It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones – by Nicki Williams, DipION, mBANT, CNHC
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So, first a quick note: this book is very similar to the popular bestseller “The Galveston Diet”, not just in content, but all the way down to its formatting. Some Amazon reviewers have even gone so far as to suggest that “It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones” (2017) brazenly plagiarized “The Galveston Diet” (2023). However, after carefully examining the publication dates, we feel quite confident that this book is not a copy of the one that came out six years after it. As such, we’ve opted for reviewing the original book.
Nicki Williams’ basic principle is that we can manage our hormonal fluctuations, by managing our diet. Specifically, in three main ways:
- Intermittent fasting
- Anti-inflammatory diet
- Eating more protein and healthy fats
Why should these things matter to our hormones? The answer is to remember that our hormones aren’t just the sex hormones. We have hormones for hunger and satedness, hormones for stress and relaxation, hormones for blood sugar regulation, hormones for sleep and wakefulness, and more. These many hormones make up our endocrine system, and affecting one part of it will affect the others.
Will these things magically undo the effects of the menopause? Well, some things yes, other things no. No diet can do the job of HRT. But by tweaking endocrine system inputs, we can tweak endocrine system outputs, and that’s what this book is for.
The style is very accessible and clear, and Williams walks us through the changes we may want to make, to avoid the changes we don’t want.
In the category of criticism, there is some extra support that’s paywalled, in the sense that she wants the reader to buy her personally-branded online plan, and it can feel a bit like she’s holding back in order to upsell to that.
Bottom line: this book is aimed at peri-menopausal and post-menopausal women. It could also definitely help a lot of people with PCOS too, and, when it comes down to it, pretty much anyone with an endocrine system. It’s a well-evidenced, well-established, healthy way of eating regardless of age, sex, or (most) physical conditions.
Click here to check out It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones, and take control of yours!
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A New Tool For Bone Regeneration
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When it comes to rebuilding bones, one of the tools in the orthopedic surgeon’s toolbox is bone grafts. This involves, to oversimplify it a bit, gluing particles of bone to where bone needs rebuilding. However, this comes with problems, most notably:
- that the bone tissue and the adhesive “glue” need to be prepared separately and mixed in situ, which is fiddly, to say the least
- that the resultant mixture mixed in situ will usually be unevenly mixed, resulting in weak bonding and degradation over time
- having any more of one part or the other in any given site means that bone regeneration and adhesion become a “pick one” matter, when both are critically needed
You may be wondering: why can’t they mix them before putting them in?
And the answer is: because then either the glue will set the bone prematurely (and now we have a clump of bone outside of the body which is not what we wanted), or else the glue will have issues with setting in situ, and now we have bone tissue running down the inside of someone’s leg and setting somewhere else, which is also not what we want.
These kinds of problems may seem a little more “arts and crafts” than “orthopedic surgery”, but they are the kind of nitty-gritty real-life real challenges that actually get in the way of healing patients’ bones.
The new solution
Biomaterial research scientists have developed an injectable hydrogel (containing all the necessary ingredients* that uses light to achieve cross-linking of bone particles and mineralization without any of the above being necessary. In again oversimplified terms: they inject the hydrogel where it’s needed, and then irradiate the site with harmless visible light which instantly sets it in place. As to how the light gets in there: it’s just very shiny, like candling an egg to see inside, or like how you can still approximately see bright light even with your eyes closed.
*alginate (natural polysaccharide derived from brown algae), RGD peptide-containing mussel** adhesive protein, calcium ions, phosphonodiols, and a photoinitiator.
**unclear whether this would trigger a shellfish allergy. Probably kosher per “פיקוח נפש” and Talmud Yoma 85b, but we are a health science newsletter, not Talmudic scholars, so please talk to your Rabbi. Probably halal per Qur’an 5:4 and failing that, the same principle as previously mentioned, expressed in Qur’an 5:3 and 6:119, but once again, your humble writer here is no Mufti, so please talk to your Imam. As for if you are vegetarian or vegan, then that is for you to decide whether to take a “medications with animal ingredients are unfortunate but necessary” stance, as most do. This vegan writer would (she’d grumble about it, though, and at least try to find an acceptable alternative first).
