Lifespan vs Healthspan, And The Spice Of Life
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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
❝Great newsletter. Am taking turmeric for inflammation of hips and feet. Works like magic. Would like to know how it works, and what tumeric is best combined with – also whether there any risks in longterm use.❞
Glad you’re enjoying! As for turmeric, it sure is great, isn’t it? To answer your questions in a brief fashion:
- How it works: it does a lot of things, but perhaps its most key feature is its autoxidative metabolites that mediate its anti-inflammatory effect. This, it slows or inhibits oxidative stress that would otherwise cause inflammation, increase cancer risk, and advance aging.
- Best combined with: black pepper
- Any risks in long-term use: there are no known risks in long-term use ← that’s just one study, but there are lots. Some studies were prompted by reported hepatotoxicity of curcumin supplements, but a) the reports themselves seem to be without evidence b) the reported hepatoxicity was in relation to contaminants in the supplements, not the curcumin itself c) clinical trials were unable to find any hepatotoxicity (or other) risks anyway. Here’s an example of such a study.
You might also like our previous main feature: Why Curcumin (Turmeric) Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
❝This push for longevity is appealing but watching my mother in her nineties is a life I’m not looking forward to. Healthy longevity, yes, but longevity for the sake of a longer life? No thank you.❞
Yes, you’re quite right, that’s exactly the point! Assuming we live to die of age-related conditions (i.e., we do not suffer a fatal accident or incident in our younger years), those unfun last years are coming whether they come at 75 or 95. Or earlier or later, because that can absolutely happen too!
For example: nearly 10% of Americans over 65 have difficulty with self-care
As a rule, and we’ve covered some of the science of this previously, having at least 4 out of 5 of the “big 5” lifestyle factors (diet, exercise, sleep, low-or-zero alcohol, not smoking) not only extends life, but specifically extends the healthspan, i.e. the count of healthy life-years that precedes final age-related decline.
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Meditation That You’ll Actually Enjoy
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Meditation That You’ll Actually Enjoy
We previously wrote about…
No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
this is a great primer, by the way, for the science and simplicity of mindfulness, along with the simplest mindfulness meditation to get you going.
Today, we’re going to have some fun with meditation.
First: The Problem
Once the usefulness and health benefits of meditation have been established, often people want to meditate, but complain they don’t have the time.
But that’s not the real reason, though, is it?
Let’s face it, a basic meditation can give benefits within two minutes. Or within two breaths, for that matter. So, it’s not really for a lack of time.
The real reason is because it doesn’t feel productive, and it’s not fun. For us to feel motivated to do a thing, usually we need at least one or the other. And even if we know it really is productive, it not feeling that way will hobble us.
So instead, let us make things a little more fun, with…
Meditation games!
As it turns out, there are good kinds of meditation with which one can have a little fun.
Catch the next thought
A common feature of many meditative practices is the experience of having fewer, or ideally no, thoughts.
But it’s hard to enact a negative, and thoughts keep coming.
So instead, make yourself comfortable, settle in, and lie in wait for thoughts. When one comes along, pounce on it in your mind. And then release it, and wait for the next.
At first, your thoughts may be coming thick and fast, but soon, you’ll find the pauses between them lengthening, and you have moments of contented not-knowing of what the next thought will be before it comes along.
This state of relaxed, ready alertness, calm and receptive, is exactly what we’re hoping to find here. But don’t worry about that while you’re busy lying in wait for the next wild thought to come along
Counting breaths
Many meditative practices involve focus on one’s breath. But it’s easy for attention to wander!
This game is a simple one. Count your breaths, not trying to change your rate of breathing at all, just letting it be, and see how high you can get before you lose count.
Breathing in and out, once, counts as one breath, by the way.
You may find that your rate of breathing naturally slows while you’re doing this. That’s fine; let it. It’ll add to the challenge of the game, because before long there will be lengthy pauses between each number.
If you lose count, just start again, and see if you can beat your high score.
This meditation game is an excellent exercise to build for sustained focus, while also improving the quality of breathing (as a side-effect of merely paying attention to it).
Hot spot, cold spot
The above two meditation games were drawn from Japanese and Chinese meditative practices, zen and qigong respectively; this one’s from an Indian meditative practice, yoga nidra. But for now, just approach it with a sense of playful curiosity, for best results.
Make yourself comfortable, lying on your back, arms by your sides.
Take a moment first to pay attention to each part of your body from head to toe, and release any tension that you may be holding along the way.
