    Only One Kind Of Relationship Promotes Longevity This Much!

    …but what if that’s not what we have?

    Note: if you have a very happy, secure, fulfilling, joyous relationship, then, great! Or if you’re single and happy, then, also great! Hopefully you will still find today’s feature of use if you find yourself advising a friend or family member one day. So without further ado, let’s get to it…

    You may be familiar with the “sunk cost fallacy”; if not: it’s what happens when a person or group has already invested into a given thing, such that even though the thing is not going at all the way they hoped, they now want to continue trying to make that thing work, lest their previous investment be lost. But the truth is: if it’s not going to work, then the initial investment is already lost, and pouring out extra won’t help—it’ll just lose more.

    That “investment” in a given thing could be money, time, energy, or (often the case) a combination of the above.

    In the field of romance, the “sunk cost fallacy” keeps a lot of bad relationships going for longer than perhaps they should, and looking back (perhaps after a short adjustment period), the newly-single person says “why did I let that go on?” and vows to not make the same mistake again.

    But that prompts the question: how can we know when it’s right to “keep working on it, because relationships do involve work”, as perfectly reasonable relationship advice often goes, and when it’s right to call it quits?

    Should I stay or should I go?

    Some questions for you (or perhaps a friend you might find yourself advising) to consider:

    • What qualities do you consider the most important for a partner to have—and does your partner have them?
    • If you described the worst of your relationship to a close friend, would that friend feel bad for you?
    • Do you miss your partner when they’re away, or are you glad of the break? When they return, are they still glad to see you?
    • If you weren’t already in this relationship, would you seek to enter it now? (This takes away sunk cost and allows a more neutral assessment)
    • Do you feel completely safe with your partner (emotionally as well as physically), or must you tread carefully to avoid conflict?
    • If your partner decided tomorrow that they didn’t want to be with you anymore and left, would that be just a heartbreak, or an exciting beginning of a new chapter in your life?
    • What things would you generally consider dealbreakers in a relationship—and has your partner done any of them?

    The last one can be surprising, by the way. We often see or hear of other people’s adverse relationship situations and think “I would never allow…” yet when we are in a relationship and in love, there’s a good chance that we might indeed allow—or rather, excuse, overlook, and forgive.

    And, patience and forgiveness certainly aren’t inherently bad traits to have—it’s just good to deploy them consciously, and not merely be a doormat.

    Either way, reflect (or advise your friend/family member to reflect, as applicable) on the “score” from the above questions.

    • If the score is good, then maybe it really is just a rough patch, and the tools we link at the top and bottom of this article might help.
    • If the score is bad, the relationship is bad, and no amount of historic love or miles clocked up together will change that. Sometimes it’s not even anyone’s fault; sometimes a relationship just ran its course, and now it’s time to accept that and turn to a new chapter.

    “At my age…”

    As we get older, it’s easy for that sunk cost fallacy to loom large. Inertia is heavy, the mutual entanglement of lives is far-reaching, and we might not feel we have the same energy for dating that we did when we were younger.

    And there may sometimes be a statistical argument for “sticking it out” at least for a while, depending on where we are in the relationship, per this study (with 165,039 participants aged 20–76), which found:

    ❝Results on mean levels indicated that relationship satisfaction decreased from age 20 to 40, reached a low point at age 40, then increased until age 65, and plateaued in late adulthood.

    As regards the metric of relationship duration, relationship satisfaction decreased during the first 10 years of the relationship, reached a low point at 10 years, increased until 20 years, and then decreased again.❞

    ~ Dr. Janina Bühler et al.

    Source: Development of Relationship Satisfaction Across the Life Span: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

    And yet, when it comes to prospects for a new relationship…

    • If our remaining life is growing shorter, then it’s definitely too short to spend in an unhappy relationship
    • Maybe we really won’t find romance again… And maybe that’s ok, if w’re comfortable making our peace with that and finding joy in the rest of life (this widowed writer (hi, it’s me) plans to remain single now by preference, and her life is very full of purpose and beauty and joy and yes, even love—for family, friends, etc, plus the memory of my wonderful late beloved)
    • Nevertheless, the simple fact is: many people do find what they go on to describe as their best relationship yet, late in life ← this study is with a small sample size, but in this case, even anecdotal evidence seems sufficient to make the claim reasonable; probably you personally know someone who has done so. If they can, so can you, if you so wish.
    • Adding on to that last point… Later life relationships can also offer numerous significant advantages unique to such (albeit some different challenges too—but with the right person, those challenges are just a fun thing to tackle together). See for example:

    An exploratory investigation into dating among later‐life women

    And about those later-life relationships that do work? They look like this:

    “We’ve Got This”: Middle-Aged and Older (ages 40–87) Couples’ Satisfying Relationships and We-Talk Promote Better Physiological, Relational, and Emotional Responses to Conflict

    this one looks like the title says it all, but it really doesn’t, and it’s very much worth at least reading the abstract, if not the entire paper—because it talks a lot about the characteristics that make for happy or unhappy relationships, and the effect that those things have on people. It really is very good, and quite an easy read.