Back to the more general practicalities…
How it works, in less oversimplified terms:
❝The coacervate-based formulation, which is immiscible in water, ensures that the hydrogel retains its shape and position after injection into the body. Upon visible light irradiation, cross-linking occurs, and amorphous calcium phosphate, which functions as a bone graft material, is simultaneously formed. This eliminates the need for separate bone grafts or adhesives, enabling the hydrogel to provide both bone regeneration and adhesion.❞
“That’s great, but I was hoping for something I can do right now, ideally at home”
If getting glued back together was not on your bucket list, that’s understandable. There’s still a lot you can do for bone density; here’s a quick overview:
- Get it checked. Yes, this first, if you haven’t already! You want a basis for comparison later. Book a bone density scan. See for example this case study with bone density scans at each end: 21% Stronger Bones in a Year at 62? Yes, It’s Possible (No Calcium Supplements Needed!)
- Enjoy a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D yes, but be aware that you can have too much of a good thing, and doing so will result in more harm than good, including (paradoxically) for your bones. See: Vitamin D + Calcium: Too Much Of A Good Thing?
- Enjoy a diet rich is phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium, which things are also necessary for bone health, and in which people are much more likely to be deficient (especially magnesium). If you’re going to supplement, then there are very big difference in the efficacy of different kinds of magnesium supplement (brace yourself; the cheapest and most common kind barely does anything at all). See: Which Magnesium? (And: When?)
- Enjoy a diet rich in high quality protein—collagen is very useful, but if you want a plant-based approach, don’t worry, our body can and will make it for yourself if you give it a hand—and vitamin C to help its absorption, as well as glycine if you’re going the no-animals route. See: Collagen For Bones: We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of and: The Sweet Truth About Glycine: Making Your Collagen Work Better
- Consider medication, if your bone density is already lower than what it should be. There are meds to stop further deterioration, and different meds to encourage your body to rebuild bone. However, there are downsides to each of them: Which Osteoporosis Medication, If Any, Is Right For You?
- While we’re on the topic of medications, consider bioidentical HRT if you are female and not otherwise producing your own estrogen and progesterone in adequate quantities to maintain your skeletal integrity: HRT: A Tale Of Two Approaches
- Look after your gut too! So much starts there: Is Your Gut Leading You Into Osteoporosis? Bacterioides Vulgatus & Bone Health
- Lastly, exercise, but exercise right, because with insufficient resistance exercise your bones will not “think” they need to remain strong, and with the wrong kind of resistance exercise, you could break/compress your bones if they are already weak, so check out: Osteoporosis & Exercises: Which To Do (And Which To Avoid)
Too much information?
If that was too much information all at once, then we recommend this as your one-stop article:
The Bare-Bones Truth About Osteoporosis
Want more information?
We are but a humble newsletter and can only include so much per day, but we highly recommend this book we reviewed a little while back, which goes into everything in a lot more detail than we can here:
Enjoy!
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How stigma perpetuates substance use
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In 2022, 54.6 million people 12 and older in the United States needed substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. Of those, only 24 percent received treatment, according to the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
SUD is a treatable, chronic medical condition that causes people to have difficulty controlling their use of legal or illegal substances, such as alcohol, tobacco, prescription opioids, heroin, methamphetamine, or cocaine. Using these substances may impact people’s health and ability to function in their daily life.
While help is available for people with SUD, the stigma they face—negative attitudes, stereotypes, and discrimination—often leads to shame, worsens their condition, and keeps them from seeking help.
Read on to find out more about how stigma perpetuates substance use.
Stigma can keep people from seeking treatment
Suzan M. Walters, assistant professor at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, has seen this firsthand in her research on stigma and health disparities.
She explains that people with SUD may be treated differently at a hospital or another health care setting because of their drug use, appearance (including track marks on their arms), or housing situation, which may discourage them from seeking care.
“And this is not just one case; this is a trend that I’m seeing with people who use drugs,” Walters tells PGN. “Someone said, ‘If I overdose, I’m not even going to the [emergency room] to get help because of this, because of the way I’m treated. Because I know I’m going to be treated differently.’”
People experience stigma not only because of their addiction, but also because of other aspects of their identities, Walters says, including “immigration or race and ethnicity. Hispanic folks, brown folks, Black folks [are] being treated differently and experiencing different outcomes.”
And despite the effective harm reduction tools and treatment options available for SUD, research has shown that stigma creates barriers to access.
Syringe services programs, for example, provide infectious disease testing, Narcan, and fentanyl test strips. These programs have been proven to save lives and reduce the spread of HIV and hepatitis C. SSPs don’t increase crime, but they’re often mistakenly “viewed by communities as potential settings of drug-related crime;” this myth persists despite decades of research proving that SSPs make communities safer.
To improve this bias, Walters says it’s helpful for people to take a step back and recognize how we use substances, like alcohol, in our own lives, while also humanizing those with addiction. She says, “There’s a lack of understanding that these are human beings and people … [who] are living lives, and many times very functional lives.”
Misconceptions lead to stigma
SUD results from changes in the brain that make it difficult for a person to stop using a substance. But research has shown that a big misconception that leads to stigma is that addiction is a choice and reflects a person’s willpower.
Michelle Maloney, executive clinical director of mental health and addiction recovery services for Rogers Behavioral Health, tells PGN that statements such as “you should be able to stop” can keep a patient from seeking treatment. This belief goes back to the 1980s and the War on Drugs, she adds.
“We think about public service announcements that occurred during that time: ‘Just say no to drugs,’” Maloney says. “People who have struggled, whether that be with nicotine, alcohol, or opioids, [know] it’s not as easy as just saying no.”
Stigma can worsen addiction
Stigma can also lead people with SUD to feel guilt and shame and blame themselves for their medical condition. These feelings, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, may “reinforce drug-seeking behavior.”
In a 2020 article, Dr. Nora D. Volkow, the director of NIDA, said that “when internalized, stigma and the painful isolation it produces encourage further drug taking, directly exacerbating the disease.”
Overall, research agrees that stigma harms people experiencing addiction and can make the condition worse. Experts also agree that debunking myths about the condition and using non-stigmatizing language (like saying someone is a person with a substance use disorder, not an addict) can go a long way toward reducing stigma.
Resources to mitigate stigma:
- CDC: Stigma Reduction
- National Harm Reduction Coalition: Respect To Connect: Undoing Stigma
- NIDA:
- Shatterproof: Addiction language guide (Disclosure: The Public Good Projects, PGN’s parent company, is a Shatterproof partner)
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Never Too Old?
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Age Limits On Exercise?
In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you your opinion on whether we should exercise less as we get older, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:
- About 42% said “No, we must keep pushing ourselves, to keep our youth“
- About 29% said “Only to the extent necessary due to chronic conditions etc”
- About 29% said “Yes, we should keep gently moving but otherwise take it easier”
One subscriber who voted for “No, we must keep pushing ourselves, to keep our youth“ wrote to add:
❝I’m 71 and I push myself. I’m not as fast or strong as I used to be but, I feel great when I push myself instead of going through the motions. I listen to my body!❞
~ 10almonds subscriber
One subscriber who voted for “Only to the extent necessary due to chronic conditions etc” wrote to add:
❝It’s never too late to get stronger. Important to keep your strength and balance. I am a Silver Sneakers instructor and I see first hand how helpful regular exercise is for seniors.❞
~ 10almonds subscriber
One subscriber who voted to say “Yes, we should keep gently moving but otherwise take it easier” wrote to add:
❝Keep moving but be considerate and respectful of your aging body. It’s a time to find balance in life and not put yourself into a positon to damage youself by competing with decades younger folks (unless you want to) – it will take much longer to bounce back.❞
~ 10almonds subscriber
These will be important, because we’ll come back to them at the end.
So what does the science say?
Endurance exercise is for young people only: True or False?
False! With proper training, age is no barrier to serious endurance exercise.
Here’s a study that looked at marathon-runners of various ages, and found that…
- the majority of middle-aged and elderly athletes have training histories of less than seven years of running
- there are virtually no relevant running time differences (p<0.01) per age in marathon finishers from 20 to 55 years
- after 55 years, running times did increase on average, but not consistently (i.e. there were still older runners with comparable times to the younger age bracket)
The researchers took this as evidence of aging being indeed a biological process that can be sped up or slowed down by various lifestyle factors.
See also:
Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
this covers the many aspects of biological aging (it’s not one number, but many!) and how our various different biological ages are often not in sync with each other, and how we can optimize each of them that can be optimized
Resistance training is for young people only: True or False?
False! In fact, it’s not only possible for older people, but is also associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality.
Specifically, those who reported strength-training at least once per week enjoyed longer lives than those who did not.
You may be thinking “is this just the horse-riding thing again, where correlation is not causation and it’s just that healthier people (for other reasons) were able to do strength-training more, rather than the other way around?“
…which is a good think to think of, so well-spotted if you were thinking that!
