Is thunderstorm asthma becoming more common?
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When spring arrives, so do warnings about thunderstorm asthma. But a decade ago, most of us hadn’t heard of it.
So where did thunderstorm asthma come from? Is it a new phenomenon?
In 2016, the world’s most catastrophic thunderstorm asthma event took Melbourne by surprise. An increase in warnings and monitoring is partly a response to this.
But there are also signs climate change may be exacerbating the likelihood of thunderstorm asthma, with more extreme weather, extended pollen seasons and a rise in Australians reporting hay fever.
A landmark catastrophe
The first time many Australians heard of thunderstorm asthma was in November 2016, when a major event rocked Melbourne.
During a late night storm, an estimated 10,000 people were rushed to hospitals with severe asthma attacks. With thousands of calls on emergency lines, ambulances and emergency departments were unprepared to handle the rapid increase in people needing urgent medical care. Tragically, ten of those people died.
This was the most catastrophic thunderstorm asthma event in recorded history and the first time deaths have ever occurred anywhere in the world.
In response, the Victorian Department of Health implemented initiatives, including public awareness campaigns and improvements to health and emergency services, to be ready for future thunderstorm asthma events.
A network of pollen monitoring stations was also set up across the state to gather data that helps to predict future events.
A problem for decades
While this event was unexpected, it wasn’t the first time we’d had thunderstorm asthma in Australia – we’ve actually known about it for decades.
Melbourne reported its first instance of thunderstorm asthma back in 1984, only a year after this phenomenon was first discovered in Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
Thunderstorm asthma has since been reported in other parts of Australia, including Canberra and New South Wales. But it is still most common in Melbourne. Compared to any other city (or country) the gap is significant: over a quarter of all known events worldwide have occurred in Melbourne.
Why Melbourne?
Melbourne’s location makes it a hotspot for these kinds of events. Winds coming from the north of Melbourne tend to be dry and hot as they come from deserts in the centre of Australia, while winds from the south are cooler as they come from the ocean.
When hot and cool air mix above Melbourne, it creates the perfect conditions for thunderstorms to form.
Northern winds also blow a lot of pollen from farmlands into the city, in particular grass pollen. This is not only the most common cause of seasonal hay fever in Melbourne but also a major trigger of thunderstorm asthma.
Why grass pollen?
There’s a particular reason grass pollen is the main culprit behind thunderstorm asthma in Australia. During storms there is a lot of moisture in the air. Grass pollen will absorb this moisture, making it swell up like a water balloon.
If pollen absorbs too much water whilst airborne, it can burst or “rupture,” releasing hundreds of microscopic particles into the air that can be swept by powerful winds.
Normally, when you breathe in pollen it gets stuck in your upper airway – for example, your nose and throat. This is what causes typical hay fever symptoms such as sneezing or runny nose.
But the microscopic particles released from ruptured grass pollen are much smaller and don’t get stuck as easily in the upper airway. Instead, they can travel deep into your airways until they reach your lungs. This may trigger more severe symptoms, such as wheezing or difficulty breathing, even in people with no prior history of asthma.
So who is at risk?
You might think asthma is the biggest risk factor for thunderstorm asthma. In fact, the biggest risk factor is hay fever.
Up to 99% of patients who went to the emergency department during the Melbourne 2016 event had hay fever, while a majority (60%) had no prior diagnosis of asthma.
Every single person hospitalised was allergic to at least one type of grass pollen. All had a sensitivity to ryegrass.
Is thunderstorm asthma becoming more common?
Thunderstorm asthma events are rare, with just 26 events officially recorded worldwide.
However there is evidence these events could become more frequent and severe in coming years, due to climate change. Higher temperatures and pollution could be making plants produce more pollen and pollen seasons last much longer.
Extreme weather events, including thunderstorms, are also expected to become more common and severe.
In addition, there are signs rates that hay fever may be increasing. The number of Australians reporting allergy symptoms have risen from 15% in 2008 to 24% in 2022. Similar trends in other countries has been linked to climate change.
