Insomnia? High blood pressure? Try these!

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The 10almonds Team

Your Questions, Our Answers!

Q: Recipes for insomnia and high blood pressure and good foods to eat for these conditions?

A: Insomnia can be caused by many things, and consequently can often require a very multi-vector approach to fixing it. But, we’ll start by answering the question you asked (and probably address the rest of dealing with insomnia in another day’s edition!):

  • First, you want food that’s easy to digest. Broadly speaking, this means plant-based. If not plant-based, fish (unless you have an allergy, obviously) is generally good and certainly better than white meat, which is better than red meat. In the category of dairy, it depends so much on what it is, that we’re not going to try to break it down here. If in doubt, skip it.
  • You also don’t want blood sugar spikes, so it’s good to lay off the added sugar and white flour (or white flour derivatives, like white pasta), especially in your last meal of the day.
  • Magnesium supports healthy sleep. A fine option would be our shchi recipe, but using collard greens rather than cabbage. Cabbage is a wonderful food, but collard greens are much higher in magnesium. Remember to add plenty of mushrooms (unless you don’t like them), as they’re typically high in magnesium too.

As for blood pressure, last month we gave tips (and a book recommendation) for heart health. The book, Dr. Monique Tello’s “Healthy Habits for Your Heart: 100 Simple, Effective Ways to Lower Your Blood Pressure and Maintain Your Heart’s Health”, also has recipes!

Here’s one from the “mains” section:

Secret Ingredient Baltimore-Style Salmon Patties with Not-Oily Aioli

❝This is a family favorite, and no one knows that it features puréed pumpkin! Most salmon cake recipes all for eggs and bread crumbs as binders, but puréed pumpkin and grated carrot work just as well, lend a beautiful color, and add plenty of fiber and plant nutrients. Canned salmon is way cheaper than fresh and has just as much omega-3 PUFAs and calcium. Serve this alongside a salad (the Summer Corn, Tomato, Spinach, and Basil Salad would go perfectly) for a well-rounded meal.❞

Serves 4 (1 large patty each)

Secret Ingredient Baltimore-Style Salmon Patties:

  • 1 (15-oz) can pink salmon, no salt added
  • ½ cup puréed pumpkin
  • ½ cup grated carrot (I use a handheld box grater)
  • 2 tablespoons minced chives (Don’t have chives? Minced green onions or any onions will do)
  • 2 teaspoons Old Bay Seasoning
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • ½ large lemon, sliced, for serving

Not-Oily Aioli:

  • ½ cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
  • Juice and zest from ½ large lemon
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed and minced fine
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
  1. For the patties: mix all the ingredients for the salmon patties together in a medium bowl
  2. Form patties with your hands and set on a plate or tray (you should have 4 burger-sized patties)
  3. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
  4. Set patties in a skillet and brown for 4 minutes, then carefully flip.
  5. Brown the other side, then serve hot.
  6. For the Aioli: mix all the ingredients for the aioli together in a small bowl.
  7. Plop a dollop alongside or on top of each salmon patty and serve with a spice of lemon.

Per serving: Calories: 367 | Fat: 13.6g | Saturated Fat: 4.4g | Protein: 46g | Sodium: 519mg | Carbohydrates: 13.2g | Fiber: 1.3g | Sugars: 9g | Calcium: 505mg | Iron: 1mg | Potassium 696mg

Notes from the 10almond team:

  • If you want to make it plant-based, substitute cooked red lentils (no salt added) for the tinned salmon, and plant-based yogurt for the Greek yogurt
  • We recommend adding more garlic. Seriously, who uses 1 clove of garlic for anything, let alone divided between four portions?
  • The salads mentioned are given as recipes elsewhere in the same book. We strongly recommend getting her book, if you’re interested in heart health!

Do you have a question you’d like to see answered here? Hit reply or use the feedback widget at the bottom; we’d love to hear from you!

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  • Men have a biological clock too. Here’s what’s more likely when dads are over 50

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    Karin Hammarberg – Monash University

    We hear a lot about women’s biological clock and how age affects the chance of pregnancy.

    New research shows men’s fertility is also affected by age. When dads are over 50, the risk of pregnancy complications increases.

    Data from more than 46 million births in the United States between 2011 and 2022 compared fathers in their 30s with fathers in their 50s.

    While taking into account the age of the mother and other factors known to affect pregnancy outcomes, the researchers found every ten-year increase in paternal age was linked to more complications.

    The researchers found that compared to couples where the father was aged 30–39, for couples where the dad was in his 50s, there was a:

    • 16% increased risk of preterm birth
    • 14% increased risk of low birth weight
    • 13% increase in gestational diabetes.

    The older fathers were also twice as likely to have used assisted reproductive technology, including IVF, to conceive than their younger counterparts.

    Steven van Loy/Unsplash

    Dads are getting older

    In this US study, the mean age of all fathers increased from 30.8 years in 2011 to 32.1 years in 2022.

    In that same period, the proportion of men aged 50 years or older fathering a child increased from 1.1% to 1.3%.

    We don’t know the proportion of men over 50 years who father children in Australia, but data shows the average age of fathers has increased.

    In 1975 the median age of Australian dads was 28.6 years. This jumped to 33.7 years in 2022.

    How male age affects getting pregnant

    As we know from media reports of celebrity dads, men produce sperm from puberty throughout life and can father children well into old age.

    However, there is a noticeable decline in sperm quality from about age 40.

    Female partners of older men take longer to achieve pregnancy than those with younger partners.

    A study of the effect of male age on time to pregnancy showed women with male partners aged 45 or older were almost five times more likely to take more than a year to conceive compared to those with partners aged 25 or under. More than three quarters (76.8%) of men under the age of 25 years impregnated their female partners within six months, compared with just over half (52.9%) of men over the age of 45.

    Pooled data from ten studies showed that partners of older men are also more likely to experience miscarriage. Compared to couples where the male was aged 25 to 29 years, paternal age over 45 years increased the risk of miscarriage by 43%.

    Older men are more likely to need IVF

    Outcomes of assisted reproductive technology, such as IVF, are also influenced by the age of the male partner.

    A review of studies in couples using assisted reproductive technologies found paternal age under 40 years reduced the risk of miscarriage by about 25% compared to couples with men aged over 40.

    Having a male under 40 years also almost doubled the chance of a live birth per treatment cycle. With a man over 40, 17.6% of treatment rounds resulted in a live birth, compared to 28.4% when the male was under 40.

    How does male age affect the health outcomes of children?

    As a result of age-related changes in sperm DNA, the children of older fathers have increased risk of a number of conditions. Autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and leukaemia have been linked to the father’s advanced years.

    A review of studies assessing the impact of advanced paternal age reported that children of older fathers have increased rates of psychiatric disease and behavioural impairments.

    But while the increased risk of adverse health outcomes linked to older paternal age is real, the magnitude of the effect is modest. It’s important to remember that an increase in a very small risk is still a small risk and most children of older fathers are born healthy and develop well.

    Improving your health can improve your fertility

    In addition to the effects of older age, some chronic conditions that affect fertility and reproductive outcomes become more common as men get older. They include obesity and diabetes which affect sperm quality by lowering testosterone levels.

    While we can’t change our age, some lifestyle factors that increase the risk of pregnancy complications and reduce fertility, can be tackled. They include:

    Get the facts about the male biological clock

    Research shows men want children as much as women do. And most men want at least two children.

    Yet most men lack knowledge about the limitations of female and male fertility and overestimate the chance of getting pregnant, with and without assisted reproductive technologies.

    We need better public education, starting at school, to improve awareness of the impact of male and female age on reproductive outcomes and help people have healthy babies.

    For men wanting to improve their chance of conceiving, the government-funded sites Healthy Male and Your Fertility are a good place to start. These offer evidence-based and accessible information about reproductive health, and tips to improve your reproductive health and give your children the best start in life.

    Karin Hammarberg, Senior Research Fellow, Global and Women’s Health, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University

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

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  • Alzheimer’s Causative Factors To Avoid

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    The 10almonds Team

    The Best Brains Bar Nun?

    This is Dr. David Snowdon. He’s an epidemiologist, and one of the world’s foremost experts on Alzheimer’s disease. He was also, most famously, the lead researcher of what has become known as “The Nun Study”.

    We recently reviewed his book about this study:

    Aging with Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives – by Dr. David Snowdon

    …which we definitely encourage you to check out, but we’ll do our best to summarize its key points today!

    Reassurance up-front: no, you don’t have to become a nun

    The Nun Study

    In 1991, a large number (678) of nuns were recruited for what was to be (and until now, remains) the largest study of its kind into the impact of a wide variety of factors on aging, and in particular, Alzheimer’s disease.

    Why it was so important: because the nuns were all from the same Order, had the same occupation (it’s a teaching Order), with very similar lifestyles, schedules, socioeconomic status, general background, access to healthcare, similar diets, same relationship status (celibate), same sex (female), and many other factors also similar, this meant that most of the confounding variables that confound other studies were already controlled-for here.

    Enrollment in the study also required consenting to donating one’s brain for study post-mortem—and of those who have since died, indeed 98% of them have been donated (the other 2%, we presume, may have run into technical administrative issues with the donation process, due to the circumstances of death and/or delays in processing the donation).

    How the study was undertaken

    We don’t have enough space to describe the entire methodology here, but the gist of it is:

    • Genetic testing for relevant genetic factors
    • Data gathered about lives so far, including not just medical records but also autobiographies that the nuns wrote when they took their vows (at ages 19–21)
    • Extensive ongoing personal interviews about habits, life choices, and attitudes
    • Yearly evaluations including memory tests and physical function tests
    • Brain donation upon death

    What they found

    Technically, The Nun Study is still ongoing. Of the original 678 nuns (aged 75–106), three are still alive (based on the latest report, at least).

    However, lots of results have already been gained, including…

    Genes

    A year into the study, in 1992, the “apolipoprotein E” (APOE) gene was established as a likely causative factor in Alzheimer’s disease. This is probably not new to our readers in 2024, but there are interesting things being learned even now, for example:

    The Alzheimer’s Gene That Varies By Race & Sex

    …but watch out! Because also:

    Alzheimer’s Sex Differences May Not Be What They Appear

    Words

    Based on the autobiographies written by the nuns in their youth upon taking their vows, there were two factors that were later correlated with not getting dementia:

    • Longer sentences
    • Positive outlook
    • “Idea density”

    That latter item means the relative linguistic density of ideas and complexity thereof, and the fluency and vivacity with which they were expressed (this was not a wishy-washy assessment; there was a hard-science analysis to determine numbers).

    Want to spruce up yours? You might like to check out:

    Reading, Better: Reading As A Cognitive Exercise

    …for specific, evidence-based ways to tweak your reading to fight cognitive decline.

    Food

    While the dietary habits of the nuns were fairly homogenous, those who favored eating more and cooked greens, beans, and tomatoes, lived longer and with healthier brains.

    See also: Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!

    Other aspects of brain health & mental health

    The study also found that nuns who avoided stroke and depression, were also less likely to get dementia.

    For tending to these, check out:

    Community & Faith

    Obviously, in this matter the nuns were quite a homogenous group, scoring heavily in community and faith. What’s relevant here is the difference between the nuns, and other epidemiological studies in other groups (invariably not scoring so highly).

    Community & faith are considered, separately and together, to be protective factors against dementia.

    Faith may be something that “you have it or you don’t” (we’re a health science newsletter, not a theological publication, but for the interested, philosopher John Stuart Mill’s 1859 essay “On Liberty“ makes a good argument for it not being something one can choose, prompting him to argue for religious tolerance, on the grounds that religious coercion is a futile effort precisely because a person cannot choose to dis/believe something)

    …but community can definitely be chosen, nurtured, and grown. We’ve written about this a bit before:

    You might also like to check out this great book on the topic:

    Purpose: Design A Community And Change Your Life – by Gina Bianchini

    Want more?

    We gave a ground-up primer on avoiding Alzheimer’s and other dementias; check it out:

    How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

    Take care!

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  • Cupping: How It Works (And How It Doesn’t)

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    The 10almonds Team

    Good Health By The Cup?

    In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your opinion of cupping (the medical practice), and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

    • About 40% said “It may help by improving circulation and stimulating the immune system”
    • About 26% said “I have never heard of the medical practice of cupping before this”
    • About 19% said “It is pseudoscience and/or placebo at best, but probably not harmful
    • About 9% said “It is a good, evidence-based practice that removes toxins and stimulates health”
    • About 6% said “It is a dangerous practice that often causes harm to people who need medical help”

    So what does the science say?

    First, a quick note for those unfamiliar with cupping: it is the practice of placing a warmed cup on the skin (open side of the cup against the skin). As the warm air inside cools, it reduces the interior air pressure, which means the cup is now (quite literally) a suction cup. This pulls the skin up into the cup a little. The end result is visually, and physiologically, the same process as what happens if someone places the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner against their skin. For that matter, there are alternative versions that simply use a pump-based suction system, instead of heated cups—but the heated cups are most traditional and seem to be most popular. See also:

    National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health | Cupping

    It is a dangerous practice that often causes harm to people who need medical help: True or False?

    False, for any practical purposes.

    • Directly, it can (and usually does) cause minor superficial harm, much like many medical treatments, wherein the benefits are considered to outweigh the harm, justifying the treatment. In the case of cupping, the minor harm is usually a little bruising, but there are other risks; see the link we gave just above.
    • Indirectly, it could cause harm by emboldening a person to neglect a more impactful treatment for their ailment.

    But, there’s nothing for cupping akin to the “the most common cause of death is when someone gets a vertebral artery fatally severed” of chiropractic, for example.

    It is a good, evidence-based practice that removes toxins and stimulates health: True or False?

    True and False in different parts. This one’s on us; we included four claims in one short line. But let’s look at them individually:

    • Is it good? Well, those who like it, like it. It legitimately has some mild health benefits, and its potential for harm is quite small. We’d call this a modest good, but good nonetheless.
    • Is it evidence-based? Somewhat, albeit weakly; there are some papers supporting its modest health claims, although the research is mostly only published in journals of alternative medicine, and any we found were in journals that have been described by scientists as pseudoscientific.
    • Does it remove toxins? Not directly, at least. There is also a version that involves making a small hole in the skin before applying the cup, the better to draw out the toxins (called “wet cupping”). This might seem a little medieval, but this is because it is from early medieval times (wet cupping’s first recorded use being in the early 7th century). However, the body’s response to being poked, pierced, sucked, etc is to produce antibodies, and they will do their best to remove toxins. So, indirectly, there’s an argument.
    • Does it stimulate health? Yes! We’ll come to that shortly. But first…

    It is pseudoscience and/or placebo at best, but probably not harmful: True or False?

    True in that its traditionally-proposed mechanism of action is a pseudoscience and placebo almost certainly plays a strong part, and also in that it’s generally not harmful.

    On it being a pseudoscience: we’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating; just because something’s proposed mechanism of action is pseudoscience, doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t work by some other mechanism of action. If you tell a small child that “eating the rainbow” will improve their health, and they believe this is some sort of magical rainbow power imbuing them with health, then the mechanism of action that they believe in is a pseudoscience, but eating a variety of colorful fruit and vegetables will still be healthy.

    In the case of cupping, its proposed mechanism of action has to do withbalancing qi, yin and yang, etc (for which scientific evidence does not exist), in combination with acupuncture lore (for which some limited weak scientific evidence exists). On balancing qi, yin and yang etc, this is a lot like Europe’s historically popular humorism, which was based on the idea of balancing the four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm). Needless to say, humorism was not only a pseudoscience, but also eventually actively disproved with the advent of germ theory and modern medicine. Cupping therapy is not more scientifically based than humorism.

    On the placebo side of things, there probably is a little more to it than that; much like with acupuncture, a lot of it may be a combination of placebo and using counter-irritation, a nerve-tricking method to use pain to reduce pain (much like pressing with one’s nail next to an insect bite).

    Here’s one of the few studies we found that’s in what looks, at a glance, to be a reputable journal:

    Cupping therapy and chronic back pain: systematic review and meta-analysis

    It may help by improving circulation and stimulating the immune system: True or False?

    True! It will improve local circulation by forcing blood into the area, and stimulate the immune system by giving it a perceived threat to fight.

    Again, this can be achieved by many other means; acupuncture (or just “dry needling”, which is similar but without the traditional lore), a cold shower, and/or exercise (and for that matter, sex—which combines exercise, physiological arousal, and usually also foreign bodies to respond to) are all options that can improve circulation and stimulate the immune system.

    You can read more about using some of these sorts of tricks for improving health in very well-evidenced, robustly scientific ways here:

    The Stress Prescription (Against Aging!)

    Take care!

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