But in this case no; the benefits remained when other things were controlled for:
❝Adjusted for demographic variables, health behaviors and health conditions, a statistically significant effect on mortality remained.
Although the effects on cardiac and cancer mortality were no longer statistically significant, the data still pointed to a benefit.
Importantly, after the physical activity level was controlled for, people who reported strength exercises appeared to see a greater mortality benefit than those who reported physical activity alone.❞
See the study: Is strength training associated with mortality benefits? A 15 year cohort study of US older adults
And a pop-sci article about it: Strength training helps older adults live longer
Closing thoughts
As it happens… All three of the subscribers we quoted all had excellent points!
Because in this case it’s less a matter of “should”, and more a selection of options:
- We (most of us, at least) can gain/regain/maintain the kind of strength and fitness associated with much younger people, and we need not be afraid of exercising accordingly (assuming having worked up to such, not just going straight from couch to marathon, say).
- We must nevertheless be mindful of chronic conditions or even passing illnesses/injuries, but that goes for people of any age
- We also can’t argue against a “safety first” cautious approach to exercise. After all, sure, maybe we can run marathons at any age, but that doesn’t mean we have to. And sure, maybe we can train to lift heavy weights, but if we’re content to be able to carry the groceries or perhaps take our partner’s weight in the dance hall (or the bedroom!), then (if we’re also at least maintaining our bones and muscles at a healthy level) that’s good enough already.
Which prompts the question, what do you want to be able to do, now and years from now? What’s important to you?
For inspiration, check out: Train For The Event Of Your Life!
Take care!
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Shoe Wear Patterns: What They Mean, Why It Matters, & How To Fix It
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.
If you look under your shoes, do you notice how the tread is worn more in some places than others? Specific patterns of shoe wear correspond to how our body applies force, weight, and rotational movement. This reveals how we move, and uneven wear can indicate problematic movement dynamics.
The clues in your shoes
Common shoe wear patterns include:
- Diagonal wear on the outside of the heel: caused by foot angle, leg position, and instability, leading to joint stress.
- Rotational wear at specific points: due to internal or external rotation, often originating from the hip, pelvis, or torso.
- Wear above the big toe: caused by excessive toe lifting, often associated with a “lighter” or kicking leg.
Fixing movement issues to prevent wear involves correcting posture, improving balance, and adjusting how the legs land during walking/running.
Key fixes include:
- Aligning the center of gravity properly to prevent leg overcompensation.
- Ensuring feet land under the hips and not far in front.
- Stabilizing the torso to avoid unnecessary rotation.
- Engaging the glutes effectively to reduce hip flexor dominance and improve leg mechanics.
- Maintaining even weight distribution on both legs to prevent excessive lifting or twisting.
Posture and walking mechanics are vital to reducing uneven wear, but meaningful, lasting change takes time and focused effort, to build new habits.
For more on all this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Steps For Keeping Your Feet A Healthy Foundation
Take care!
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Cherries vs Elderberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing cherries to elderberries, we picked the elderberries.
Why?
Both are great! But putting them head-to-head…
In terms of macros, cherries have slightly more protein (but we are talking miniscule numbers here, 0.34mg/100g), while elderberries have moderately more carbs and more than 4x the fiber. This carbs:fiber ratio difference means that elderberries have the lower glycemic index by far, as well as simply more grams/100g fiber, making this an easy win for elderberries.
In the category of vitamins, cherries have more of vitamins A, B9, E, K, and choline, while elderberries have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, and C. The margins of difference mean that elderberries have the very slightly better overall vitamin coverage, but it’s so slight that we’ll call this a 5:5 tie.
When it comes to minerals, cherries have more copper, magnesium, and manganese, while elderberries have more calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. A nice easy win to top it off for elderberries.
On the polyphenols (and other phytochemicals) front, both are great in different ways, nothing that’d we’d consider truly sets one ahead of the other.
All in all, adding up the sections, an overall win for elderberries, but by all means enjoy either or both!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Cherries’ Very Healthy Wealth Of Benefits!
- Herbs for Evidence-Based Health & Healing ← one of them is elderberry, which hastens recovery from upper respiratory viral infections 😎
Take care!
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Viruses aren’t always harmful. 6 ways they’re used in health care and pest control
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We tend to just think of viruses in terms of their damaging impacts on human health and lives. The 1918 flu pandemic killed around 50 million people. Smallpox claimed 30% of those who caught it, and survivors were often scarred and blinded. More recently, we’re all too familiar with the health and economic impacts of COVID.
But viruses can also be used to benefit human health, agriculture and the environment.
Viruses are comparatively simple in structure, consisting of a piece of genetic material (RNA or DNA) enclosed in a protein coat (the capsid). Some also have an outer envelope.
Viruses get into your cells and use your cell machinery to copy themselves.
Here are six ways we’ve harnessed this for health care and pest control.1. To correct genes
Viruses are used in some gene therapies to correct malfunctioning genes. Genes are DNA sequences that code for a particular protein required for cell function.
If we remove viral genetic material from the capsid (protein coat) we can use the space to transport a “cargo” into cells. These modified viruses are called “viral vectors”.
Viruses consist of a piece of RNA or DNA enclosed in a protein coat called the capsid.
DEXiViral vectors can deliver a functional gene into someone with a genetic disorder whose own gene is not working properly.
Some genetic diseases treated this way include haemophilia, sickle cell disease and beta thalassaemia.
2. Treat cancer
Viral vectors can be used to treat cancer.
Healthy people have p53, a tumour-suppressor gene. About half of cancers are associated with the loss of p53.
Replacing the damaged p53 gene using a viral vector stops the cancerous cell from replicating and tells it to suicide (apoptosis).
Viral vectors can also be used to deliver an inactive drug to a tumour, where it is then activated to kill the tumour cell.
This targeted therapy reduces the side effects otherwise seen with cytotoxic (cell-killing) drugs.
We can also use oncolytic (cancer cell-destroying) viruses to treat some types of cancer.
Tumour cells have often lost their antiviral defences. In the case of melanoma, a modified herpes simplex virus can kill rapidly dividing melanoma cells while largely leaving non-tumour cells alone.
3. Create immune responses
Viral vectors can create a protective immune response to a particular viral antigen.
One COVID vaccine uses a modified chimp adenovirus (adenoviruses cause the common cold in humans) to transport RNA coding for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein into human cells.
The RNA is then used to make spike protein copies, which stimulate our immune cells to replicate and “remember” the spike protein.
Then, when you are exposed to SARS-CoV-2 for real, your immune system can churn out lots of antibodies and virus-killing cells very quickly to prevent or reduce the severity of infection.
4. Act as vaccines
Viruses can be modified to act directly as vaccines themselves in several ways.
We can weaken a virus (for an attenuated virus vaccine) so it doesn’t cause infection in a healthy host but can still replicate to stimulate the immune response. The chickenpox vaccine works like this.
The Salk vaccine for polio uses a whole virus that has been inactivated (so it can’t cause disease).
Others use a small part of the virus such as a capsid protein to stimulate an immune response (subunit vaccines).
An mRNA vaccine packages up viral RNA for a specific protein that will stimulate an immune response.
5. Kill bacteria
Viruses can – in limited situations in Australia – be used to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.
Bacteriophages are viruses that kill bacteria. Each type of phage usually infects a particular species of bacteria.
Unlike antibiotics – which often kill “good” bacteria along with the disease-causing ones – phage therapy leaves your normal flora (useful microbes) intact.
Bacteriophages (red) are viruses that kill bacteria (green).
Shutterstock6. Target plant, fungal or animal pests
Viruses can be species-specific (infecting one species only) and even cell-specific (infecting one type of cell only).
This occurs because the proteins viruses use to attach to cells have a shape that binds to a specific type of cell receptor or molecule, like a specific key fits a lock.
The virus can enter the cells of all species with this receptor/molecule. For example, rabies virus can infect all mammals because we share the right receptor, and mammals have other characteristics that allow infection to occur whereas other non-mammal species don’t.
When the receptor is only found on one cell type, then the virus will infect that cell type, which may only be found in one or a limited number of species. Hepatitis B virus successfully infects liver cells primarily in humans and chimps.
We can use that property of specificity to target invasive plant species (reducing the need for chemical herbicides) and pest insects (reducing the need for chemical insecticides). Baculoviruses, for example, are used to control caterpillars.
Similarly, bacteriophages can be used to control bacterial tomato and grapevine diseases.
Other viruses reduce plant damage from fungal pests.
Myxoma virus and calicivirus reduce rabbit populations and their environmental impacts and improve agricultural production.
Just like humans can be protected against by vaccination, plants can be “immunised” against a disease-causing virus by being exposed to a milder version.
Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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