Ozempic’s cousin drug liraglutide is about to get cheaper. But how does it stack up?

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.

Fourteen years ago, the older drug cousin of semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) came onto the market. The drug, liraglutide, is sold under the brand names Victoza and Saxenda.

Patents for Victoza and Saxenda have now expried. So other drug companies are working to develop “generic” versions. These are likely be a fraction of current cost, which is around A$400 a month.

So how does liraglutide compare with semaglutide?

Halfpoint/Shutterstock

How do these drugs work?

Liraglutide was not originally developed as a weight-loss treatment. Like semaglutide (Ozempic), it originally treated type 2 diabetes.

The class of drugs liraglutide and semaglutide belong to are known as GLP-1 mimetics, meaning they mimic the natural hormone GLP-1. This hormone is released from your small intestines in response to food and acts in several ways to improve the way your body handles glucose (sugar).

How do they stop hunger?

Liraglutide acts in several regions of the unconscious part of your brain, specifically the hypothalamus, which controls metabolism, and parts of the brain stem responsible for communicating your body’s nutrient status to the hypothalamus.

Its actions here appear to reduce hunger in two different ways. First, it helps you to feel full earlier, making smaller meals more satisfying. Second, it alters your “motivational salience” towards food, meaning it reduces the amount of food you seek out.

Liraglutide’s original formulation, designed to treat type 2 diabetes, was marketed as Victoza. Its ability to cause weight loss was evident soon after it entered the market.

Shortly after, a stronger formulation, called Saxenda, was released, which was intended for weight loss in people with obesity.

How much weight can you lose with liraglutide?

People respond differently and will lose different amounts of weight. But here, we’ll note the average weight loss users can expect. Some will lose more (sometimes much more), others will lose less, and a small proportion won’t respond.

The first GLP-1 mimicking drug was exenatide (Bayetta). It’s still available for treating type 2 diabetes, but there are currently no generics. Exenatide does provide some weight loss, but this is quite modest, typically around 3-5% of body weight.

For liraglutide, those using the drug to treat obesity will use the stronger one (Saxenda), which typically gives about 10% weight loss.

Semaglutide, with the stronger formulation called Wegovy, typically results in 15% weight loss.

The newest GLP-1 mimicking drug on the market, tirzepatide (Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes and Zepbound for weight loss), results in weight loss of around 25% of body weight.

What happens when you stop taking them?

Despite the effectiveness of these medications in helping with weight loss, they do not appear to change people’s weight set-point.

So in many cases, when people stop taking them, they experience a rebound toward their original weight.

Person holds Saxenda pen
People often regain weight when when they stop taking the drug. Mohammed_Al_Ali/Shutterstock

What is the dose and how often do you need to take it?

Liraglutide (Victoza) for type 2 diabetes is exactly the same drug as Saxenda for weight loss, but Saxenda is a higher dose.

Although the target for each formulation is the same (the GLP-1 receptor), for glucose control in type 2 diabetes, liraglutide has to (mainly) reach the pancreas.

But to achieve weight loss, it has to reach parts of the brain. This means crossing the blood-brain barrier – and not all of it makes it, meaning more has to be taken.

All the current formulations of GLP-1 mimicking drug are injectables. This won’t change when liraglutide generics hit the market.

However, they differ in how frequently they need to be injected. Liraglutide is a once-daily injection, whereas semaglutide and tirzepatide are once-weekly. (That makes semaglutide and tirzepatide much more attractive, but we won’t see semaglutide as a generic until 2033.)

What are the side effects?

Because all these medicines have the same target in the body, they mostly have the same side effects.

The most common are a range of gastrointestinal upsets including nausea, vomiting, bloating, constipation and diarrhoea. These occur, in part, because these medications slow the movement of food out of the stomach, but are generally managed by increasing the dose slowly.

Recent clinical data suggests the slowing in emptying of the stomach can be problematic for some people, and may increase the risk of of food entering the lungs during operations, so it is important to let your doctor know if you are taking any of these drugs.

Because these are injectables, they can also lead to injection-site reactions.

