How To Reduce The Harm Of Festive Drinking (Without Abstaining)
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How To Reduce The Harm Of Festive Drinking
Not drinking alcohol is—of course—the best way to avoid the harmful effects of alcohol. However, not everyone wants to abstain, especially at this time of year, so today we’re going to be focusing on harm reduction without abstinence.
If you do want to quit (or even reduce) drinking, you might like our previous article about that:
For everyone else, let’s press on with harm reduction:
Before You Drink
A common (reasonable, but often unhelpful) advice is “set yourself a limit”. The problem with this is that when we’re sober, “I will drink no more than n drinks” is easy. After the first drink, we start to feel differently about it.
So: delay your first drink of the day for as long as possible
That’s it, that’s the tip. The later you start drinking, not only will you likely drink less, but also, your liver will have had longer to finish processing whatever you drank last night, so it’s coming at the new drink(s) fresh.
On that note…
Watch your meds! Often, especially if we are taking medications that also tax our liver (acetaminophen / paracetamol / Tylenol is a fine example of this), we are at risk of having a bit of a build-up, like an office printer that still chewing on the last job while you’re trying to print the next.
Additionally: do indeed eat before you drink.
While You Drink
Do your best to drink slowly. While this can hit the same kind of problem as the “set yourself a limit” idea, in that once you start drinking you forget to drink slowly, it’s something to try for.
If your main reason for drinking is the social aspect, then merely having a drink in your hand is generally sufficient. You don’t need to be keeping pace with anyone.
It is further good to alternate your drinks with water. As in, between each alcoholic drink, have a glass of water. This helps in several ways:
- Hydrates you, which is good for your body’s recovery abilities
- Halves the amount of time you spend drinking
- Makes you less thirsty; it’s easy to think “I’m thirsty” and reach for an alcoholic drink that won’t actually help. So, it may slow down your drinking for that reason, too.
At the dinner table especially, it’s very reasonable to have two glasses, one filled with water. Nobody will be paying attention to which glass you drink from more often.
After You Drink
Even if you are not drunk, assume that you are.
Anything you wouldn’t let a drunk person in your care do, don’t do. Now is not the time to drive, have a shower, or do anything you wouldn’t let a child do in the kitchen.
Hospital Emergency Rooms, every year around this time, get filled up with people who thought they were fine and then had some accident.
The biggest risks from alcohol are:
- Accidents
- Heart attacks
- Things actually popularly associated with alcohol, e.g. alcohol poisoning etc
So, avoiding accidents is as important as, if not more important than, avoiding damage to your liver.
Drink some water, and eat something.
Fruit is great, as it restocks you on vitamins, minerals, and water, while being very easy to digest.
Go to bed.
There is a limit to how much trouble you can get into there. Sleep it off.
In the morning, do not do “hair of the dog”; drinking alcohol will temporarily alleviate a hangover, but only because it kicks your liver back into an earlier stage of processing the alcohol—it just prolongs the inevitable.
Have a good breakfast, instead. Remember, fruit is your friend (as explained above).
Want to know more?
Here’s a great service with a lot of further links to a lot more resources:
With You | How to safely detox from alcohol at home
Take care!
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Welcoming the Unwelcome – by Pema Chödrön
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There’s a lot in life that we don’t get to choose. Some things we have zero control over, like the weather. Others, we can only influence, like our health. Still yet others might give us an illusion of control, only to snatch it away, like a financial reversal or a bereavement.
How, then, to suffer those “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and come through the other side with an even mind and a whole heart?
Author Pema Chödrön has a guidebook for us.
Quick note: this book does not require the reader to have any particular religious faith to enjoy its benefits, but the author is a nun. As such, the way she describes things is generally within the frame of her religion. So that’s a thing to be aware of in case it might bother you. That said…
The largest part of her approach is one that psychology might describe as rational emotive behavioral therapy.
As such, we are encouraged to indeed “meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same”, and more importantly, she lays out the tools for us to do so.
Does this mean not caring? No! Quite the opposite. It is expected, and even encouraged, that we might care very much. But: this book looks at how to care and remain compassionate, to others and to ourselves.
For Chödrön, welcoming the unwelcome is about de-toothing hardship by accepting it as a part of the complex tapestry of life, rather than something to be endured.
Bottom line: this book can greatly increase the reader’s ability to “go placidly amid the noise and haste” and bring peace to an often hectic world—starting with our own.
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Water Water Everywhere, But Which Is Best To Drink?
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Well Well Well…
In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your (health-related) opinion on drinking water—with the understanding that this may vary from place to place. We got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:
- About 65% said “Filtered is best”
- About 20% said “From the mains is best”
- About 8% said “Bottled is best”
- About 3% said “Distilled is best”
- About 3% said “Some other source is best”
Of those who said “some other source is best”, one clarified that their preferred source was well water.