How can I prepare?
Here are three ways you can reduce your risk of thunderstorm asthma:
- stock up on allergy medication and set up an asthma action plan with your GP
- check daily pollen forecasts for the estimated pollen level and risk of a thunderstorm asthma event in your local area
- on days with high pollen or a high risk of thunderstorm asthma, spend less time outside or wear a surgical face mask to reduce your symptoms.
Kira Morgan Hughes, PhD Candidate in Allergy and Asthma, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Heart Rate Zones, Oxalates, & More
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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
❝I think the heart may be an issue for lots of us. I know it is for me due to AFib. When I’m in my training zone like on a treadmill, I’m usually around 110 to 120. But there are occasionally times when I’m at 140 or 150. How dangerous is that? If I use that formula of 180 minus age, thats 103. I get nothing from that. My resting heart rate is in the 50 to 60 range.❞
First, for safety, let us draw attention to our medical disclaimer at the bottom of each email, and also specifically note that we are not cardiologists here, let alone your cardiologist. There’s a lot we can’t know or advise about. However, as general rules of thumb:
For people without serious health conditions, it is considered good and healthful for one’s heart rate to double (from its resting rate) during exercise, with even more than 2.5x resting rate being nothing more than a good cardio workout.
As for “180 minus age” (presuming you mean: to calculate the safe maximum heart rate), more common (and used by the American Heart Association) is 220 minus age. In your case, that’d give 143.
Having atrial fibrillation may change this however, and we can’t offer medical advice.
We can point to this AHA “AFib Resources For Patients and Professionals”, including this handy FAQ sheet which says:
“Am I able to exercise?” / “Yes, as long as you’re cleared by your doctor, you can perform normal activities of daily living that you can tolerate” (accompanied by a little graphic of a person using an exercise bike)
You personally probably know this already, of course, but it’s quite an extensive collection of resources, so we thought we’d include it.
It’s certainly a good idea for everyone to be aware of their healthy heart rate ranges, regardless of having a known heart condition or not, though!
American Heart Association: Target Heart Rates Chart
❝I would like to see some articles on osteoporosis❞
You might enjoy this mythbusting main feature we did a few weeks ago!
The Bare-Bones Truth About Osteoporosis
❝Interesting, but… Did you know spinach is high in oxylates? Some people are sensitive and can cause increased inflammation, joint pain or even kidney stones. Moderation is key. My sister and I like to eat healthy but found out by experience that too much spinach salad caused us joint and other aches.❞
It’s certainly good to be mindful of such things! For most people, a daily serving of spinach shouldn’t cause ill effects, and certainly there are other greens to eat.
We wondered whether there was a way to reduce the oxalate content, and we found:
How to Reduce Oxalic Acid in Spinach: Neutralizing Oxalates
…which led us this product on Amazon:
Nephure Oxalate Reducing Enzyme, Low Oxalate Diet Support
We wondered what “nephure” was, and whether it could be trusted, and came across this “Supplement Police” article about it:
Nephure Review – Oxalate Reducing Enzyme Powder Health Benefits?
…which honestly, seems to have been written as a paid advertisement. But! It did reference a study, which we were able to look up, and find:
In vitro and in vivo safety evaluation of Nephure™
…which seems to indicate that it was safe (for rats) in all the ways that they checked. They did not, however, check whether it actually reduced oxalate content in spinach or any other food.
The authors did declare a conflict of interest, in that they had a financial relationship with the sponsor of the study, Captozyme Inc.
All in all, it may be better to just have kale instead of spinach:
- 20 Foods High in Oxalates to Limit if You Have Kidney Stones
- The Kidney Dietician: The Best Low Oxalate Greens
We turn the tables and ask you a question!
We’ll then talk about this tomorrow:
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Is white rice bad for me? Can I make it lower GI or healthier?
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Rice is a culinary staple in Australia and around the world.
It might seem like a given that brown rice is healthier than white and official public health resources often recommend brown rice instead of white as a “healthy swap”.
But Australians definitely prefer white rice over brown. So, what’s the difference, and what do we need to know when choosing rice?
Dragne Marius/Unsplash What makes rice white or brown?
Rice “grains” are technically seeds. A complete, whole rice seed is called a “paddy”, which has multiple parts:
- the “hull” is the hard outer layer which protects the seed
- the “bran”, which is a softer protective layer containing the seed coat
- the “germ” or the embryo, which is the part of the seed that would develop into a new plant if was germinated
- the “endosperm”, which makes up most of the seed and is essentially the store of nutrients that feeds the developing plant as a seed grows into a plant.
Rice needs to be processed for humans to eat it.
Along with cleaning and drying, the hard hulls are removed since we can’t digest them. This is how brown rice is made, with the other three parts of the rice remaining intact. This means brown rice is regarded as a “wholegrain”.
White rice, however, is a “refined” grain, as it is further polished to remove the bran and germ, leaving just the endosperm. This is a mechanical and not a chemical process.
What’s the difference, nutritionally?
Keeping the bran and the germ means brown rice has more magnesium, phosphorus, potassium B vitamins (niacin, folate, riboflavin and pyridoxine), iron, zinc and fibre.
The germ and the bran also contain more bioactives (compounds in foods that aren’t essential nutrients but have health benefits), like oryzanols and phenolic compounds which have antioxidant effects.
Brown rice is cleaned and dried and the hard hulls are removed. Sung Min/Shutterstock But that doesn’t mean white rice is just empty calories. It still contains vitamins, minerals and some fibre, and is low in fat and salt, and is naturally gluten-free.
White and brown rice actually have similar amounts of calories (or kilojoules) and total carbohydrates.
There are studies that show eating more white rice is linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. But it is difficult to know if this is down to the rice itself, or other related factors such as socioeconomic variables or other dietary patterns.
What about the glycaemic index?
The higher fibre means brown rice has a lower glycaemic index (GI), meaning it raises blood sugar levels more slowly. But this is highly variable between different rices within the white and brown categories.
The GI system uses low (less than 55), medium (55–70) and high (above 70) categories. Brown rices fall into the low and medium categories. White rices fall in the medium and high.
There are specific low-GI types available for both white and brown types. You can also lower the GI of rice by heating and then cooling it. This process converts some of the “available carbohydrates” into “resistant starch”, which then functions like dietary fibre.
Are there any benefits to white rice?
The taste and textural qualities of white and brown rices differ. White rice tends to have a softer texture and more mild or neutral flavour. Brown rice has a chewier texture and nuttier flavour.
So, while you can technically substitute brown rice into most recipes, the experience will be different. Or other ingredients may need to be added or changed to create the desired texture.
Removing more of the outer layers may also reduce the levels of contaminants such as pesticides.
We don’t just eat rice
You’ll likely have vegetables and protein with your rice. Chay_Tee/Shutterstock Comparing white and brown rice seems like an easy way to boost nutritional value. But just because one food (brown rice) is more nutrient-dense doesn’t make the other food (white rice) “bad”.
Ultimately, it’s not often that we eat just rice, so we don’t need the rice we choose to be the perfect one. Rice is typically the staple base of a more complex dish. So, it’s probably more important to think about what we eat with rice.
Adding vegetables and lean proteins to rice-based dishes can easily add the micronutrients, bioactives and fibre that white rice is comparatively lacking, and this can likely do more to contribute to diet quality than eating brown rice instead.
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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Edam vs Gouda – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing edam to gouda, we picked the edam.
Why?
There’s not a lot between them, but there are some differences:
In terms of macros, their numbers are all close enough that one may beat the other by decimal place rounding, so we’ll call this a tie. Same goes for their fat type breakdowns; per 100g they both have 18g saturated, 8g monounsaturated, and 1g polyunsaturated.
In the category of vitamins, edam has slightly more of vitamins A, B1, B2, and B3, while gouda has slightly more of vitamins B5 and B9. A modest 4:2 win for edam.
When it comes to minerals, edam has more calcium, iron, and potassium, while gouda is not higher in any minerals. A more convincing win for edam.
In short, enjoy either or both in moderation, but if you’re going to choose one over the other, edam is the way to go.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy?
Take care!
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Turkish Saffron Salad
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Summer is upon us, and we need salad options. Coleslaw’s all well and good, until you’re the 4th person to bring it to the pot luck. Tzatziki’s great—and healthier than a standard coleslaw, being based in yogurt rather than mayonnaise as most Western coleslaws are (Eastern European coleslaws, for example, more often use a vinaigrette), but today our tastebuds are traveling to Turkey for this gut-healthy, phytochemical-rich, delicious dish.
You will need
- 12 oz carrots, cut into very thin batons (alternatively: use a peeler to peel it into super-thin strips)
- 2 oz chopped nuts (pistachios are traditional, almonds are also used sometimes; many other nuts would work too e.g. walnuts, hazelnuts, etc; not peanuts though)
- 2 cups kefir yogurt (if unavailable, substitute any 2 cups plain unsweetened yogurt; comparable plant yogurt is fine if you’re vegan; those healthy bacteria love plant yogurts as much as animal ones)
- 1 bulb garlic, grated
- 1 tsp chili flakes
- 1 pinch saffron, ground, then soaked in 1 tbsp warm water for a few hours
- 2 tbsp olive oil for cooking; ideally Extra Virgin, but at least Virgin
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Put the olive oil and carrots into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring. You want to soften the carrots just a little and absorb the olive oil, without actually fully cooking the carrots; this will probably only take 2–3 minutes at most. Take it off the heat and transfer it to a bowl to cool.
When the mixture has cooled…
2) Add the kefir yogurt, garlic, chili flakes, and saffron water into the carrots, mixing thoroughly.
3) Add the chopped nuts as a garnish
(after mixing thoroughly, you will probably see more of the yogurt mixture and less of the carrots; that’s fine and correct))
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
- Capsaicin For Weight Loss And Against Inflammation
- Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
- Saffron For The Brain (& More) ← do not underestimate saffron’s neuroprotective qualities, and many other beneficial properties!
Take care!
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The BAT-pause!
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When Cold Weather & The Menopause Battle It Out
You may know that (moderate, safe) exposure to the cold allows our body to convert our white and yellow fat into the much healthier brown fat—also called brown adipose tissue, or “BAT” to its friends.
If you didn’t already know that, then well, neither did scientists until about 15 years ago:
The Changed Metabolic World with Human Brown Adipose Tissue: Therapeutic Visions
You can read more about it here:
Cool Temperature Alters Human Fat and Metabolism
This is important, especially because the white fat that gets converted is the kind that makes up most visceral fat—the kind most associated with all-cause mortality:
Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It ← this is not the same as your subcutaneous fat, the kind that sits directly under your skin and keeps you warm; this is the fat that goes between your organs and of which we should only have a small amount!
The BAT-pause
It’s been known (since before the above discovery) that BAT production slows considerably as we get older. Not too shocking—after all, many metabolic functions slow as we get older, so why should fat regulation be any different?
But! Rodent studies found that this was tied less to age, but to ovarian function: rats who underwent ovariectomies suffered reduced BAT production, regardless of their age.
Naturally, it’s been difficult to recreate such studies in humans, because it’s difficult to find a large sample of young adults willing to have their ovaries whipped out (or even suppressed chemically) to see how badly their metabolism suffers as a result.
Nor can an observational study (for example, of people who incidentally have ovaries removed due to ovarian cancer) usefully be undertaken, because then the cancer itself and any additional cancer treatments would be confounding factors.
Perimenopausal study to the rescue!
A recent (published last month, at time of writing!) study looked at women around the age of menopause, but specifically in cohorts before and after, measuring BAT metabolism.
By dividing the participants into groups based on age and menopausal status, and dividing the post-menopausal group into “takes HRT” and “no HRT” groups, and dividing the pre-menopausal group into “normal ovarian function” and “ovarian production of estrogen suppressed to mimic slightly early menopause” groups (there’s a drug for that), and then having groups exposed to warm and cold temperatures, and measuring BAT metabolism in all cases, they were able to find…
It is about estrogen, not age!
You can read more about the study here:
“Good” fat metabolism changes tied to estrogen loss, not necessarily to aging, shows study
…and the study itself, here:
Brown adipose tissue metabolism in women is dependent on ovarian status
What does this mean for men?
This means nothing directly for (cis) men, sorry.
But to satisfy your likely curiosity: yes, testosterone does at least moderately suppress BAT metabolism—based on rodent studies, anyway, because again it’s difficult to find enough human volunteers willing to have their testicles removed for science (without there being other confounding variables in play, anyway):
Testosterone reduces metabolic brown fat activity in male mice
So, that’s bad per se, but there isn’t much to be done about it, since the rest of your (addressing our male readers here) metabolism runs on testosterone, as do many of your bodily functions, and you would suffer many unwanted effects without it.
However, as men do typically have notably less body fat in general than women (this is regulated by hormones), the effects of changes in BAT metabolism are rather less pronounced in men (per testosterone level changes) than in women (per estrogen level changes), because there’s less overall fat to convert.
In summary…
While menopausal HRT is not necessarily a silver bullet to all metabolic problems, its BAT-maintaining ability is certainly one more thing in its favor.
See also:
Dr. Jen Gunter | What You Should Have Been Told About The Menopause Beforehand
Take care!
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Make Social Media Work For Your Mental Health
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Social Media, But Healthy
Social media has a bad reputation, and rightly so. It’s calculated to trick you into doomscrolling and rage-posting, and it encourages you to compare your everyday life to other people’s carefully-curated highlight reels.
Rebalancing Dopamine (Without “Dopamine Fasting”)
But it doesn’t have to be so.
Find your community
One of the biggest strengths social media has going for it is that it can, if used well, be a powerful tool for community. As for why that’s important from a health perspective, see:
How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
Loneliness & isolation do, of course, kill people. By:
- Accidents, e.g. household fall but nobody notices for a week
- Depression and resultant decline (and perhaps even active suicidality)
- Cognitive decline from a lack of social contact
Read more:
- The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
- How To Stay Alive (When You Really Don’t Want To)
- The Five Key Traits Of Healthy Aging
So, what’s “community” to you, and to what extent can you find it online? Examples might include:
- A church, or other religious community, if we be religious
- The LGBT+ community, or even just a part of it, if that fits for us
- Any mutual-support oriented, we-have-this-shared-experience community, could be anything from AA to the VA.
Find your people, and surround yourself with them. There are more than 8,000,000,000 people on this planet, you will not find all the most compatible ones with you on your street.
Grow & nurture your community
Chances are, you have a lot to contribute. Your life experiences are valuable.
Being of service to other people is strongly associated “flourishing”, per the science.
Indeed, one of the questions on the subjective wellness scale test is to ask how much one agrees with the statement “I actively contribute to the happiness and wellbeing of others”.
See: Are You Flourishing? (There’s a Scale)
So, help people, share your insights, create whatever is relevant to your community and fits your skills (it could be anything from art to tutorials to call-to-action posts or whatever works for you and your community)
As a bonus: when people notice you are there for them, they’ll probably be there for you, too. Not always, sadly, but there is undeniable strength in numbers.
Remember it’s not the boss of you
Whatever social media platform(s) you use, the companies in question will want you to use it in the way that is most profitable for them.
Usually that means creating a lot of shallow content, clicking on as many things as possible, and never logging off.
Good ways to guard against that include:
- Use the social media from a computer rather than a handheld device
- Disable “infinite scroll” in the settings, if possible
- Set a timer and stick to it
- Try to keep your interactions to only those that are relevant and kind (for the good of your own health, let alone anyone else’s)
On that latter note…
Before posting, ask “what am I trying to achieve here?” and ensure your action is aligned with your actual desires, and not just reactivity. See also:
A Bone To Pick… Up And Then Put Back Where We Found It
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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