    See again: Healthy Relationship, Healthy Life

    Take care!

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  • Next-Level Headache Hacks

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    A Muscle With A Lot Of Therapeutic Value

    First, a quick anatomy primer, so that the rest makes sense. We’re going to be talking about your sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle today.

    To find it, there are two easy ways:

    • look in a mirror, turn your head to one side and it’ll stick out on the opposite side of your neck
    • look at this diagram

    (we’re going to talk about it in the singular, but you have one on each side)

    This muscle is interesting for very many reasons, but what we’re going to focus on today is that massaging/stretching it (correctly!) can benefit several things that are right next to it and/or behind it, namely:

    • The tenth cranial nerve
    • The eleventh cranial nerve
    • The carotid artery

    Why do we care about these?

    Well, we would die quickly without the first and last of those. However, more practically, massaging each has benefits:

    The tenth cranial nerve

    This one is also known by its superhero alter-ego name:

    The Vagus Nerve (And How You Can Make Use Of It)

    The eleventh cranial nerve

    This one’s not nearly so critical to life, but it does facilitate most of the motor functions in that general part of the body—including some mechanics of speech production, and maintaining posture of the shoulders/neck/head (which in turn strongly affects presence/absence of certain kinds of headaches).

    The carotid artery

    We suspect you know what this one does already; it supplies the brain (and the rest of your head, for that matter) with oxygenated blood.

    What is useful to know today, is that it can be massaged, via the SCM, in a way that brings about a gentler version of this “one weird trick” to cure a lot of kinds of headaches:

    Curing Headaches At Home With Actual Science

    How (And Why) To Massage Your SCM

    …to relieve many kinds of headache, migraine, eye-ache, and tension or pain the jaw. It’s not a magical cure all so this comes with no promises, but it can and will help with a lot of things.

    In few words: turn your ahead away from the side where it hurts (if both, just pick one and then repeat for the other side), and slightly downwards. When your SCM sticks out a bit on the other side, gently pinch and rub it, working from the bottom to the top.

    If you prefer videos, here is a demonstration:

    !

    How (And Why) To Stretch Your SCM

    The above already includes a little stretch, but you can stretch it in a way that specifically stimulates your vagus nerve (this is good for many things).

    In few words: stand (or sit) up straight, and interlace your fingers together. Put your hands on the back of your neck, thumbs-downwards, and (keeping your face forward) look to one side with your eyes only, and hold that until you feel the urge to yawn (it’ll probably take between about 3 seconds and 30 seconds). Then repeat on the other side.

    If you prefer videos, this one is a very slight variation of what we just described but works the same way:

    !

    Take care!

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Everything You Need To Know About The Menopause – by Kate Muir

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    Kate Muir has made a career out of fighting for peri-menopausal health to be taken seriously. Because… it’s actually far more serious than most people know.

    What people usually know:

    • No more periods
    • Hot flushes
    • “I dunno, some annoying facial hairs maybe”

    The reality encompasses a lot more, and Muir covers topics including:

    • Workplace struggles (completely unnecessary ones)
    • Changes to our sex life (not usually good ones, by default!)
    • Relationship between menopause and breast cancer
    • Relationship between menopause and Alzheimer’s

    “Wait”, you say, “correlation is not causation, that last one’s just an age thing”, and that’d be true if it weren’t for the fact that receiving Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) or not is strongly correlated with avoiding Alzheimer’s or not.

    The breast cancer thing is not to be downplayed either. Taking estrogen comes with a stated risk of breast cancer… But what they don’t tell you, is that for many people, not taking it comes with a higher risk of breast cancer (but that’s not the doctor’s problem, in that case). It’s one of those situations where fear of litigation can easily overrule good science.

    This kind of thing, and much more, makes up a lot of the meat of this book.

    Hormonal treatment for the menopause is often framed in the wider world as a whimsical luxury, not a serious matter of health…. If you’ve ever wondered whether you might want something different, something better, as part of your general menopause plan (you have a plan for this important stage of your life, right?), this is a powerful handbook for you.

    Additionally, if (like many!) you justifiably fear your doctor may brush you off (or in the case of mood disorders, may try to satisfy you with antidepressants to treat the symptom, rather than HRT to treat the cause), this book will arm you as necessary to help you get what you need.

    Grab your copy of “Everything You Need To Know About The Menopause” from Amazon today!

    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: