HRT & Your Heart

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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

❝So the reason that someone on estrogen has a slightly higher chance of a heart attack is…what? Is it just because there’s a higher body fat?❞

There shouldn’t be higher chance of a heart attack once everything’s been taken into account, and indeed estrogen has some cardioprotective benefits, along with competing properties, e.g:

❝The cardiovascular effects of estrogen require a careful balancing act between possible advantages, such as enhanced lipid profiles and vascular function, and possible concerns, like increased thrombotic risk.

Estrogen has cardioprotective properties in premenopausal women❞

~ Dr. Ayesha Javed et al.

Source: The Relationship Between Myocardial Infarction and Estrogen Use: A Literature Review

The risks and benefits of HRT are numerous, and/but a lot of the risks are associated only with animal-derived HRT rather bioidentitical, so you might want to check out our previous article:

HRT: A Tale Of Two Approaches (Bioidentical vs Animal)

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  • Just One Heart – by Dr. Jonathan Fisher

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    First, what this is not: a book to say eat fiber, go easy on the salt, get some exercise, and so forth.

    What this rather is: a book about the connection between the heart and mind; often written poetically, the simple biological reality is that our emotional state does have a genuine impact on our heart health, and as such, any effort to look after our heart (healthwise) would be incomplete without an effort to look after our heart (emotionally).

    Dr. Fisher talks about the impact of stress and uncertainty, as well as peace and security, on heart health—and then, having sorted emotional states into “heart breakers” and “heart wakers”, he goes about laying out a plan for what is, emotionally and thus also physiologically, good for our heart.

    Chapter by chapter, he walks us through the 7 principles to live by:

    1. Steadiness: how to steady your heart amid chaos
    2. Wisdom: how to develop a wise heart in uncertain times
    3. Openness: how to safely open your heart in a threatening world
    4. Wholeness: how to show up with your whole heart without going to pieces
    5. Courage: how to lead with a courageous heart when fear surrounds you
    6. Lightness: how to live with a light heart in a heavy world
    7. Warmth: how to love with a warm heart when life feels cold

    The style is anything but clinical; it’s well-written, certainly, and definitely informed in part by his medical understanding of the heart, but it’s entirely the raw human element that shines throughout, and that makes the ideas a lot more tangible.

    Bottom line: if you’d like your heart to be healthy (cardiac health) and your heart to be healthy (emotional health), this book is a very worthwhile read.

    Click here to check out Just One Heart, and take care of yours!

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  • Understanding and Responding to Self-Harm – by Dr. Allan House

    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.

    Whether it’s yourself, or (statistically much more likely) a loved one, it’s common to be faced with the deeply unpleasant reality of self-harm. This is a case where most definitely, “forewarned is forearmed”.

    Dr. House covers not just the “what” and “why” of self-harm, but also the differences between suicidal and non-suicidal self-harm, as well as the impulsive and the planned.

    Stylistically, the book is well-written, well-edited, and well-formatted. All this makes for easy reading and efficient learning.

    Much of the book is, of course, given over to how to help in cases of self-harm. More specifically: how to approach things with both seriousness and compassion, and how to help in a way that doesn’t create undue pressure.

    Because, as Dr. House explains and illustrates, a lot of well-meaning people end up causing more harm, by their botched attempts to help.

    This book looks to avoid such tragedies.

    Bottom line: if you’d rather know these things now, instead of wishing you’d known later, then this book is the one-stop guide it claims to be.

    Click here to check out Understanding and Responding to Self-Harm, and be prepared!

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  • The Sugar Alcohol That Reduces BMI!

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    Inositol Does-It-Ol’!

    First things first, a quick clarification up-front:

    Myo-inositol or D-chiro-inositol?

    We’re going to be talking about inositol today, which comes in numerous forms, but most importantly:

    • Myo-inositol (myo-Ins)
    • D-chiro-inositol (D-chiro-Ins)

    These are both inositol, (a sugar alcohol!) and for our purposes today, the most relevant form is myo-inositol.

    The studies we’ll look at today are either:

    • just about myo-inositol, or
    • about myo-inositol in the presence of d-chiro-inositol at a 40:1 ratio.

    You have both in your body naturally; wherever supplementation is mentioned, it means supplementing with either:

    • extra myo-inositol (because that’s the one the body more often needs more of), or
    • both, at the 40:1 ratio that we mentioned above (because that’s one way to help balance an imbalanced ratio)

    With that in mind…

    Inositol against diabetes?

    Inositol is known to:

    • decrease insulin resistance
    • increase insulin sensitivity
    • have an important role in cell signaling
    • have an important role in metabolism

    The first two things there both mean that inositol is good against diabetes. It’s not “take this and you’re cured”, but:

    • if you’re pre-diabetic it may help you avoid type 2 diabetes
    • if you are diabetic (either type) it can help in the management of your diabetes.

    It does this by allowing your body to make better use of insulin (regardless of whether that insulin is from your pancreas or from the pharmacy).

    How does it do that? Research is still underway and there’s a lot we don’t know yet, but here’s one way, for example:

    ❝Evidence showed that inositol phosphates might enhance the browning of white adipocytes and directly improve insulin sensitivity through adipocytes❞

    Read: Role of Inositols and Inositol Phosphates in Energy Metabolism

    We mentioned its role in metabolism in a bullet-point above, and we didn’t just mean insulin sensitivity! There’s also…

    Inositol for thyroid function?

    The thyroid is one of the largest endocrine glands in the body, and it controls how quickly the body burns energy, makes proteins, and how sensitive the body should be to other hormones. So, it working correctly or not can have a big impact on everything from your mood to your weight to your energy levels.

    How does inositol affect thyroid function?

    • Inositol has an important role in thyroid function and dealing with autoimmune diseases.
    • Inositol is essential to produce H2O2 (yes, really) required for the synthesis of thyroid hormones.
    • Depletion of inositol may lead to the development of some thyroid diseases, such as hypothyroidism.
    • Inositol supplementation seems to help in the management of thyroid diseases.

    Read: The Role of Inositol in Thyroid Physiology and in Subclinical Hypothyroidism Management

    Inositol for PCOS?

    A systematic review published in the Journal of Gynecological Endocrinology noted:

    • Inositol can restore spontaneous ovarian activity (and consequently fertility) in most patients with PCOS.
    • Myo-inositol is a safe and effective treatment to improve:
      • ovarian function
      • healthy metabolism
      • healthy hormonal balance

    While very comprehensive (which is why we included it here), that review’s a little old, so…

    Check out this cutting edge (Jan 2023) study whose title says it all:

    Inositol is an effective and safe treatment in polycystic ovary syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

    Inositol for fertility?

    Just last year, Mendoza et al published that inositol supplementation, together with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals, could be an optimal strategy to improve female fertility.

    This built from Gambiole and Forte’s work, which laid out how inositol is a safe compound for many issues related to fertility and pregnancy. In particular, several clinical trials demonstrated that:

    • inositol can have therapeutic effects in infertile women
    • inositol can also be useful as a preventive treatment during pregnancy
    • inositol could prevent the onset of neural tube defects
    • inositol also reduces the occurrence of gestational diabetes

    Due to the safety and efficiency of inositol, it can take the place of many drugs that are contraindicated in pregnancy. Basically: take this, and you’ll need fewer other drugs. Always a win!

    Read: Myo-Inositol as a Key Supporter of Fertility and Physiological Gestation

    Inositol For Weight Loss

    We promised you “this alcohol sugar can reduce your BMI”, and we weren’t making it up!

    Zarezadeh et al conducited a very extensive systematic review, and found:

    • Oral inositol supplementation has positive effect on BMI reduction.
    • Inositol in the form of myo-inositol had the strongest effect on BMI reduction.
    • Participants with PCOS and/or who were overweight, experienced the most significant improvement of all.

    Want some inositol?

    As ever, we don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, here’s myo-inositol and d-chiro-inositol at a 40:1 ratio, available on Amazon!

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  • Can you drink your fruit and vegetables? How does juice compare to the whole food?

    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.

    Do you struggle to eat your fruits and vegetables? You are not alone. Less than 5% of Australians eat the recommended serves of fresh produce each day (with 44% eating enough fruit but only 6% eating the recommended vegetables).

    Adults should aim to eat at least five serves of vegetables (or roughly 375 grams) and two serves of fruit (about 300 grams) each day. Fruits and vegetables help keep us healthy because they have lots of nutrients (vitamins, minerals and fibre) and health-promoting bioactive compounds (substances not technically essential but which have health benefits) without having many calories.

    So, if you are having trouble eating the rainbow, you might be wondering – is it OK to drink your fruits and vegetables instead in a juice or smoothie? Like everything in nutrition, the answer is all about context.

    Darina Belonogova/Pexels

    It might help overcome barriers

    Common reasons for not eating enough fruits and vegetables are preferences, habits, perishability, cost, availability, time and poor cooking skills. Drinking your fruits and vegetables in juices or smoothies can help overcome some of these barriers.

    Juicing or blending can help disguise tastes you don’t like, like bitterness in vegetables. And it can blitz imperfections such as bruises or soft spots. Preparation doesn’t take much skill or time, particularly if you just have to pour store-bought juice from the bottle. Treating for food safety and shipping time does change the make up of juices slightly, but unsweetened juices still remain significant sources of nutrients and beneficial bioactives.

    Juicing can extend shelf life and reduce the cost of nutrients. In fact, when researchers looked at the density of nutrients relative to the costs of common foods, fruit juice was the top performer.

    So, drinking my fruits and veggies counts as a serve, right?

    How juice is positioned in healthy eating recommendations is a bit confusing. The Australian Dietary Guidelines include 100% fruit juice with fruit but vegetable juice isn’t mentioned. This is likely because vegetable juices weren’t as common in 2013 when the guidelines were last revised.

    The guidelines also warn against having juice too often or in too high amounts. This appears to be based on the logic that juice is similar, but not quite as good as, whole fruit. Juice has lower levels of fibre compared to fruits, with fibre important for gut health, heart health and promoting feelings of fullness. Juice and smoothies also release the sugar from the fruit’s other structures, making them “free”. The World Health Organization recommends we limit free sugars for good health.

    But fruit and vegetables are more than just the sum of their parts. When we take a “reductionist” approach to nutrition, foods and drinks are judged based on assumptions made about limited features such as sugar content or specific vitamins.

    But these features might not have the impact we logically assume because of the complexity of foods and people. When humans eat varied and complex diets, we don’t necessarily need to be concerned that some foods are lower in fibre than others. Juice can retain the nutrients and bioactive compounds of fruit and vegetables and even add more because parts of the fruit we don’t normally eat, like the skin, can be included.

    blender and glass of orange juice
    Juicing or blending might mean you eat different parts of the fruit or vegetable. flyingv3/Shutterstock

    So, it is healthy then?

    A recent umbrella review of meta-analyses (a type of research that combines data from multiple studies of multiple outcomes into one paper looked at the relationship between 100% juice and a range of health outcomes.

    Most of the evidence showed juice had a neutral impact on health (meaning no impact) or a positive one. Pure 100% juice was linked to improved heart health and inflammatory markers and wasn’t clearly linked to weight gain, multiple cancer types or metabolic markers (such as blood sugar levels).

    Some health risks linked to drinking juice were reported: death from heart disease, prostate cancer and diabetes risk. But the risks were all reported in observational studies, where researchers look at data from groups of people collected over time. These are not controlled and do not record consumption in the moment. So other drinks people think of as 100% fruit juice (such as sugar-sweetened juices or cordials) might accidentally be counted as 100% fruit juice. These types of studies are not good at showing the direct causes of illness or death.

    What about my teeth?

    The common belief juice damages teeth might not stack up. Studies that show juice damages teeth often lump 100% juice in with sweetened drinks. Or they use model systems like fake mouths that don’t match how people drinks juice in real life. Some use extreme scenarios like sipping on large volumes of drink frequently over long periods of time.

    Juice is acidic and does contain sugars, but it is possible proper oral hygiene, including rinsing, cleaning and using straws can mitigate these risks.

    Again, reducing juice to its acid level misses the rest of the story, including the nutrients and bioactives contained in juice that are beneficial to oral health.

    groups of women outside drinking orange juice in cups
    Juice might be more convenient and could replace less healthy drinks. PintoArt/Shutterstock

    So, what should I do?

    Comparing whole fruit (a food) to juice (a drink) can be problematic. They serve different culinary purposes, so aren’t really interchangeable.

    The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating recommends water as the preferred beverage but this assumes you are getting all your essential nutrients from eating.

    Where juice fits in your diet depends on what you are eating and what other drinks it is replacing. Juice might replace water in the context of a “perfect” diet. Or juice might replace alcohol or sugary soft drinks and make the relative benefits look very different.

    On balance

    Whether you want to eat your fruits and vegetables or drink them comes down to what works for you, how it fits into the context of your diet and your life.

    Smoothies and juices aren’t a silver bullet, and there is no evidence they work as a “cleanse” or detox. But, with society’s low levels of fruit and vegetable eating, having the option to access nutrients and bioactives in a cheap, easy and tasty way shouldn’t be discouraged either.

    Emma Beckett, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Nutrition, Dietetics & Food Innovation – School of Health Sciences, UNSW Sydney

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

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  • Solitary Fitness – by Charles Bronson

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    Sometimes it can seem that every new diet and/or exercise regime you want to try will change your life, if just you first max out your credit card on restocking your kitchen and refurbishing your home gym, not to mention buying all the best supplements, enjoying the latest medical gadgets, and so on and so forth.

    And often… Most of those things genuinely are good! And it’s great that such things are becoming more accessible and available.

    But… Wouldn’t it be nice to know how to have excellent strength and fitness without any of that, even if just as a “bare bones” protocol to fall back on? That’s what Manson provides in this book.

    The writing style is casual and friendly; Manson is not exactly an academic, but he knows his stuff when it comes to what works. And a good general rule of thumb is: if it’s something that he can do in his jail cell, we can surely do it in the comfort of our homes.

    Bottom line: if you want functional strength and fitness with zero gimmicks, this is the book for you (as an aside, it’s also simply an interesting and recommendable read, sociologically speaking, but that’s another matter entirely).

    Click here to check out Solitary Fitness, and get good functional strength and fitness with nothing fancy!

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  • Almonds vs Cashews – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing almonds to cashews, we picked the almonds.

    Why?

    Both are great! But here’s why we picked the almonds:

    In terms of macros, almonds have a little more protein and more than 4x the fiber. Given how critical fiber is to good health, and how most people in industrialized countries in general (and N. America in particular) aren’t getting enough, we consider this a major win for almonds.

    Things are closer to even for vitamins, but almonds have a slight edge. Almonds are higher in vitamins A, B2, B3, B9, and especially 27x higher in vitamin E, while cashews are higher in vitamins B1, B5, B6, C & K. So, a moderate win for almonds.

    In the category of minerals, cashews do a bit better on average. Cashews have moderately more copper, iron, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc, while almonds boast 6x more calcium, and slightly more manganese and potassium. We say this one’s a slight win for cashews.

    Adding the categories up, however, makes it clear that almonds win the day.

    However, of course, enjoy both! Diversity is healthy. Just, if you’re going to choose between them, we recommend almonds.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Take care!

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