Pelvic Floor Exercises (Not Kegels!) To Prevent Urinary Incontinence
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It’s a common threat, and if you think it couldn’t happen to you, then well, just wait. Happily, Dr. Christine Pieton, PT, DPT, a sport & women’s health physical therapist, has advice:
On the ball!
Or rather, we’re going to be doing ball-squeezing here, if you’ll pardon the expression. You will need a soccer-ball sized ball to squeeze.
Ball-squeeze breathing: lie on your back, ball between your knees, and inhale deeply, expanding your torso. Exhale, pressing your knees into the ball, engaging your abdominal muscles from lower to upper. Try to keep your spine long and avoid your pelvis tucking under during the exhalation.
Ball-squeeze bridge: lie on your back, ball between your knees, inhale to prepare, and then exhale, pressing up into a bridge, maintaining a firm pressure on the ball. Inhale as you lower yourself back down.
Ball-squeeze side plank: lie on your side this time, ball between your knees, supporting forearm under your shoulder, as in the video thumbnail. Inhale to prepare, and then exhale, lifting your hip a few inches off the mat. Inhale as you lower yourself back down.
Ball-squeeze bear plank: get on your hands and knees, ball between your thighs. Lengthen your spine, inhale to prepare, and exhale as you bring your knees just a little off the floor. Inhale as you lower yourself back down.
For more details and tips on each of these, plus a visual demonstration, plus an optional part 2 video with more exercises that aren’t ball-squeezes this time, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Psst… A Word To The Wise About UTIs
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Why is toddler milk so popular? Follow the money
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Toddler milk is popular and becoming more so. Just over a third of Australian toddlers drink it. Parents spend hundreds of millions of dollars on it globally. Around the world, toddler milk makes up nearly half of total formula milk sales, with a 200% growth since 2005. Growth is expected to continue.
We’re concerned about the growing popularity of toddler milk – about its nutritional content, cost, how it’s marketed, and about the impact on the health and feeding of young children. Some of us voiced our concerns on the ABC’s 7.30 program recently.
But what’s in toddler milk? How does it compare to cow’s milk? How did it become so popular?
What is toddler milk? Is it healthy?
Toddler milk is marketed as appropriate for children aged one to three years. This ultra-processed food contains:
- skim milk powder (cow, soy or goat)
- vegetable oil
- sugars (including added sugars)
- emulsifiers (to help bind the ingredients and improve the texture)
added vitamins and minerals.
Toddler milk is usually lower in calcium and protein, and higher in sugar and calories than regular cow’s milk. Depending on the brand, a serve of toddler milk can contain as much sugar as a soft drink.
Even though toddler milks have added vitamins and minerals, these are found in and better absorbed from regular foods and breastmilk. Toddlers do not need the level of nutrients found in these products if they are eating a varied diet.
Global health authorities, including the World Health Organization (WHO), and Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council, do not recommend toddler milk for healthy toddlers.
Some children with specific metabolic or dietary medical problems might need tailored alternatives to cow’s milk. However, these products generally are not toddler milks and would be a specific product prescribed by a health-care provider.
Toddler milk is also up to four to five times more expensive than regular cow’s milk. “Premium” toddler milk (the same product, with higher levels of vitamins and minerals) is more expensive.
With the cost-of-living crisis, this means families might choose to go without other essentials to afford toddler milk.
Toddler milk is more expensive than cow’s milk and contains more sugar.
Dragana Gordic/ShutterstockHow toddler milk was invented
Toddler milk was created so infant formula companies could get around rules preventing them from advertising their infant formula.
When manufacturers claim benefits of their toddler milk, many parents assume these claimed benefits apply to infant formula (known as cross-promotion). In other words, marketing toddler milks also boosts interest in their infant formula.
Manufacturers also create brand loyalty and recognition by making the labels of their toddler milk look similar to their infant formula. For parents who used infant formula, toddler milk is positioned as the next stage in feeding.