First part: mentally scan your body for where it feels warmest, or most active, or most wanting of attention (for example if there is pain, or an itch, or some other sensation); that’s your “hot spot” for the moment.
Second part: mentally scan your body for where it feels coolest, or most inert, or almost like it’s not a part of your body at all; that’s your “cold spot” for the moment.
Now, see if you can flip them. Whether you can or can’t, notice if your “hot spot” or “cold spot” moves, or if you can move them consciously.
This meditation game is a great exercise to strengthen interoception and somatic awareness in general—essential for being able to “listen to your body”!
Closing thoughts
All three practices above have very serious reasons and great benefits, but make sure you don’t skip enjoyment of the fun aspects!
Being “young at heart” is, in part, to do with the ability to enjoy—literally, to take joy in—the little things in life.
With that in mind, all we have left to say here is…
Enjoy!
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Banana Bread vs Bagel – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing banana bread to bagel, we picked the bagel.
Why?
Unlike most of the items we compare in this section, which are often “single ingredient” or at least highly standardized, today’s choices are rather dependent on recipe. Certainly, your banana bread and your bagels may not be the same as your neighbor’s. Nevertheless, to compare averages, we’ve gone with the FDA’s Food Central Database for reference values, using the most default average recipes available. Likely you could make either or both of them a little healthier, but as it is, this is how we’ve gone about making it a fair comparison. With that in mind…
In terms of macros, bagels have more than 2x the protein and about 4x the fiber, while banana bread has slightly higher carbs and about 7x more fat. You may be wondering: are the fats healthy? And the answer is, it could be better, could be worse. The FDA recipe went with margarine rather than butter, which lowered the saturated fat to being only ¼ of the total fat (it would have been higher, had they used butter) whereas bagels have no saturated fat at all—which characteristic is quite integral to bagels, unless you make egg bagels, which is rather a different beast. All in all, the macros category is a clear win for bagels, especially when we consider the carb to fiber ratio.
In the category of vitamins, bagels have on average more vitamin B1, B3, B5, and B9, while banana bread has on average more of vitamins A and C. A modest win for bagels.
When it comes to minerals, bagels are the more nutrient dense with more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while banana bread is not higher in any minerals. An obvious and easy win for bagels.
Closing thoughts: while the micronutrient profile quite possibly differs wildly from one baker to another, something that will probably stay more or less the same regardless is the carb to fiber ratio, and protein to fat. As a result, we’d weight the macros category as the more universally relevant. Bagels won in all categories today, as it happened, but it’s fairly safe to say that, on average, a baker who makes bagels and banana bread with the same levels of conscientiousness for health (or lack thereof) will tend to make bagels that are healthier than banana bread, based on the carb to fiber ratio, and the protein to fat ratio.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?
- Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)
- Wholewheat Bread vs Seeded White – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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Keeping Your Kidneys Healthy (Especially After 60)
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Keeping your kidneys happy: it’s more than just hydration!
Your kidneys are very busy organs. They filter waste products, balance hydration, pH, salt, and potassium. They also make some of our hormones, and are responsible for regulating red blood cell production too. They also handle vitamin D in a way our bodies would not work without, making them essential for calcium absorption and the health of our bones, and even muscular function.
So, how to keep them in good working order?
Yes, hydrate
This is obvious and may go without saying, but we try to not leave important things without saying. So yes, get plenty of water, spread out over the day (you can only usefully absorb so much at once!). If you feel thirsty, you’re probably already dehydrated, so have a little (hydrating!) drink.
Don’t smoke
It’s bad for everything, including your kidneys.
Look after your blood
Not just “try to keep it inside your body”, but also:
- Keep your blood sugar levels healthy (hyperglycemia can cause kidney damage)
- Keep your blood pressure healthy (hypertension can cause kidney damage)
Basically, your kidneys’ primary job of filtering blood will go much more smoothly if that blood is less problematic on the way in.
Watch your over-the-counter pill intake
A lot of PRN OTC NSAIDs (PRN = pro re nata, i.e. you take them as and when symptoms arise) (NSAIDs = Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, such as ibuprofen for example) can cause kidney damage if taken regularly.
Many people take ibuprofen (for example) constantly for chronic pain, especially the kind cause by chronic inflammation, including many autoimmune diseases.
It is recommended to not take them for more than 10 days, nor more than 8 per day. Taking more than that, or taking them for longer, could damage your kidneys temporarily or permanently.
Read more: National Kidney Foundation: Advice About Pain Medicines
See also: Which Drugs Are Harmful To Your Kidneys?
Get a regular kidney function checkup if you’re in a high risk group
Who’s in a high risk group?
- If you’re over 60
- If you have diabetes
- If you have cardiovascular disease
- If you have high blood pressure
- If you believe, or know, you have existing kidney damage
The tests are very noninvasive, and will be a urine and/or blood test.
For more information, see:
Kidney Testing: Everything You Need to Know
Take care!
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The Web That Has No Weaver – by Ted Kaptchuk
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At 10almonds we have a strong “stick with the science” policy, and that means peer-reviewed studies and (where such exists) scientific consensus.
However, in the spirit of open-minded skepticism (i.e., acknowledging what we don’t necessarily know), it can be worth looking at alternatives to popular Western medicine. Indeed, many things have made their way from Traditional Chinese Medicine (or Ayurveda, or other systems) into Western medicine in any case.
“The Web That Has No Weaver” sounds like quite a mystical title, but the content is presented in the cold light of day, with constant “in Western terms, this works by…” notes.
The author walks a fine line of on the one hand, looking at where TCM and Western medicine may start and end up at the same place, by a different route; and on the other hand, noting that (in a very Daoist fashion), the route is where TCM places more of the focus, in contrast to Western medicine’s focus on the start and end.
He makes the case for TCM being more holistic, and it is, though Western medicine has been catching up in this regard since this book’s publication more than 20 years ago.
The style of the writing is very easy to follow, and is not esoteric in either mysticism or scientific jargon. There are diagrams and other illustrations, for ease of comprehension, and chapter endnotes make sure we didn’t miss important things.
Bottom line: if you’re curious about Traditional Chinese Medicine, this book is the US’s most popular introduction to such, and as such, is quite a seminal text.
Click here to check out The Web That Has No Weaver, and enjoy learning about something new!
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How To Stop Binge-Eating: Flip This Switch!
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“The Big Eating Therapist” Sarah Dosanjh has insights from both personal and professional experience:
No “Tough Love” Necessary
Eating certain foods is often socially shamed, and it’s easy to internalize that, and feel guilty. While often guilt is considered a pro-social emotion that helps people to avoid erring in a way that will get us excluded from the tribe (bearing in mind that for most of our evolutionary history, exile would mean near-certain death), it is not good at behavior modification when it comes to addictions or anything similar to addictions.
The reason for this is that if we indulge in a pleasure we feel we “shouldn’t” and expect we’d be shamed for, we then feel bad, and we immediately want something to make us feel better. Guess what that something will be. That’s right: the very same thing we literally just felt ashamed about.
So guilt is not helpful when it comes to (for example) avoiding binge-eating.
Instead, Dosanjh points us to a study whereby dieters ate a donut and drank water, before being given candy for taste testing. The control group proceeded without intervention, while the experimental group had a self-compassion intervention between the donut and the candy. This meant that researchers told the participants not to feel bad about eating the donut, emphasizing self-kindness, mindfulness, and common humanity. The study found that those who received the intervention, ate significantly less candy.
What we can learn from this is: we must be kind to ourselves. Allowing ourselves, consciously and mindfully, “a little treat”, secures its status as being “little”, and “a treat”. Then we smile, thinking “yes, that was a nice little thing to do for myself”, and proceed with our day.
This kind of self-compassion helps avoid the “meta-binge” process, where guilt from one thing leads to immediately reaching for another.
For more on this, plus a link to the study she mentioned, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Take care!
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When And Why Do We Pick Up Our Phones?
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The School of Life’s Alain de Botton makes the argument that—if we pay attention, if we keep track—there’s an understory to why we pick up our phones:
It’s not about information
Yes, our phones (or rather, the apps therein) are designed to addict us, to draw us back, to keep us scrolling and never let us go. We indeed seek out information like our ancestors once sought out berries; searching, encouraged by a small discovery, looking for more. The neurochemistry is similar.
But when we look at the “when” of picking up our phones, de Botton says, it tells a different story:
We pick them up not to find out what’s going on with the world, but rather specifically to not find out what’s going with ourselves. We pick them up to white out some anxiety we don’t want to examine, a line of thought we don’t want to go down, memories we don’t want to consider, futures we do not want to have to worry about.
And of course, phones do have a great educational potential, are an immensely powerful tool for accessing knowledge of many kinds—if only we can remain truly conscious while using them, and not take them as the new “opiate of the masses”.
De Botton bids us, when next we pick up our phone. ask a brave question:
“If I weren’t allowed to consult my phone right now, what might I need to think about?”
As for where from there? There’s more in the video:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Further reading
Making Social Media Work For Your Mental Health
Take care!
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