Doctor consults with patient
Gastrointestinal side effects are most common. Halfpoint/Shutterstock

During clinical trials, there were some reports of thyroid disease and pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas). However, it is not clear that these can be attributed to GLP-1 mimicking drugs.

In animals, GLP-1 mimicking drugs drugs have been found to negatively alter the growth of the embryo. There is currently no controlled clinical trial data on their use during pregnancy, but based on animal data, these medicines should not be used during pregnancy.

Who can use them?

The GLP-1 mimicking drugs for weight loss (Wegovy, Saxenda, Zepbound/Mounjaro) are approved for use by people with obesity and are meant to only be used in conjunction with diet and exercise.

These drugs must be prescribed by a doctor and for obesity are not covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which is one of the reasons why they are expensive. But in time, generic versions of liraglutide are likely to be more affordable.

Sebastian Furness, ARC Future Fellow, School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Queensland

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

Don’t Forget…

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

Recommended

  • Dentists Are Pulling ‘Healthy’ and Treatable Teeth To Profit From Implants, Experts Warn
  • Why are my muscles sore after exercise? Hint: it’s nothing to do with lactic acid
    Lactic acid is not to blame for muscle soreness after exercise. The discomfort is actually caused by microscopic muscle damage and the release of ions and molecules.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Stimulant Users Are Caught in Fatal ‘Fourth Wave’ of Opioid Epidemic

    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 Pawtucket, Rhode Island, near a storefront advertising “free” cellphones, J.R. sat in an empty back stairwell and showed a reporter how he tries to avoid overdosing when he smokes crack cocaine. KFF Health News is identifying him by his initials because he fears being arrested for using illegal drugs.

    It had been several hours since his last hit, and the chatty, middle-aged man’s hands moved quickly. In one hand, he held a glass pipe. In the other, a lentil-size crumb of cocaine.

    Or at least J.R. hoped it was cocaine, pure cocaine — uncontaminated by fentanyl, a potent opioid that was linked to about 75% of all overdose deaths in Rhode Island in 2022. He flicked his lighter to “test” his supply. He believed that if it had a “cigar-like sweet smell,” he said, it would mean that the cocaine was laced with fentanyl. He put the pipe to his lips and took a tentative puff. “No sweet,” he said, reassured.

    But this method offers only false and dangerous reassurance. A mistake can be fatal.

    It is impossible to tell whether a drug contains fentanyl by the taste or smell. “Somebody can believe that they can smell it or taste it, or see it … but that’s not a scientific test,” said Josiah “Jody” Rich, an addiction specialist and researcher who teaches at Brown University. “People are going to die today because they buy some cocaine that they don’t know has fentanyl in it.”

    The first wave of the long-running and devastating opioid epidemic began in the United States with the abuse of prescription painkillers in the early 2000s. The second wave involved an increase in heroin use, starting around 2010. The third wave began when powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl started appearing in the supply around 2015. Now experts are observing a fourth phase of the deadly epidemic.

    The mix of stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamines with fentanyl — a synthetic opioid 50 times as powerful as heroin — is driving what experts call the opioid epidemic’s “fourth wave.” The mixture of stimulants and fentanyl presents powerful challenges to efforts to reduce overdoses because many users of stimulants don’t know they are at risk of ingesting opioids, so they don’t take overdose precautions.

    The only way to know whether cocaine or other stimulants contain fentanyl is to use drug-checking tools such as fentanyl test strips — a best practice for what’s known as “harm reduction,” now embraced by federal health officials in combating drug overdose deaths. Fentanyl test strips cost as little as $2 for a two-pack online, but many front-line organizations also give them out free.

    Nationwide, illicit stimulants mixed with fentanyl were the most common drugs found in fentanyl-related overdoses, according to a study published in 2023 in the scientific journal Addiction. The stimulant in the fatal mixture tends to be cocaine in the Northeast, and methamphetamine in the West and much of the Midwest and South.

    “The No. 1 thing that people in the U.S. are dying from in terms of drug overdoses is the combination of fentanyl and a stimulant,’’ said Joseph Friedman, a researcher at UCLA and the study’s lead author. “Black and African Americans are disproportionately affected by this crisis to a large magnitude, especially in the Northeast.”

    Friedman was also the lead author of another new study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, that shows the fourth wave of the opioid epidemic is driving up the mortality rate among older Black Americans (ages 55-64) and, more recently, Hispanic people. Friedman said part of the reason street fentanyl is so deadly is that there’s no way to tell how potent it is. Hospitals have safely used medical-grade fentanyl for surgical pain because the potency is strictly regulated, but “the potency fluctuates wildly in the illicit market” Friedman said.

    Studies of street drugs, he said, show that in illicit drugs the potency can vary from 1% to 70% fentanyl.

    “Imagine ordering a mixed drink in a bar and it contains one to 70 shots,” Friedman said, “and the only way you know is to start drinking it. … There would be a huge number of alcohol overdose deaths.”

    Drug-checking technology can provide a rough estimate of fentanyl concentration, he said, but to get a precise measure requires sending drugs to a laboratory.

    It’s not clear how much of the latest trend in polydrug use — in which users mix substances, such as cocaine and fentanyl, for example — is accidental versus intentional. It can vary for individual users: a recent study from Millennium Health found that most people who use fentanyl do so at times intentionally and other times unintentionally.

    People often use stimulants to power through the rapid withdrawal from fentanyl, Friedman said. And the high-risk practice of using cocaine or meth with heroin, known as “speedballing,” has been around for decades. Other factors include manufacturers’ adding the cheap synthetic opioid to a stimulant to stretch their supply, or dealers mixing up bags.

    Researchers say many people still think they are using unadulterated cocaine or crack — a misconception that can be deadly. “Folks who are using stimulants, and not intentionally using opioids, are unprepared to respond to an opioid overdose,” said Brown University epidemiologist Jaclyn White Hughto, “because they don’t perceive themselves to be at risk.” Hughto is a principal investigator in a new, unpublished study called “Preventing Overdoses Involving Stimulants.”

    Hughto and the team surveyed more than 260 people in Rhode Island and Massachusetts who use drugs, including some who manufacture and distribute stimulants such as cocaine. More than 60% of the people they interviewed in Rhode Island had bought or used stimulants that they later found out had fentanyl in them. And many of the people interviewed in the study also use drugs alone. That means that if they do overdose, they may not be found until it’s too late.

    In 2022, Rhode Island had the fourth-highest rate of overdose deaths involving cocaine in 2022, after Washington, D.C., Delaware, and Vermont, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    The fourth wave is also hitting stimulant users who choose pills over what they perceive as more dangerous drugs such as cocaine in an effort to avoid fentanyl. That’s what happened to Jennifer Dubois’ son Cliffton.

    Dubois was a single mother raising two Black sons. The older son, Cliffton, had been struggling with addiction since he was 14, she said. Cliffton also had been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and a mood disorder.

    In March 2020, Cliffton had checked into a rehab program as the pandemic ramped up, Dubois said. Because of the lockdown at rehab, Cliffton was upset about not being able to visit with his mother. “He said, ‘If I can’t see my mom, I can’t do treatment,’” Dubois recalled. “And I begged him” to stay in treatment.

    But soon after, Cliffton left the rehab program. He showed up at her door. “And I just cried,” she said.

    Dubois’ younger son was living at home. She didn’t want Cliffton doing drugs around his younger brother. So she gave Cliffton an ultimatum: “If you want to stay home, you have to stay drug-free.”

    Cliffton went to stay with family friends, first in Atlanta and later in Woonsocket, an old mill city that has Rhode Island’s highest rate of drug overdose deaths.

    In August 2020, Cliffton overdosed but was revived. Cliffton later confided that he’d been snorting cocaine in a car with a friend, Dubois said. Hospital records show he tested positive for fentanyl.

    “He was really scared,” Dubois said. After the overdose, he tried to “leave the cocaine and the hard drugs alone,” she said. “But he was taking pills.” Eight months later, on April 17, 2021, Cliffton was found unresponsive in the bedroom of a family member’s home.

    The night before, Cliffton had bought counterfeit Adderall, according to the police report. What he didn’t know was that the Adderall pill was laced with fentanyl. “He thought by staying away from the street drugs and just taking pills, he was doing better,” Dubois said.

    A fentanyl test strip could have saved his life.

    This article is from a partnership that includes The Public’s Radio, NPR, and KFF Health News.

    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.

    USE OUR CONTENT

    This story can be republished for free (details).

    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.

    Share This Post

  • How can I stop overthinking everything? A clinical psychologist offers solutions

    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.

    As a clinical psychologist, I often have clients say they are having trouble with thoughts “on a loop” in their head, which they find difficult to manage.

    While rumination and overthinking are often considered the same thing, they are slightly different (though linked). Rumination is having thoughts on repeat in our minds. This can lead to overthinking – analysing those thoughts without finding solutions or solving the problem.

    It’s like a vinyl record playing the same part of the song over and over. With a record, this is usually because of a scratch. Why we overthink is a little more complicated.

    We’re on the lookout for threats

    Our brains are hardwired to look for threats, to make a plan to address those threats and keep us safe. Those perceived threats may be based on past experiences, or may be the “what ifs” we imagine could happen in the future.

    Our “what ifs” are usually negative outcomes. These are what we call “hot thoughts” – they bring up a lot of emotion (particularly sadness, worry or anger), which means we can easily get stuck on those thoughts and keep going over them.

    However, because they are about things that have either already happened or might happen in the future (but are not happening now), we cannot fix the problem, so we keep going over the same thoughts.

    Who overthinks?

    Most people find themselves in situations at one time or another when they overthink.

    Some people are more likely to ruminate. People who have had prior challenges or experienced trauma may have come to expect threats and look for them more than people who have not had adversities.

    Deep thinkers, people who are prone to anxiety or low mood, and those who are sensitive or feel emotions deeply are also more likely to ruminate and overthink.

    Woman holds her head, looking stressed
    We all overthink from time to time, but some people are more prone to rumination.
    BĀBI/Unsplash

    Also, when we are stressed, our emotions tend to be stronger and last longer, and our thoughts can be less accurate, which means we can get stuck on thoughts more than we would usually.

    Being run down or physically unwell can also mean our thoughts are harder to tackle and manage.

    Acknowledge your feelings

    When thoughts go on repeat, it is helpful to use both emotion-focused and problem-focused strategies.

    Being emotion-focused means figuring out how we feel about something and addressing those feelings. For example, we might feel regret, anger or sadness about something that has happened, or worry about something that might happen.

    Acknowledging those emotions, using self-care techniques and accessing social support to talk about and manage your feelings will be helpful.

    The second part is being problem-focused. Looking at what you would do differently (if the thoughts are about something from your past) and making a plan for dealing with future possibilities your thoughts are raising.

    But it is difficult to plan for all eventualities, so this strategy has limited usefulness.

    What is more helpful is to make a plan for one or two of the more likely possibilities and accept there may be things that happen you haven’t thought of.

    Think about why these thoughts are showing up

    Our feelings and experiences are information; it is important to ask what this information is telling you and why these thoughts are showing up now.

    For example, university has just started again. Parents of high school leavers might be lying awake at night (which is when rumination and overthinking is common) worrying about their young person.

    Man lays awake in bed
    Think of what the information is telling you.
    TheVisualsYouNeed/Shutterstock

    Knowing how you would respond to some more likely possibilities (such as they will need money, they might be lonely or homesick) might be helpful.

    But overthinking is also a sign of a new stage in both your lives, and needing to accept less control over your child’s choices and lives, while wanting the best for them. Recognising this means you can also talk about those feelings with others.

    Let the thoughts go

    A useful way to manage rumination or overthinking is “change, accept, and let go”.

    Challenge and change aspects of your thoughts where you can. For example, the chance that your young person will run out of money and have no food and starve (overthinking tends to lead to your brain coming up with catastrophic outcomes!) is not likely.

    You could plan to check in with your child regularly about how they are coping financially and encourage them to access budgeting support from university services.

    Your thoughts are just ideas. They are not necessarily true or accurate, but when we overthink and have them on repeat, they can start to feel true because they become familiar. Coming up with a more realistic thought can help stop the loop of the unhelpful thought.

    Accepting your emotions and finding ways to manage those (good self-care, social support, communication with those close to you) will also be helpful. As will accepting that life inevitably involves a lack of complete control over outcomes and possibilities life may throw at us. What we do have control over is our reactions and behaviours.

    Remember, you have a 100% success rate of getting through challenges up until this point. You might have wanted to do things differently (and can plan to do that) but nevertheless, you coped and got through.

    So, the last part is letting go of the need to know exactly how things will turn out, and believing in your ability (and sometimes others’) to cope.

    What else can you do?

    A stressed out and tired brain will be more likely to overthink, leading to more stress and creating a cycle that can affect your wellbeing.

    So it’s important to manage your stress levels by eating and sleeping well, moving your body, doing things you enjoy, seeing people you care about, and doing things that fuel your soul and spirit.

    Woman running
    Find ways to manage your stress levels.
    antoniodiaz/Shutterstock

    Distraction – with pleasurable activities and people who bring you joy – can also get your thoughts off repeat.

    If you do find overthinking is affecting your life, and your levels of anxiety are rising or your mood is dropping (your sleep, appetite and enjoyment of life and people is being negatively affected), it might be time to talk to someone and get some strategies to manage.

    When things become too difficult to manage yourself (or with the help of those close to you), a therapist can provide tools that have been proven to be helpful. Some helpful tools to manage worry and your thoughts can also be found here.

    When you find yourself overthinking, think about why you are having “hot thoughts”, acknowledge your feelings and do some future-focused problem solving. But also accept life can be unpredictable and focus on having faith in your ability to cope. The Conversation

    Kirsty Ross, Associate Professor and Senior Clinical Psychologist, Massey University

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

    Share This Post

  • 16 Overlooked Autistic Traits In Women

    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.

    We hear a lot about “autism moms”, but Taylor Heaton is an autistic mom, diagnosed as an adult, and she has insights to share about overlooked autistic traits in women.

    The Traits

    • Difficulty navigating romantic relationships: often due to misreading signs
    • Difficulty understanding things: including the above, but mostly: difficulty understanding subtext, when people leave things as “surely obvious”. Autistic women are likely to be aware of the possible meanings, but unsure which it might be, and may well guess wrongly.
    • Masking: one of the reasons for the gender disparity in diagnosis is that autistic women are often better at “masking”, that is to say, making a conscious effort to blend in to allistic society—often as a result of being more societally pressured to do so.
    • Honesty: often to a fault
    • Copy and paste: related to masking, this is about consciously mirroring others in an effort to put them at ease and be accepted
    • Being labelled sensitive and/or gifted: usually this comes at a young age, but the resultant different treatment can have a lifetime effect
    • Secret stims: again related to masking, and again for the same reasons that displaying autistic symptoms is often treated worse in women, autistic women’s stims tend to be more subtle.
    • Written communication: autistic women are often more comfortable with the written word than the spoken
    • Leadership: autistic women will often gravitate to leadership roles, partly as a survival mechanism
    • Gaslighting: oneself, e.g. “If this person did this without that, then I can to” (without taking into account that maybe the circumstances are different, or maybe they actually did lean on crutches that you didn’t know were there, etc).
    • Inner dialogue: rich inner dialogue, but unable to express it outwardly—often because of the sheer volume of thoughts per second.
    • Fewer female friends: often few friends overall, for that matter, but there’s often a gender imbalance towards male friends, or where there isn’t, towards more masculine friends at least.
    • Feeling different: often a matter of feeling one does not meet standard expectations in some fashion
    • School: autistic women are often academically successful
    • Special interests: often more “socially accepted” interests than autistic men’s.
    • Flirting: autistic women are often unsure how to flirt or what to do about it, which can result in simple directness instead

    For more details on all of these, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Related reading:

    You might like a main feature of ours from not long back:

    Miss Diagnosis: Anxiety, ADHD, & Women

    Take care!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Dentists Are Pulling ‘Healthy’ and Treatable Teeth To Profit From Implants, Experts Warn
  • Why You’re Tired & 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.

    This is Sadia Badiei. A dietician by academic and professional background, she’s nowadays hung up her lab coat for a chef’s jacket, and is best known for her “Pick Up Limes” brand. Today, we’ll be taking her advice on managing energy levels with what’s on our plates!