How toddler milk became so popular
Toddler milk is heavily marketed. Parents are told toddler milk is healthy and provides extra nutrition. Marketing tells parents it will benefit their child’s growth and development, their brain function and their immune system.
Toddler milk is also presented as a solution to fussy eating, which is common in toddlers.
However, regularly drinking toddler milk could increase the risk of fussiness as it reduces opportunities for toddlers to try new foods. It’s also sweet, needs no chewing, and essentially displaces energy and nutrients that whole foods provide.
Toddler milk is said to help fussy eating, but it may make things worse.
zlikovec/ShutterstockGrowing concern
The WHO, along with public health academics, has been raising concerns about the marketing of toddler milk for years.
In Australia, moves to curb how toddler milk is promoted have gone nowhere. Toddler milk is in a category of foods that are allowed to be fortified (to have vitamins and minerals added), with no marketing restrictions. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission also has concerns about the rise of toddler milk marketing. Despite this, there is no change in how it’s regulated.
This is in contrast to voluntary marketing restrictions in Australia for infant formula.
What needs to happen?
There is enough evidence to show the marketing of commercial milk formula, including toddler milk, influences parents and undermines child health.
So governments need to act to protect parents from this marketing, and to put child health over profits.
Public health authorities and advocates, including us, are calling for the restriction of marketing (not selling) of all formula products for infants and toddlers from birth through to age three years.
Ideally, this would be mandatory, government-enforced marketing restrictions as opposed to industry self-regulation in place currently for infant formulas.
We musn’t blame parents
Toddlers are eating more processed foods (including toddler milk) than ever because time-poor parents are seeking a convenient option to ensure their child is getting adequate nutrition.
Formula manufacturers have used this information, and created a demand for an unnecessary product.
Parents want to do the best for their toddlers, but they need to know the marketing behind toddler milks is misleading.
Toddler milk is an unnecessary, unhealthy, expensive product. Toddlers just need whole foods and breastmilk, and/or cow’s milk or a non-dairy, milk alternative.
If parents are worried about their child’s eating, they should see a health-care professional.
Anthea Rhodes, a paediatrician from Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne and a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, co-authored this article.
Jennifer McCann, Lecturer Nutrition Sciences, Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University; Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, and Naomi Hull, PhD candidate, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
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Research Review: Collagen
For something that’s a very popular supplement, not many people understand what collagen is, where it comes from, or what it does.
In a nutshell:
Collagen is a kind of protein. Our bodies make it naturally, and we can also get more in our diet and/or take extra as a supplement.
Our bodies use collagen in connective tissue, skin, tendon, bone, and cartilage. It has many functions, but a broad description would be “holding things together”.
As we get older, our bodies produce less collagen. Signs of this include wrinkles, loss of skin hydration, and joint pain.
Quick test: pinch the skin on the middle of the back of one of your hands, and then watch what happens when you get low. How quickly and easily did your skin returns to its original shape?
If it was pretty much instantanous and flawless, congratulations, you have plenty of collagen (and also elastin). If you didn’t, you are probably low on both!
(they are quite similar proteins and are made from the same base “stuff”, so if you’re low on one, you’ll usually be low on both)
Quick note: A lot of research out there has been funded by beauty companies, so we had our work cut out for us today, and have highlighted where any research may be biased.
More than skin deep
While marketing for collagen is almost exclusively aimed at “reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging”, it does a lot more than that.
You remember we mentioned that many things from the bones outward are held together by collagen? We weren’t kidding…
Read: Osteoporosis, like skin ageing, is caused by collagen loss which is reversible
Taking extra collagen isn’t the only way
We can’t (yet!) completely halt the age-related loss of collagen, but we can slow it, with our lifestyle choices:
- Don’t smoke tobacco
- Drink only in moderation (or not at all)
- Avoid foods with added sugar, and high-processed foods in general
- Wear sunscreen when appropriate
Can I get collagen from food?
Yep! Just as collagen holds our bodies together, it holds the bodies of other animals together. And, just like collagen is found in most parts of our body but most plentifully in our skin and bones, that’s what to eat to get collagen from other animals, e.g:
- Chicken skin
- Fish skin
- Bone broth ← health benefits and recipes at this link!
What about vegans?
Yes, vegans are also held together by collagen! We do not, however, recommend eating their skin or boiling their bones into broth. Ethical considerations aside, cannibalism can give you CJD!
More seriously, if you’re vegan, you can’t get collagen from a plant-based diet, but you can get the stuff your body uses to make collagen. Basically, you want to make sure you get plenty of:
- Protein (beans, pulses, nuts, etc are all fine; it’s hard to go wrong with this)
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin D
- and Zinc
Just be sure to continue to remember to avoid highly-processed foods. So:
- Soy mince/chunks whose ingredients list reads: “soya”? Yes!
- The Incredible Burger or Linda McCartney’s Sausages? Sadly less healthy
Read: Advanced Glycation End Products in Foods and a Practical Guide to Their Reduction in the Diet
Meat-eaters might want to read that one too. By far the worst offenders for AGEs (Advanced Glycation End Products, which can not only cause collagen to stiffen, but also inactivate proteins responsible for collagen repair, along with doing much more serious damage to your body’s natural functions) include:
- Hot dogs
- Bacon
- Fried/roasted/grilled meats
Is it worth it as a supplement?
That depends on you, your age, and your lifestyle, but it’s generally considered safe*
*if you have a seafood allergy, be careful though, as many supplements are from fish or shellfish—you will need to find one that’s free from your allergen
Also, all collagen is animal-derived. So if you’re a vegan, decide for yourself whether this constitutes medicine and if so, whether that makes it ethically permissible to you.
With that out of the way:
What the science says on collagen supplementation
Collagen for skin
Read: Effects of collagen supplementation on skin aging (systematic review and meta-analysis)
The short version is that they selected 19 studies with over a thousand participants in total, and they found:
In the meta-analysis, a grouped analysis of studies showed favorable results of hydrolyzed collagen supplementation compared with placebo in terms of skin hydration, elasticity, and wrinkles.
The findings of improved hydration and elasticity were also confirmed in the subgroup meta-analysis.
Based on results, ingestion of hydrolyzed collagen for 90 days is effective in reducing skin aging, as it reduces wrinkles and improves skin elasticity and hydration.
Caveat: while that systematic review had no conflicts of interests, at least some of the 19 studies will have been funded by beauty companies. Here are two, so that you know what that looks like:
Funded by Quiris to investigate their own supplement, Elasten®:
A Collagen Supplement Improves Skin Hydration, Elasticity, Roughness, and Density
Funded by BioCell to investigate their own supplement, BioCell Collagen:
The Effects of Skin Aging Associated with the Use of BioCell Collagen
A note on funding bias: to be clear, the issue is not that the researchers might be corrupt (though that could happen).
The issue is more that sometimes companies will hire ten labs to do ten research studies… and then pull funding from ones whose results aren’t going the way they’d like.
So the “best” (for them) study is the one that gets published.
Here’s another systematic review—like the one at the top of this section—that found the same, with doses ranging from 2.5g–15g per day for 8 weeks or longer:
Read: Oral Collagen Supplementation: A Systematic Review of Dermatological Applications
Again, some of those studies will have been funded by beauty companies. The general weight of evidence does seem clear and favorable, though.
Collagen for bones
Here, we encountered a lot less in the way of potential bias, because this is simply marketed a lot less. Despite being arguably far more important!
We found a high quality multi-vector randomized controlled study with a sample size of 131 postmenopausal women. They had these women take 5g collagen supplement (or placebo), and studied the results over the course of a year.
They found:
- The intake of the supplement increased bone mineral density (BMD)
- Supplementation was also associated with a favorable shift in bone markers, indicating:
- increased bone formation
- reduced bone degradation
Read: Specific Collagen Peptides Improve Bone Mineral Density and Bone Markers in Postmenopausal Wome
A follow-up study with 31 of these women found that taking 5 grams of collagen daily for a total of 4 years was associated with a progressive increase in BMD.
You might be wondering if collagen also helps against osteoarthritis.
The answer is: yes, it does (at least, it significantly reduces the symptoms)
Read: Effect of collagen supplementation on osteoarthritis symptoms
In summary:
- You need collagen for health skin, bones, joints, and more
- Your body makes collagen from your food
- You can help it by getting plenty of protein, vitamins, and minerals
- You can also help it by not doing the usual Bad Things™ (smoking, drinking, eating processed foods, especially processed meats)
- You can also eat collagen directly in the form of other animals’ skin and bones
- You can also buy collagen supplements (but watch out for allergens)
Want to try collagen supplementation?
We don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience…
Check it out: Hydrolyzed Collagen Peptides (the same as in most of the above studies), 90 days supply at 5g/day
We selected this one because it’s the same kind used in many of the studies, and it doesn’t contain any known allergens.
It’s bovine collagen, meaning it’s from cows, so it’s not vegan, and also some subscribers may want to abstain for religious reasons. We respect that, and/but make our recommendations based solely on the science of health and productivity.
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Reinventing Your Life – by Dr. Jeffrey Young & Dr. Janet Klosko
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This book is quite unlike any other broadly-CBT-focused books we’ve reviewed before. How so, you may wonder?
Rather than focusing on automatic negative thoughts and cognitive distortions with a small-lens focus on an immediate problem, this one zooms out rather and tackles the cause rather than the symptom.
The authors outline eleven “lifetraps” that we can get stuck in:
- Abandonment
- Mistrust & abuse
- Vulnerability
- Dependence
- Emptional deprivation
- Social exclusion
- Defectiveness
- Failure
- Subjugation
- Unrelenting standards
- Entitlement
They then borrow from other areas of psychology, to examine where these things came from, and how they can be addressed, such that we can escape from them.
The style of the book is very reader-friendly pop-psychology, with illustrative (and perhaps apocryphal, but no less useful for it if so) case studies.
The authors then go on to give step-by-step instructions for dealing with each of the 11 lifetraps, per 6 unmet needs we probably had that got us into them, and per 3 likely ways we tried to cope with this using maladaptive coping mechanisms that got us into the lifetrap(s) we ended up in.
Bottom line: if you feel there’s something in your life that’s difficult to escape from (we cannot outrun ourselves, after all, and bring our problems with us), this book could well contain the key that you need to get out of that cycle.
Click here to check out “Reinventing Your Life” and break free from any lifetrap(s) of your own!
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Should You Shower Daily?
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝I read an article that daily showering is “performative” and doesn’t really give any health benefits, what do you say?❞
We looked to find the article you might be referring to, and this seems to be about a BBC article that was then picked up, rehashed in fewer (but more sensational) words, and widely popularized by the New York Post (not the most scholarly of publications, but it seems to have “done numbers”).
Here’s the BBC article:
BBC | There’s no need to shower every day—here’s why
Looking for the science behind the “Experts say…” claims, none of the articles we found linked to any new research. One of them did link to some old (2005) research:
We also see (in the dearth of scholarly research to cite), a Harvard Health article being cited quite a bit, and this is more helpful and informative than the flashy news articles, without requiring to read through a lot of hard science.
To summarize, Harvard’s Dr. Shmerling says daily showering can:
- Cause/worsen dry skin
- Make skin more permeable to pathogens
- Upset our natural balance of bacteria that are supposed to be there
- Weaken our immune system
Read in full: Harvard Health | Showering daily—is it necessary?
But what if I like showering?
Well, don’t let us stop you. But you might consider using less in the way of shower products. We wrote about this previously, in answer to a different-but-related subscriber question:
10almonds | Body Scrubs: Benefits, Risks, and Guidance
PS…
Handwashing, though? Most people could reasonably do that more often:
Would you like this section to be bigger? If so, send us more questions!
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The Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook – by Dr. Daniel Fox
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Personality disorders in general get a bad rep. In part, because their names and descriptions often focus on how the disorders affect other people, rather than how they affect the actual sufferer:
- “This disorder gives you cripplingly low self-esteem; we call it Evil Not-Quite-Human Disorder”
- “This disorder makes you feel unloveable; we call it Abusive Bitch Disorder”
- …etc
Putting aside the labels and stigma, it turns out that humans sometimes benefit from help. In the case of BPD, characterized by such things as difficult moods and self-sabotage, the advice in this book can help anyone struggling with those (and related) issues.
The style of the book is both textbook, and course. It’s useful to proceed through it methodically, and doing the exercises is good too. We recommend getting the print edition, not the Kindle edition, so that you can check off boxes, write in it (pencil, if you like!), etc.
Bottom line: if you or a loved one suffers from BPD symptoms (whether or not you/they would meet criteria for diagnosis), this book can help a lot.
Click here to check out the BPD Workbook, and retake control of your life!
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All In Your Head (Which Is Where It’s Supposed To Be)
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Today’s news is all about things above the neck, and mostly in the brain. From beating depression to beating cognitive decline, from mindfulness against pain to dentistry nightmares to avoid:
Transcranial ultrasound stimulation
Transcranial magnetic stimulation is one of those treatments that sounds like it’s out of a 1950s sci-fi novel, and yet, it actually works (it’s very well-evidenced against treatment-resistant depression, amongst other things). However, a weakness of it is that it’s difficult to target precisely, making modulation of most neurological disorders impossible. Using ultrasound instead of a magnetic field allows for much more finesse, with very promising initial results across a range of neurological disorders
Read in full: Transcranial ultrasound stimulation: a new frontier in non-invasive brain therapy
Related: Antidepressants: Personalization Is Key!
This may cause more pain and damage, but at least it’s more expensive too…
While socialized healthcare systems sometimes run into the problem of not wanting to spend money where it actually is needed, private healthcare systems have the opposite problem: there’s a profit incentive to upsell to more expensive treatments. Here’s how that’s played out in dentistry:
Read in full: Dentists are pulling healthy and treatable teeth to profit from implants, experts warn
Related: Tooth Remineralization: How To Heal Your Teeth Naturally
Mindfulness vs placebo, for pain
It can be difficult with some “alternative therapies” to test against placebo, for example “and control group B will merely believe that they are being pierced with needles”, etc. However, in this case, mindfulness meditation was tested as an analgesic vs sham meditation (just deep breathing) and also vs placebo analgesic cream, vs distraction (listening to an audiobook). Mindfulness meditation beat all of the other things:
Read in full: Mindfulness meditation outperforms placebo in reducing pain
Related: No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
Getting personal with AI doctors
One of the common reasons that people reject AI doctors is the “lack of a human touch”. However, human and AI doctors may be meeting in the middle nowadays, as humans are pressed to see more patients in less time, and AI is trained to be more personal—not just a friendlier affect, but also, such things as remembering the patient’s previous encounters (again, something with which overworked human doctors sometimes struggle). This makes a big difference to patient satisfaction:
Read in full: Personalization key to patient satisfaction with AI doctors
Related: AI: The Doctor That Never Tires?
Combination brain therapy against cognitive decline
This study found that out of various combinations trialled, the best intervention against cognitive decline was a combination of 1) cognitive remediation (therapeutic interventions designed to improve cognitive functioning, like puzzles and logic problems), and 2) transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a form of non-invasive direct brain stimulation, similar to the magnetic or ultrasound methods we mentioned earlier today. Here’s how it worked:
Read in full: Study reveals effective combination therapy to slow cognitive decline in older adults
Related: How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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