Overcoming Tendonitis – by Dr. Steven Low & Dr. Frank Skretch

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If you assumed tendonitis to be an inflammatory condition, you’re not alone. However, it’s not; the “-itis” nomenclature is a misnomer, and while one can rarely go wrong with reducing chronic/systemic inflammation, it’s not the cure for tendonitis.

What, then, is tendonitis and what does cure it? It’s a non-inflammatory proliferation disorder, meaning, something is growing (or in this case, simply being replaced) in a way it shouldn’t. As to fixing it, that’s more complex.

This book does cover 20 interventions (sorted into “major” and “minor”), ranging from exercise therapies to surgery, with many things between. It also examines popular myths that do not help, such as rest, ice, heat, and analgesics.

The style of this book is hard science, but don’t worry, it explains everything along the way. It does however mean that if you’re not very accustomed to wading through scientific material, you can’t just dip into the middle of the book and be guaranteed to understand what’s going on. Indeed, before even getting to discussing tendonitis/tendinopathy, the first chapter is very reassuringly dedicated to “understanding the levels and classification of evidence in studies”, along with the assorted scales and guidelines of the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine.

The rest, however, is about the etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of tendonitis and tendinopathy more generally. One interesting thing is that, according to the abundant high-quality evidence presented in this book, what works for one body part’s tendonitis does not necessarily work for another body part, so we get quite a part-by-part rundown.

Bottom line: this book has a wealth of useful, applicable information about management of tendonitis, making it indispensable if you or a loved one suffer from such—but settle in, because it’s not a light read.

Click here to check out Overcoming Tendonitis, and overcome tendonitis!

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  • Superfood-Stuffed Squash

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    This stuffed squash recipe is packed with so many nutrient-dense ingredients, yet it feels delightfully decadent—a great recipe to have up your sleeve ready for fall.

    You will need

    • 1 large or two medium butternut squashes, halved lengthways and seeds removed (keep them; they are full of nutrients! You can sprout them, or dry them to use them at your leisure), along with some of the flesh from the central part above where the seeds are, so that there is room for stuffing
    • 2 cups low-sodium vegetable stock
    • 1 cup wild rice, rinsed
    • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
    • ½ cup walnuts, roughly chopped
    • ½ cup dried cranberries goji berries ← why goji berries? They have even more healthful properties than cranberries, and cranberries are hard to buy without so much added sugar that the ingredients list looks like “cranberries (51%), sugar (39%), vegetable oil (10%)”, whereas when buying goji berries, the ingredients list says “goji berries”, and they do the same culinary job.
    • ¼ cup pine nuts
    • ½ bulb garlic, minced
    • 1 tbsp dried thyme or 2 tsp fresh thyme, destalked
    • 1 tbsp dried rosemary or 2 tsp fresh rosemary, destalked
    • 1 generous handful fresh parsley, chopped
    • 1 tbsp chia seeds
    • 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
    • 1 tbsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
    • Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing and frying
    • Aged balsamic vinegar, to serve (failing this, make a balsamic vinegar reduction and use that; it should have a thicker texture but still taste acidic and not too sweet; the thickness should come from the higher concentration of grape must and its natural sugars; no need to add sugar)

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Preheat the oven to 400°F / 200°C.

    2) Brush the cut sides of the squash with olive oil; sprinkle with a pinch of MSG/salt and a little black pepper (grind it directly over the squash if you are using a grinder; hold the grinder high though so that it distributes evenly—waiters in restaurants aren’t just being dramatic when they do that with pepper or Parmesan or such)

    3) Arrange them cut-sides-down on a baking tray lined with baking paper, and roast for at least 30 minutes or until tender.

    4) While that is roasting, add the chia seeds to the wild rice, and cook them in the low-sodium vegetable stock, using a rice cooker if available. It should take about the same length of time, but if the rice is done first, set it aside, and if the squash is done first, turn the oven down low to keep it warm.

    5) Heat some oil in a sauté pan (not a skillet without high sides; we’re going to need space in a bit), and fry the chopped onion until translucent and soft. We could say “about 5 minutes” but honestly it depends on your pan as well as the heat and other factors.

    6) Add the seasonings (herbs, garlic, black pepper, MSG/salt, nooch), and cook for a further 2 minutes, stirring thoroughly to distribute evenly.

    7) Add the rice, berries, and nuts, cooking for a further 2 minutes, stirring constantly, ensuring everything is heated evenly.

    8) Remove the squash halves from the oven, turn them over, and spoon the mixture we just made into them, filling generously.

    9) Drizzle a lashing of the aged balsamic vinegar (or balsamic vinegar reduction), to serve.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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  • Led by RFK Jr., Conservatives Embrace Raw Milk. Regulators Say It’s Dangerous.

    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.

    In summertime, cows wait under a canopy to be milked at Mark McAfee’s farm in Fresno, California. From his Cessna 210 Centurion propeller plane, the 63-year-old can view grazing lands of the dairy company he runs that produces products such as unpasteurized milk and cheese for almost 2,000 stores.

    Federal regulators say it’s risky business. Samples of raw milk can contain bird flu virus and other pathogens linked to kidney disease, miscarriages, and death.

    McAfee, founder and CEO of the Raw Farm, who also leads the Raw Milk Institute, says he plans to soon be in a position to change that message.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist President Donald Trump has tapped to run the Department of Health and Human Services, recruited McAfee to apply for a job as the FDA’s raw milk standards and policy adviser, McAfee said. McAfee has already written draft proposals for possible federal certification of raw dairy farms, he said.

    Virologists are alarmed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends against unpasteurized dairy that hasn’t been heated to kill pathogens such as bird flu. Interstate raw milk sales for human consumption are banned by the FDA. A Trump administration that weakens the ban or extols raw milk, the scientists say, could lead to more foodborne illness. It could also, they say, raise the risk of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus evolving to spread more efficiently, including between people, possibly fueling a pandemic.

    “If the FDA says raw milk is now legal and the CDC comes through and says it advises drinking raw milk, that’s a recipe for mass infection,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and co-editor-in-chief of the medical journal Vaccine and an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University in New York.

    The raw milk controversy reflects the broader tensions President Donald Trump will confront when pursuing his second-administration agenda of rolling back regulations and injecting more consumer choice into health care.

    Many policies Kennedy has said he wants to revisit — from the fluoridation of tap water to nutrition guidance to childhood vaccine requirements — are backed by scientific research and were established to protect public health. Some physician groups and Democrats are gearing up to fight initiatives they say would put people at risk.

    Raw milk has gained a following among anti-regulatory conservatives who are part of a burgeoning health freedom movement.

    “The health freedom movement was adopted by the tea party, and conspiracy websites gave it momentum,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who has studied the history of the anti-vaccine movement.

    Once-fringe ideas are edging into the mainstream. Vaccine hesitancy is growing.

    Arkansas, Utah, and Kentucky are weighing legislation that would relax or end requirements for fluoride in public water. And 30 states now allow for the sale of raw milk in some form within their borders.

    While only an estimated 3% of the U.S. population consumes raw milk or cheese, efforts to try to restrict its sales have riled Republicans and provided grist for conservative podcasts.

    Many conservatives denounced last year’s execution of a search warrant when Pennsylvania agriculture officials and state troopers arrived at an organic farm tucked off a two-lane road on Jan. 4, 2024. State inspectors were investigating cases of two children sickened by E. coli bacteria and sales of raw dairy from the operation owned by Amish farmer Amos Miller, according to a complaint filed by the state’s agricultural department.

    Bundled in flannel shirts and winter jackets, the inspectors put orange stickers on products detaining them from sale, and they left toting product samples in large blue-and-white coolers, online videos show. The 2024 complaint against Miller alleged that he and his wife sold dairy products in violation of state law.

    The farm was well known to regulators. They say in the complaint that a Florida consumer died after being sickened in 2014 with listeria bacteria found in raw dairy from Miller’s farm. The FDA said a raw milk sample from the farm indicates it was the “likely source” of the infection, based on the complaint.

    Neither Miller’s farm nor his lawyer returned calls seeking comment.

    The Millers’ attorney filed a preliminary objection that said “shutting down Defendants would cause inequitable harm, exceed the authority of the agency, constitute an excessive fine as well as disparate, discriminatory punishment, and contravene every essential Constitutional protection and powers reserved to the people of Pennsylvania.”

    Regulators in Pennsylvania said in a press release they must protect the public, and especially children, from harm. “We cannot ignore the illnesses and further potential harm posed by distribution of these unregulated products,” the Pennsylvania agricultural department and attorney general said in a joint statement.

    Unpasteurized dairy products are responsible for almost all the estimated 761 illnesses and 22 hospitalizations in the U.S. that occur annually because of dairy-related illness, according to a study published in the June 2017 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

    But conservatives say raiding an Amish farm is government overreach. They’re “harassing him and trying to make an example of him. Our government is really out of control,” Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Doug Mastriano said in a video he posted to Facebook.

    Videos show protesters at a February 2024 hearing on Miller’s case included Amish men dressed in black with straw hats and locals waving homemade signs with slogans such as “FDA Go Away.” A court in March issued a preliminary injunction that barred Miller from marketing and selling raw dairy products within the commonwealth pending appeal, but the order did not preclude sales of raw milk to customers out of state. The case is ongoing.

    With Kennedy, the raw milk debate is poised to go national. Kennedy wrote on X in October that the “FDA’s war on public health is about to end.” In the post, he pointed to the agency’s “aggressive suppression” of raw milk, as one example.

    McAfee is ready. He wants to see a national raw milk ordinance, similar to one that exists for pasteurized milk, that would set minimal national standards. Farmers could attain certification through training, continuing education, and on-site pathogen testing, with one standard for farms that sell to consumers and another for retail sales.

    The Trump administration didn’t return emails seeking comment.

    McAfee has detailed the system he developed to ensure his raw dairy products are safe. He confirmed the process for KFF Health News: cows with yellow-tagged ears graze on grass pastures and are cleansed in washing pens before milking. The raw dairy is held back from consumer sale until it’s been tested and found clear of pathogens.

    His raw dairy products, such as cheese and milk, are sold by a variety of stores, including health, organic, and natural grocery chains, according to the company website, as well as raw dairy pet products, which are not for human consumption.

    He said he doesn’t believe the raw milk he sells could contain or transmit viable bird flu virus. He also said he doesn’t believe regulators’ warnings about raw milk and the virus.

    “The pharmaceutical industry is trying to create a new pandemic from bird flu to get their stock back up,” said McAfee, who says he counts Kennedy as a customer. His view is not shared by leading virologists.

    In December, the state of California secured a voluntary recall of all his company’s raw milk and cream products due to possible bird flu contamination.

    Five indoor cats in the same household died or were euthanized in December after drinking raw milk from McAfee’s farm, and tests on four of the animals found they were infected with bird flu, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Health.

    In an unrelated case, Joseph Journell, 56, said three of his four indoor cats drank McAfee’s raw milk. Two fell sick and died, he said. His third cat, a large tabby rescue named Big Boy, temporarily lost the use of his hind legs and had to use a specialized wheelchair device, he said. Urine samples from Big Boy were positive for bird flu, according to a copy of the results from Cornell University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    McAfee dismissed connections between the cats’ illnesses and his products, saying any potential bird flu virus would no longer be viable by the time his raw milk gets to stores. He also said he believes that any sick cats got bird flu from recalled pet food.

    Journell said he has hired a lawyer to try to recover his veterinary costs but remains a staunch proponent of raw milk.

    “Raw milk is good for you, just not if it has bird flu in it,” he said. “I do believe in its healing powers.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

    This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • Health Tips for Males Too

    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.

    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

    ❝Articles are very informative and helpful. Maybe it’s me but things seem to lean more toward females. That being said don’t forget us males❞

    Rest assured, we could never forget you! We try to make as much as possible of our content applicable to as many as possible of our readers, but of course not everything can be relevant for everyone.

    This is, presumably, in response to our recent feature on menopausal health, because previous to that, our next-most-recent main feature that centred women’s health was a month ago—that was about breast cancer, and did have a section on breast cancer in men too. You might also enjoy the book we reviewed recently about prostate health, or our regular sponsor offering testosterone therapy. Please feel free to check out our articles on saw palmetto against male pattern baldness and BPH, as well as mental health issues that disproportionally affect men.

    And of course, if you have specific questions/requests about men’s health (or any other health topic) we’re only ever an email away (or use the handy feedback widget, as you did to make this request)!

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Related Posts

  • 10 Powerful Tips To Improve Lymph Flow – by Laurel West
  • The Kitchen Doctor

    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.

    Dr. Rupy Aujla: The Kitchen Doctor

    This is Dr. Rupy Aujla, and he’s a medical doctor. He didn’t set out to become a “health influencer”.

    But then, a significant heart condition changed his life. Having a stronger motivation to learn more about nutritional medicine, he did a deep dive into the scientific literature, because that’s what you do when your life is on the line, especially if you’re a doctor!

    Using what he learned, he was able to reverse his condition using a food and lifestyle approach. Now, he devotes himself to sharing what he learned—and what he continues to learn as he goes along.

    One important thing he learned because of what happened to him, was that he hadn’t been paying enough attention to what his body was trying to tell him.

    He wants us to know about interoception—which isn’t a Chris Nolan movie. Rather, interoception is the sense of what is going on inside one’s own body.

    The counterpart of this is exteroception: our ability to perceive the outside world by means of our various senses.

    Interoception is still using the senses, but is sensing internal body sensations. Effectively, the brain interprets and integrates what happens in our organs.

    When interoception goes wrong, researchers found, it can lead to a greater likelihood of mental health problems. Having an anxiety disorder, depression, mood disorder, or an eating disorder often comes with difficulties in sensing what is going on inside the body.

    Improving our awareness of body cues

    Those same researchers suggested therapies and strategies aimed at improving awareness of mind-body connections. For example, mindfulness-based stress reduction, yoga, meditation and movement-based treatments. They could improve awareness of body cues by attending to sensations of breathing, cognitions and other body states.

    But where Dr. Aujla puts his focus is “the heart of the home”, the kitchen.

    The pleasure of food

    ❝Eating is not simply ingesting a mixture of nutrients. Otherwise, we would all be eating astronaut food. But food is not only a tool for health. It’s also an important pleasure in life, allowing us to connect to others, the present moment and nature.❞

    Dr. Rupy Aujla

    Dr. Aujla wants to help shift any idea of a separation between health and pleasure, because he believes in food as a positive route to well-being, joy and health. For him, it starts with self-awareness and acceptance of the sensory pleasures of eating and nourishing our bodies, instead of focusing externally on avoiding perceived temptations.

    Most importantly:

    We can use the pleasure of food as an ally to healthy eating.

    Instead of spending our time and energy fighting the urge to eat unhealthy things that may present a “quick fix” to some cravings but aren’t what our body actually wants, needs, Dr. Aujla advises us to pay just a little more attention, to make sure the body’s real needs are met.

    His top tips for such are:

    • Create an enjoyable relaxing eating environment

    To help cultivate positive emotions around food and signal to the nervous system a shift to food-processing time. Try setting the table with nothing else on it beyond what’s relevant to the dinner, putting away distractions, using your favorite plates, tablecloth, etc.

    • Take 3 deep abdominal breaths before eating

    To help you relax and ground yourself in the present moment, which in turn is to prepare your digestive system to receive and digest food.

    • Pay attention to the way you sit

    Take some time to sit comfortably with your feet grounded on the floor, not slouching, to give your stomach space to digest the food.

    • Appreciate what it took to bring this food to your plate

    Who was involved in the growing process and production, the weather and soil it took to grow the food, and where in the world it came from.

    • Enjoy the sensations

    When you’re cooking, serving, and eating your food, be attentive to color, texture, aroma and even sound. Taste the individual ingredients and seasonings along the way, when safe and convenient to do so.

    • Journal

    If you like journaling, you can try adding a mindful eating section to that. Ask questions such as: “how did I feel before, during, and after the meal?”

    In closing…

    Remember that this is a process, not only on an individual level but as a society too.

    Oftentimes it’s hard to eat healthily… We can be given to wonder even “what is healthy, after all?”, and we can be limited by what is available, what is affordable, and what we have time to prepare.

    But if we make a conscious commitment to make the best choices we reasonably can as we go along, then small changes can soon add up.

    Interested in what kind of recipes Dr. Aujla goes for?

    Check out his recipe page here!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci – by Michael J. Gelb

    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.

    Authors often try to bring forward the best minds of the distant past, and apply them to today’s world. One could fill a library with business advice adaptations from Sun Tzu’s Art of War alone, same goes for Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings, and let’s not get started on Niccolò Machiavelli. What makes this book different?

    Michael Gelb explores the principles codified and used by the infamous Renaissance Man to do exactly what he did: pretty much everything. Miyamoto Musashi had no interest in business, but Leonardo da Vinci really did care a lot about learning, creating, problem-solving, human connections, and much more. And best of all, he took notes. So many notes, for himself, of which we now enjoy the benefit.

    How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci explores these notes and their application by the man himself, and gives real, practical examples of how you can (and why you should) put them into action in your daily life, no matter whether you are a big business CEO or a local line cook or a reclusive academic, Leonardo has lessons for you.

    See today’s book on Amazon!

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  • Blood-Brain Barrier Breach Blamed For Brain-Fog

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    Move Over, Leaky Gut. Now It’s A Leaky Brain.

    …which is not a headline that promises good news, and indeed, the only good news about this currently is “now we know another thing that’s happening, and thus can work towards a treatment for it”.

    Back in February (most popular media outlets did not rush to publish this, as it rather goes against the narrative of “remember when COVID was a thing?” as though the numbers haven’t risen since the state of emergency was declared over), a team of Irish researchers made a discovery:

    ❝For the first time, we have been able to show that leaky blood vessels in the human brain, in tandem with a hyperactive immune system may be the key drivers of brain fog associated with long covid❞

    ~ Dr. Matthew Campbell (one of the researchers)

    Let’s break that down a little, borrowing some context from the paper itself:

    • the leaky blood vessels are breaching the blood-brain-barrier
      • that’s a big deal, because that barrier is our only filter between our brain and Things That Definitely Should Not Go In The Brain™
    • a hyperactive immune system can also be described as chronic inflammation
      • in this case, that includes chronic neuroinflammation which, yes, is also a major driver of dementia

    You may be wondering what COVID has to do with this, and well:

    • these blood-brain-barrier breaches were very significantly associated (in lay terms: correlated, but correlated is only really used as an absolute in write-ups) with either acute COVID infection, or Long Covid.
    • checking this in vitro, exposure of brain endothelial cells to serum from patients with Long Covid induced the same expression of inflammatory markers.

    How important is this?

    As another researcher (not to mention: professor of neurology and head of the school of medicine at Trinity) put it:

    ❝The findings will now likely change the landscape of how we understand and treat post-viral neurological conditions.

    It also confirms that the neurological symptoms of long covid are measurable with real and demonstrable metabolic and vascular changes in the brain.❞

    ~ Dr. Colin Doherty (see mini-bio above)

    You can read a pop-science article about this here:

    Irish researchers discover underlying cause of “brain fog” linked with long covid

    …and you can read the paper in full here:

    Blood–brain barrier disruption and sustained systemic inflammation in individuals with long COVID-associated cognitive impairment

    Want to stay safe?

    Beyond the obvious “get protected when offered boosters/updates” (see also: The Truth About Vaccines), other good practices include the same things most people were doing when the pandemic was big news, especially avoiding enclosed densely-populated places, washing hands frequently, and looking after your immune system. For that latter, see also:

    Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

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