    Quick note: our usual medical/legal disclaimer applies, and this article cannot diagnose you from afar, and thus neither can it make any certain prescription; this is for educational purposes, and aimed at being applicable to most of our readers.

    There are many possible things that can cause chronic fatigue, and not all of them can be fixed by diet. Your doctor will have access to tests and such that we, being a humble health science publication, do not.

    You may recognize her; we’ve featured her videos occasionally, mostly recently:

    Pick Up A Zest For Life: 10 Lessons For A Healthy Mind & Body

    But, what does she want us to know about living life with more energy?

    It starts with balance

    Badiei makes the case that we should strive for a nutritionally-balanced diet; that may not come as much of a revelation, but what does that look like for a vegan (Badiei advocates for plant-based eating)?

    She recommends that our diet consist of:

    • About 50% fruits and vegetables
    • About 25% grains and starches
    • About 25% proteins
    • Modest amounts of fats
    • A little of well-chosen dairy substitutions
    • Finally, a few judicious supplements to top it off

    That does add up to more than 100%, but 1) we did say “About n%” and 2) this is not a bad thing to note, actually, since Badiei advocates (as we do) for focussing more on what we add into our diet, rather than what we take out.

    Breaking it down a little further, she recommends making sure to get “the foundational seven”, which is a little like “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen”, but in this case it’s counted on a per-food-type basis.

    Thus, she recommends:

    1. Dark green leafy vegetables
    2. Assorted other non-starchy vegetables (your choice what kind)
    3. Fruit, of any kinds (unlike Dr. Greger separating berries)
    4. Grains and starches (so for example, potatoes are lumped in with rice here, botanically very different, but often fulfil a similar culinary role)
    5. Nuts and seeds
    6. Legumes
    7. Fortified dairy alternatives

    For full details including how much of each, and “what counts”, etc, see:

    Pick Up Limes | The Nourish Method

    Time your carbs

    Slow-release carbohydrates, those with the most fiber, are best most of the time, giving us more sustained fuel, keeping us energized for longer after meals—even if we would rather sleep:

    She cites: Fiber and Saturated Fat Are Associated with Sleep Arousals and Slow Wave Sleep

    Quick-release carbohydrates, those with what’s generally considered a less favorable carb:fiber ratio, are best if we’re going to eat nearer to bedtime. We know, eating before bed is often considered a bit of a no-no, but Badiei bids us indulge if we so desire, as the quicker-absorbed carbohydrates support tryptophan reaching our brain more efficiently, and thus promote sleep onset.

    See also: Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?

    About that fat

    We mentioned (or rather, Badiei’s citation mentioned) saturated fat. It is indeed linked with difficulty falling asleep, and/but omega-3 fatty acids, on the other hand, promote better sleep.

    She cites: The relationship between sleep duration, sleep quality and dietary intake in adults

    While you’re enjoying those nuts and seeds (for the omega-3 fatty acids), you might also note that several also star in Badiei’s list of plant-based foods that are rich in tryptophan, such as soy, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, beans, green vegetables, and mushrooms.

    Micronutrients

    Badiei’s focus here is on B-vitamins, iron, magnesium, selenium, and zinc. We imagine most of our readers here are taking steps to ensure to get a full daily coverage of vitamins and minerals anyway, but you might want to read what she has to say about iron on a plant-based diet, because the numbers may be different than you think.

    The reason for this is that while animal products contain mostly heme iron, which is easier to absorb but associated with a risk increase in some diseases, plant-based foods usually* contain only non-heme iron, which is healthier but not as bioavailable, so if eating only plants, we need more of it:

    Pick Up Limes | Iron on a Plant-Based Diet

    *If you eat a carnivorous plant, guess what, it’ll have heme iron in it, tangling that food web.

    “What if I know I have chronic fatigue for non-dietary reasons?”