So what does the science say?
Fluoridated water is bad for you: True or False?
False, assuming a normal level of consumption. Rather than take up more space today though, we’ll link to what we previously wrote on this topic:
You may be wondering: but what if my level of consumption is higher than normal?
Let’s quickly look at some stats:
- The maximum permitted safety level varies from place to place, but is (for example) 2mg/l in the US, 1.5mg/l in Canada & the UK.
- The minimum recommended amount also varies from place to place, but is (for example) 0.7mg/l in Canada and the US, and 1mg/l in the UK.
It doesn’t take grabbing a calculator to realize that if you drink twice as much water as someone else, then depending on where you are, water fluoridated to the minimum may give you more than the recommended maximum.
However… Those safety margins are set so much lower than the actual toxicity levels of fluoride, that it doesn’t make a difference.
For example: your writer here takes a medication that has the side effect of causing dryness of the mouth, and consequently she drinks at least 3l of water per day in a climate that could not be described as hot (except perhaps for about 2 weeks of the year). She weighs 72kg (that’s about 158 pounds), and the toxicity of fluoride (for ill symptoms, not death) is 0.2mg/kg. So, she’d need 14.4mg of fluoride, which even if the water fluoridation here were 2mg/l (it’s not; it’s lower here, but let’s go with the highest figure to make a point), would require drinking more than 7l of water faster than the body can process it.
For more about the numbers, check out:
Acute Fluoride Poisoning from a Public Water System
Bottled water is the best: True or False?
False, if we consider “best” to be “healthiest”, which in turn we consider to be “most nutrients, with highest safety”.
Bottled water generally does have higher levels of minerals than most local mains supply water does. That’s good!
But you know what else is generally has? Microplastics and nanoplastics. That’s bad!
We don’t like to be alarmist in tone; it’s not what we’re about here, but the stats on bottled water are simply not good; see:
We Are Such Stuff As Bottles Are Made Of
You may be wondering: “but what about bottled water that comes in glass bottles?”
Indeed, water that comes in glass bottles can be expected to have lower levels of plastic than water that comes in plastic bottles, for obvious reasons.
However, we invite you to consider how likely you believe it to be that the water wasn’t stored in plastic while being processed, shipped and stored, before being portioned into its final store-ready glass bottles for end-consumer use.
Distilled water is the best: True or False?
False, generally, with caveats:
Distilled water is surely the safest water anywhere, because you know that you’ve removed any nasties.
However, it’s also devoid of nutrients, because you also removed any minerals it contained. Indeed, if you use a still, you’ll be accustomed to the build-up of these minerals (generally simplified and referenced as “limescale”, but it’s a whole collection of minerals).
Furthermore, that loss of nutrients can be more than just a “something good is missing”, because having removed certain ions, that water could now potentially strip minerals from your teeth. In practice, however, you’d probably have to swill it excessively to cause this damage.
Nevertheless, if you have the misfortune of living somewhere like Flint, Michigan, then a water still may be a fair necessity of life. In other places, it can simply be useful to have in case of emergency, of course.
Here’s an example product on Amazon if you’d like to invest in a water still for such cases.
PS: distilled water is also tasteless, and is generally considered bad, tastewise, for making tea and coffee. So we really don’t recommend distilling your water unless you have a good reason to do so.
Filtered water is the best: True or False?
True for most people in most places.
Let’s put it this way: it can’t logically be worse than whatever source of water you put into it…
Provided you change the filter regularly, of course.
Otherwise, after overusing a filter, at best it won’t be working, and at worst it’ll be adding in bacteria that have multiplied in the filter over however long you left it there.
You may be wondering: can water filters remove microplastics, and can they remove minerals?
The answer in both cases is: sometimes.
- For microplastics it depends on the filter size and the microplastic size (see our previous article for details on that).
- For minerals, it depends on the filter type. Check out:
The H2O Chronicles | 5 Water Filters That Remove Minerals
One other thing to think about: while most water filtration jugs are made of PFAS-free BPA-free plastics for obvious reasons, for greater peace of mind, you might consider investing in a glass filtration jug, like this one ← this is just one example product on Amazon; by all means shop around and find one you like
Take care!
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What Curiosity Really Kills
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Curiosity Kills The Neurodegeneration
Of the seven things that Leonardo da Vinci considered most important for developing and maintaining the mind, number one on his list was curiosity, and we’re going to be focussing on that today.
In case you are curious about what seven things made Leonardo’s* list, they were:
- Curiosità: an insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning
- Dimostrazione: a commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes
- Sensazione: the continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as a means to enliven experience
- Sfumato: (lit: “gone up in smoke”) a willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty
- Arte/Scienza: the curated balance of art and science, imagination and logic
- Corporalità: the cultivation of physical grace, ambidexterity, and fitness
- Connessione: a recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of phenomena (systems-based thinking)
*In case you are curious why we wrote “Leonardo” and not “da Vinci” as per our usual convention of shortening names to last names, da Vinci is not technically a name, in much the same way as “of Nazareth” was not a name.
You can read more about all 7 of these in a book that we’ve reviewed previously:
How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day – by Michael J. Gelb
But for now, let’s take on “curiosity”!
If you need an extra reason to focus on growing and nurturing your curiosity, it was also #1 of Dr. Daniel Levitin’s list of…
The Five Keys Of Aging Healthily
…and that’s from a modern-day neuroscientist whose research focuses on aging, the brain, health, productivity, and creativity.
But how do we foster curiosity in the age of Google?
Curiosity is like a muscle: use it or lose it
While it’s true that many things can be Googled to satisfy one’s curiosity in an instant…
- do you? It’s only useful if you do use it
- is the top result on Google reliable?
- there are many things that aren’t available there
In short: douse “fast
foodinformation” sources, but don’t rely on them! Not just for the sake of having correct information, but also: for the actual brain benefits which is what we are aiming for here with today’s article.If you want the best brain benefits, dive in, and go deep
Here at 10almonds we often present superficial information, with links to deeper information (often: scholarly articles). We do this because a) there’s only so much we can fit in our articles and b) we know you only have so much time available, and/but may choose to dive deeper.
Think of it in layers, e.g:
- Collagen is good for joints and bones
- Collagen is a protein made of these amino acids that also requires these vitamins and minerals to be present in order to formulate it
- Those amino acids are needed in these quantities, of which this particular one is usually the weakest link that might need supplementing, and those vitamins and minerals need to be within this period of time, but not these ones at the exact same time, or else it will disrupt the process of collagen synthesis
(in case you’re curious, we covered this here and here and offered a very good, very in-depth book about it here)
Now, this doesn’t mean that to have a healthy brain you need to have the equivalent knowledge of an anatomy & physiology degree, but it is good to have that level of curiosity in at least some areas of your life—and the more, the better.
Top tips for developing a habit of curiosity
As you probably know, most of our endeavors as humans go best when they are habits:
How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits
And as for specifically building a habit of curiosity:
- Make a deal with yourself that when someone is excited to tell you what they know about something (no matter whether it is your grandkid, or the socially awkward nerd at a party, or whoever), listen and learn, no matter the topic.
- Learn at least one language other than your native language (presumably English for most of our readers). Not only does learning a language convey a lot of brain benefits of its own, but also, it is almost impossible to separate language learning from cultural learning, and so you will learn a lot about another culture too, and have whole new worlds opened up to you. Again, more is better, but one second language is already a lot better than none.
- Make a regular habit of going to your local library, and picking out a non-fiction book to take home and read. This has an advantage over a bookshop, by the way (and not just that the library is free): since library books must be returned, you will keep going back, and build a habit of taking out books.
- Pick a skill that you’d like to make into a fully-fledged hobby, and commit to continually learning as much about it as you can. We already covered language-learning above, but others might include: gardening (perhaps a specific kind), cooking (perhaps a specific kind), needlecraft (perhaps a specific kind), dance (perhaps a specific kind). You could learn a musical instrument. Or it could be something very directly useful, like learning to be a first responder in case of emergencies, and committing to continually learning more about it (because there is always more to learn).
And when it comes to the above choices… Pick things that excite you, regardless of how practical or not they are. Because that stimulation that keeps on driving you? That’s what keeps your brain active, healthy, and sharp.
Enjoy!
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Dark Calories – by Dr. Catherine Shanahan
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.
You may be wondering: do we really need a 416-page book to say “don’t use vegetable oils”?
The author, who was a biochemist before becoming a family physician, takes a lot of care to explain in ways the non-chemists amongst us can understand (with molecular diagrams very well-labelled), exactly why certain seed/vegetable oils (both of those names being imprecise and unhelpful as umbrella terms) cause metabolic problems for us, when in contrast olive oil, avocado oil, and even peanut oil, do not.
Understanding is, for many, the root foundation of compliance. We are more likely to abide by rules we understand the logic behind, than seemingly arbitrary “thou shalt not…” proclamations.
So that’s an important strength of the book, demystifying various fats and how our body responds to them on a biochemical level, not just “is associated with such-and-such, based on observational population studies”. This kind of explanation clears up why, for example, seed oils correlate with obesity more than calories, sugar, wheat, or beef—having as it does to do with affecting our body’s ability to generate and use energy.
She also offers practical tips/reminders throughout, such as how “organic” does not necessarily mean “healthy” (indeed, many poisonous plants can be grown “organically”), and nor does “organic” mean “unrefined”, it speaks only for the conditions in which the raw product was first made, before other things were done to it later.
We learn a lot, too, about the processes of oxidation, the biochemistry behind that (more diagrams!), and of course the inflammatory response to same (an important factor in most if not all chronic disease).
The style is mostly very easy-to-read pop-science, though if you’re not a chemist, you’ll probably need to slow down for the biochemistry explanations (this reviewer certainly did).
Bottom line: this is more than just a litany against vegetable oils; it’s a ground-upwards education in metabolic biochemistry for the layperson, and what that means for us in terms of chronic disease risks.
Click here to check out Dark Calories, and learn what’s going on with these oils!
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How Too Much Salt May Lead To Organ Failure
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Salt’s Health Risks… More Than Just Heart Disease!
It’s been well-established for a long time that too much salt is bad for cardiovascular health. It can lead to high blood pressure, which in turn can lead to many problems, including heart attacks.
A team of researchers has found that in addition to this, it may be damaging your organs themselves.
This is because high salt levels peel away the surfaces of blood vessels. How does this harm your organs? Because it’s through those walls that nutrients are selectively passed to where they need to be—mostly your organs. So, too much salt can indirectly starve your organs of the nutrients they need to survive. And you absolutely do not want your organs to fail!
❝We’ve identified new biomarkers for diagnosing blood vessel damage, identifying patients at risk of heart attack and stroke, and developing new drug targets for therapy for a range of blood vessel diseases, including heart, kidney and lung diseases as well as dementia❞
~ Newman Sze, Canada Research Chair in Mechanisms of Health and Disease, and lead researcher on this study.
See the evidence for yourself: Endothelial Damage Arising From High Salt Hypertension Is Elucidated by Vascular Bed Systematic Profiling
Diets high in salt are a huge problem in Canada, North America as a whole, and around the world. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report released March 9, Canadians consume 9.1 grams of salt per day.
Read: WHO global report on sodium intake reduction
You may be wondering: who is eating over 9g of salt per day?
And the answer is: mostly, people who don’t notice how much salt is already in processed foods… don’t see it, and don’t think about it.
Meanwhile, the WHO recommends the average person to consume no more than five grams, or one teaspoon, of salt per day.
Read more: Massive efforts needed to reduce salt intake and protect lives
The American Heart Association, tasked with improving public health with respect to the #1 killer of Americans (it’s also the #1 killer worldwide—but that’s not the AHA’s problem), goes further! It recommends no more than 2.3g per day, and ideally, no more than 1.5g per day.
Some handy rules-of-thumb
Here are sodium-related terms you may see on food packages:
- Salt/Sodium-Free = Less than 5mg of sodium per serving
- Very Low Sodium = 35mg or less per serving
- Low Sodium = 140mg or less per serving
- Reduced Sodium = At least 25% less sodium per serving than the usual sodium level
- Light in Sodium or Lightly Salted = At least 50% less sodium than the regular product
Confused by milligrams? Instead of remembering how many places to move the decimal point (and potentially getting an “out by an order of magnitude error—we’ve all been there!), think of the 1.5g total allowance as being 1500mg.
See also: How much sodium should I eat per day? ← from the American Heart Association
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Beetroot vs Sweet Potato – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing beetroot to sweet potato, we picked the sweet potato.
Why?
Quite a straightforward one today!
In terms of macros, sweet potato has more protein, carbs, and fiber. The glycemic index of both of these root vegetables is similar (and in each case varies similarly depending on how it is cooked), so we’ll call the winner the one that’s more nutritionally dense—the sweet potato.
Looking at vitamins next, beetroot has more vitamin B9 (and is in fact a very good source of that, unlike sweet potato), and/but sweet potato is a lot higher in vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, C, E, K, and choline. And we’re talking for example more than 582x more vitamin A, more than 17x more vitamin E, more than a 10x more vitamin K, and at least multiples more of the other vitamins mentioned. So this category’s not a difficult one to call for sweet potato.
When it comes to minerals, beetroot has more selenium, while sweet potato has more calcium, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium. They’re approximately equal in iron and zinc. Another win for sweet potato.
Of course, enjoy both. But if you’re looking for the root vegetable that’ll bring the most nutrients, it’s the sweet potato.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
No, beetroot isn’t vegetable Viagra. But here’s what else it can do
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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