    Well, that sucks, and we’re not going to pretend the above will magically fix it. However, there are still things that can at least relatively improve your experience:

    Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue! Yes, Even When Fatigued Chronically

    (it’s a good guide to being able to consistently eat healthily when your energy levels are consistently at minimal, meaning that a lot of common advice becomes unusable)

    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

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Achieve optimal fitness after 40 with the support of a dedicated community of subscribers. Discover effective strategies, including incorporating 10 almonds into your daily routine, to enhance your overall health and well

    10almonds Subcribers Take The Wheel!

    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.

    ❓ Q&A With 10almonds Subscribers!

    Q: What kind of salt is best for neti pots?

    A: Non-iodised salt is usually recommended, but really, any human-safe salt is fine. By this we mean for example:

    • Sodium chloride (like most kitchen salts),
    • Potassium chloride (as found in “reduced sodium” kitchen salts), or
    • Magnesium sulfate (also known as epsom salts).

    Q: You talked about spearmint as reducing testosterone levels, what about ginseng for increasing them?

    A: Hormones are complicated and often it’s not a simple matter of higher or lower levels! It can also be a matter of…

    • how your body converts one thing into another
    • how your body responds (or not) to something according to how the relevant hormone’s receptors are doing
    • …and whether there’s anything else blocking those receptors.

    All this to say: spearmint categorically is an anti-androgen, but the mechanism of action remains uncertain.

    Panax ginseng, meanwhile, is one of the most well-established mysteries in herbal medicine.

    Paradoxically, it seems to improve both male and female hormonal regulation, despite being more commonly associated with the former.

    But it also…

    Bottom line: Panax ginseng is popularly taken to improve natural hormone function, a task at which it appears to excel.

    Scientists are still working out exactly how it does the many things it appears to do.

    Progress has been made, and it clearly is science rather than witchcraft, but there are still far more unanswered questions than resolved ones!

    Q: I like that the quizzes (I’ve done two so far) give immediate results , with no “give us your email to get your results”. Thanks!

    A: You’re welcome! That’s one of the factors that influences what things we include here! Our mission statement is “to make health and productivity crazy simple”, and the unwritten part of that is making sure to save your time and energy wherever we reasonably can!

    Q: Do you know if adrafanil is as good as modafinil? It seems to be a lot cheaper for the same result?

    A: Adrafinil is the pro-drug of modafinil. What this means is that if you take it, your own liver will use it to make modafinil inside you. So the end result is chemically the same drug.

    As to whether it’s as good, it depends what you need. It’s worth noting that anything that taxes liver function can be harmful if you take too much, and/or your liver is already strained for some reason.

    If in doubt, consult a doctor! And if it’s something that’s accessible to you, a recent lipids test (a kind of blood test that checks your liver health) is always a good thing to have.

    Q: Would love to see your take on polyphasic sleep!

    A: Watch this space

    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

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Hoisin Sauce vs Teriyaki Sauce – Which is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing hoisin sauce to teriyaki sauce, we picked the teriyaki sauce.

    Why?

    Neither are great! But spoonful for spoonful, the hoisin sauce has about 5x as much sugar.

    Of course, exact amounts will vary by brand, but the hoisin will invariably be much more sugary than the teriyaki.

    On the flipside, the teriyaki sauce may sometimes have slightly more salt, but they are usually in approximately the same ballpark of saltiness, so this is not a big deciding factor.

    As a general rule of thumb, the first few ingredients will look like this for each, respectively:

    Hoisin:

    • Sugar
    • Water
    • Soybeans

    Teriyaki:

    • Soy sauce (water, soybeans, salt)
    • Rice wine
    • Sugar

    In essence: hoisin is a soy-flavored syrup, while teriyaki is a sweetened soy sauce

    Wondering about that rice wine? The alcohol content is negligible, sufficiently so that teriyaki sauce is not considered alcoholic. For health purposes, it is well under the 0.05% required to be considered alcohol-free.

    For religious purposes, we are not your rabbi or imam, but to our best understanding, teriyaki sauce is generally considered kosher* (the rice wine being made from rice) and halal (the rice wine being de-alcoholized by the processing, making the sauce non-intoxicating).

    *Except during passover

    Want to try some?

    You can compare these examples side-by-side yourself:

    Hoisin sauce | Teriyaki sauce

    Enjoy!

    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

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: