Qigong: A Breath Of Fresh Air?

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Qigong: Breathing Is Good (Magic Remains Unverified)

In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your opinions of qigong, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

  • About 55% said “Qigong is just breathing, but breathing exercises are good for the health”
  • About 41% said “Qigong helps regulate our qi and thus imbue us with healthy vitality”
  • One (1) person said “Qigong is a mystical waste of time and any benefits are just placebo”

The sample size was a little low for this one, but the results were quite clearly favorable, one way or another.

So what does the science say?

Qigong is just breathing: True or False?

True or False, depending on how we want to define it—because qigong ranges in its presentation from indeed “just breathing exercises”, to “breathing exercises with visualization” to “special breathing exercises with visualization that have to be exactly this way, with these hand and sometimes body movements also, which also must be just right”, to far more complex definitions that involve qi by various mystical definitions, and/or an appeal to a scientific analog of qi; often some kind of bioelectrical field or such.

There is, it must be said, no good quality evidence for the existence of qi.

Writer’s note, lest 41% of you want my head now: I’ve been practicing qigong and related arts for about 30 years and find such to be of great merit. This personal experience and understanding does not, however, change the state of affairs when it comes to the availability (or rather, the lack) of high quality clinical evidence to point to.

Which is not to say there is no clinical evidence, for example:

Acute Physiological and Psychological Effects of Qigong Exercise in Older Practitioners

…found that qigong indeed increased meridian electrical conductance!

Except… Electrical conductance is measured with galvanic skin responses, which increase with sweat. But don’t worry, to control for that, they asked participants to dry themselves with a towel. Unfortunately, this overlooks the fact that a) more sweat can come where that came from, because the body will continue until it is satisfied of adequate homeostasis, and b) drying oneself with a towel will remove the moisture better than it’ll remove the salts from the skin—bearing in mind that it’s mostly the salts, rather than the moisture itself, that improve the conductivity (pure distilled water does conduct electricity, but not very well).

In other words, this was shoddy methodology. How did it pass peer review? Well, here’s an insight into that journal’s peer review process…

❝The peer-review system of EBCAM is farcical: potential authors who send their submissions to EBCAM are invited to suggest their preferred reviewers who subsequently are almost invariably appointed to do the job. It goes without saying that such a system is prone to all sorts of serious failures; in fact, this is not peer-review at all, in my opinion, it is an unethical sham.❞

~ Dr. Edzard Ernst, a founding editor of EBCAM (he since left, and decries what has happened to it since)

One of the other key problems is: how does one test qigong against placebo?

Scientists have looked into this question, and their answers have thus far been unsatisfying, and generally to the tune of the true-but-unhelpful statement that “future research needs to be better”:

Problems of scientific methodology related to placebo control in Qigong studies: A systematic review

Most studies into qigong are interventional studies, that is to say, they measure people’s metrics (for example, blood pressure, heart rate, maybe immune function biomarkers, sleep quality metrics of various kinds, subjective reports of stress levels, physical biomarkers of stress levels, things like that), then do a course of qigong (perhaps 6 weeks, for example), then measure them again, and see if the course of qigong improved things.

This almost always results in an improvement when looking at the before-and-after, but it says nothing for whether the benefits were purely placebo.

We did find one study that claimed to be placebo-controlled:

A placebo-controlled trial of ‘one-minute qigong exercise’ on the reduction of blood pressure among patients with essential hypertension

…but upon reading the paper itself carefully, it turned out that while the experimental group did qigong, the control group did a reading exercise. Which is… Saying how well qigong performs vs reading (qigong did outperform reading, for the record), but nothing for how well it performs vs placebo, because reading isn’t a remotely credible placebo.

See also: Placebo Effect: Making Things Work Since… Well, A Very Long Time Ago ← this one explains a lot about how placebo effect does work

Qigong is a mystical waste of time: True or False?

False! This one we can answer easily. Interventional studies invariably find it does help, and the fact remains that even if placebo is its primary mechanism of action, it is of benefit and therefore not a waste of time.

Which is not to say that placebo is its only, or even necessarily primary, mechanism of action.

Even from a purely empirical evidence-based medicine point of view, qigong is at the very least breathing exercises plus (usually) some low-impact body movement. Those are already two things that can be looked at, mechanistic processes pointed to, and declarations confidently made of “this is an activity that’s beneficial for health”.

See for example:

…and those are all from respectable journals with meaningful peer review processes.

None of them are placebo-controlled, because there is no real option of “and group B will only be tricked into believing they are doing deep breathing exercises with low-impact movements”; that’s impossible.

But! They each show how doing qigong reliably outperforms not doing qigong for various measurable metrics of health.

And, we chose examples with physical symptoms and where possible empirically measurable outcomes (such as COVID-19 infection levels, or inflammatory responses); there are reams of studies showings qigong improves purely subjective wellbeing—but the latter could probably be claimed for any enjoyable activity, whereas changes in inflammatory biomarkers, not such much.

In short: for most people, it indeed reliably helps with many things. And importantly, it has no particular risks associated with it, and it’s almost universally framed as a complementary therapy rather than an alternative therapy.

This is critical, because it means that whereas someone may hold off on taking evidence-based medicines while trying out (for example) homeopathy, few people are likely to hold off on other treatments while trying out qigong—since it’s being viewed as a helper rather than a Hail-Mary.

Want to read more about qigong?

Here’s the NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health has to say. It cites a lot of poor quality science, but it does mention when the science it’s citing is of poor quality, and over all gives quite a rounded view:

Qigong: What You Need To Know

Enjoy!

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  • Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc

    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.

    Good Things Come In Small Packages

    “Sprouting” grains and seeds—that is, allowing them to germinate and begin to grow—enhances their nutritional qualities, boosting their available vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and even antioxidants.

    You may be thinking: surely whatever nutrients are in there, are in there already; how can it be increased?

    Well, the grand sweeping miracle of life itself is beyond the scope of what we have room to cover today, but in few words: there are processes that allow plants to transform stuff into other stuff, and that is part of what is happening.

    Additionally, in the cases of some nutrients, they were there already, but the sprouting process allows them to become more available to us. Think about the later example of how it’s easier to eat and digest a ripe fruit than an unripe one, and now scale that back to a seed and a sprouted seed.

    A third way that sprouting benefits us is by reducing“antinutrients”, such as phytic acid.

    Let’s drop a few examples of the “what”, before we press on to the “how”:

    Sounds great! How do we do it?

    First, take the seeds, grains, nuts, beans, etc that you’re going to sprout. Fine examples to try for a first sprouting session include:

    • Grains: buckwheat, brown rice, quinoa
    • Legumes: soy beans, black beans, kidney beans
    • Greens: broccoli, mustard greens, radish
    • Nuts/seeds: almonds, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds

    Note: whatever you use should be as unprocessed as possible to start with:

    • On the one hand, you’d be surprised how often “life finds a way” when it comes to sprouting ridiculous choices
    • On the other hand, it’s usually easier if you’re not trying to sprout blanched almonds, split lentils, rolled oats, or toasted hulled buckwheat.

    Second, you will need clean water, a jar with a lid, muslin cloth or similar, and a rubber band.

    Next, take an amount of the plants you’ll be sprouting. Let’s say beans of some kind. Try it with ¼ cup to start with; you can do bigger batches once you’re more confident of your setup and the process.

    Rinse and soak them for at least 24 hours. Take care to add more water than it looks like you’ll need, because those beans are thirsty, and sprouting is thirsty work.

    Drain, rinse, and put them in a clean glass jar, covering with just the muslin cloth in place of the lid, held in place by the rubber band. No extra water in it this time, and you’re going to be storing the jar upside down (with ventilation underneath, so for example on some sort of wire rack is ideal) in a dark moderately warm place (e.g. 80℉ / 25℃ is often ideal, but it doesn’t have to be exact, you have wiggle-room, and some things will enjoy a few degrees cooler or warmer than that)

    Each day, rinse and replace until you see that they are sprouting. When they’re sprouting, they’re ready to eat!

    Unless you want to grow a whole plant, in which case, go for it (we recommend looking for a gardening guide in that case).

    But watch out!

    That 80℉ / 25℃ temperature at which our sprouting seeds, beans, grains etc thrive? There are other things that thrive at that temperature too! Things like:

    • E. coli
    • Salmonella
    • Listeria

    …amongst others.

    So, some things to keep you safe:

    1. If it looks or smells bad, throw it out
    2. If in doubt, throw it out
    3. Even if it looks perfect, blanch it (by boiling it in water for 30 seconds, before rinsing it in cold water to take it back to a colder temperature) before eating it or refrigerating it for later.
    4. When you come back to get it from the fridge, see once again points 1 and 2 above.
    5. Ideally you should enjoy sprouted things within 5 days.

    Want to know more about sprouting?

    You’ll love this book that we reviewed recently:

    The Sprout Book – by Doug Evans

    Enjoy!

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  • The Cancer Journey – by Dr. Chadi Nabhan

    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.

    After a brief introduction of what cancer actually is and what causes it, the layout of the rest of the book is in chronological order of patient experience, that is to say, what to expect during the journey from screening and diagnosis, to one’s first oncology visit (the author being an oncologist himself), how cancer staging works, getting second opinions, and a chapter-by-chapter review of many different treatment options, ranging from surgery and chemotherapy, to radiation and hormonal therapies, and even more modern targeted therapies, immunotherapy, cellular therapies, and yes, complementary and alternative therapies, amongst others we haven’t listed for the sake of brevity.

    He doesn’t leave it there though; he also talks managing side effects, monitoring for recurrence, and even caring for the caregiver(s), along with eventual survivorship and that emotional journey, or if it comes down to it, palliative and hospice care.

    Finishing on a hopeful note, he also brings attention to novel approaches that are being trialled presently, and the prospects for the near future of cancer care.

    The style is very human and readable, notwithstanding that the author has hundreds of peer-reviewed publications to his name, the content here is presented in a much more approachable, less clinical way, while still conveying all the information that needs to be conveyed.

    Bottom line: if you or a loved one is facing cancer, this book will be an invaluable resource.

    Click here to check out The Cancer Journey, and understand each part of it!

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  • Semaglutide’s Surprisingly Unexamined Effects

    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.

    Semaglutide’s Surprisingly Big Research Gap

    GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic, Wegovy, and other semaglutide drugs. are fast becoming a health industry standard go-to tool in the weight loss toolbox. When it comes to recommending that patients lose weight, “Have you considered Ozempic?” is the common refrain.

    Sometimes, this may be a mere case of kicking the can down the road with regard to some other treatment that it can be argued (sometimes even truthfully) would go better after some weight loss:

    How weight bias in health care can harm patients with obesity: Research

    …which we also covered in fewer words in the second-to-last item here:

    Shedding Some Obesity Myths

    But GLP-1 agonists work, right?

    Yes, albeit there’s a litany of caveats, top of which are usually:

    • there are often adverse gastrointestinal side effects
    • if you stop taking them, weight regain generally ensues promptly

    For more details on these and more, see:

    Semaglutide For Weight Loss?

    …but now there’s another thing that’s come to light:

    The dark side of semaglutide’s weight loss

    In academia, “dark” is often used to describe “stuff we don’t have much (or in some cases, any) direct empirical evidence of, but for reasons of surrounding things, we know it’s there”.

    Well-known examples include “dark matter” in physics and the Dark Ages in (European) history.

    In the case of semaglutide and weight loss, a review by a team of researchers (Drs. Sandra Christenen, Katie Robinson, Sara Thomas, and Dominique Williams) has discovered how little research has been done into a certain aspect of GLP-1 agonist’s weight loss effects, namely…

    Dietary changes!

    There’s been a lot of popular talk about “people taking semaglutide eat less”, but it’s mostly anecdotal and/or presumed based on parts of the mechanism of action (increasing insulin production, reducing glucagon secretions, modulating dietary cravings).

    Where studies have looked at dietary changes, it’s almost exclusively been a matter of looking at caloric intake (which has been found to be a 16–39% reduction), and observations-in-passing that patients reported reduction in cravings for fatty and sweet foods.

    This reduction in caloric intake, by the way, is not significantly different to the reduction brought about by counselling alone (head-to-head studies have been done; these are also discussed in the research review).

    However! It gets worse. Very few studies of good quality have been done, even fewer (two studies) actually had a registered dietitian nutritionist on the team, and only one of them used the “gold standard” of nutritional research, the 24-hour dietary recall test. Which, in case you’re curious, you can read about what that is here:

    Dietary Assessment Methods: What Is A 24-Hour Recall?

    Of the four studies that actually looked at the macros (unlike most studies), they found that on average, protein intake decreased by 17.1%. Which is a big deal!

    It’s an especially big deal, because while protein’s obviously important for everyone, it’s especially important for anyone trying to lose weight, because muscle mass is a major factor in metabolic base rate—which in turn is much important for fat loss/maintenance than exercise, when it comes to how many calories we burn by simply existing.

    A reasonable hypothesis, therefore, is that one of the numerous reasons people who quit GLP-1 agonists immediately put fat back on, is because they probably lost muscle mass in amongst their weight loss, meaning that their metabolic base rate will have decreased, meaning that they end up more disposed to put on fat than before.

    And, that’s just a hypothesis and it’s a hypothesis based on very few studies, so it’s not something to necessarily take as any kind of definitive proof of anything, but it is to say—as the researchers of this review do loudly say—more research needs to be done into this, because this has been a major gap in research so far!

    Any other bad news?

    While we’re talking research gaps, guess how many studies looked into micronutrient intake changes in people taking GLP-1 agonists?

    If you guessed zero, you guessed correctly.

    You can find the paper itself here:

    Dietary intake by patients taking GLP-1 and dual GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonists: A narrative review and discussion of research needs

    What’s the main take-away here?

    On a broad, scoping level: we need more research!

    On a “what this means for individuals who want to lose weight” level: maybe we should be more wary of this still relatively new (less than 10 years old) “wonder drug”. And for most of those 10 years it’s only been for diabetics, with weight loss use really being in just the past few years (2021 onwards).

    In other words: not necessarily any need to panic, but caution is probably not a bad idea, and natural weight loss methods remain very reasonable options for most people.

    See also: How To Lose Weight (Healthily!)

    Take care!

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  • Feeding You Lies – by Vani Hari

    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.

    When it comes to advertising, we know that companies will often be as misleading as they can get away with. But just how misleading is it?

    Vani Hari, of “Food Babe” fame, is here to unravel it all.

    The book covers many areas of food and drink advertising and marketing, and gives particular attention to:

    • Sodas (with and without sugar), and how deleterious they are to the health—as well as not even helping people lose weight, but actively hindering
    • Nutritionally fortified foods, and what we may or may not actually get from them by the time the processing is done
    • Organic food, and what that may or may not mean

    She also covers a lot of what happens outside of supermarkets, way back in universities and corporate boardrooms. In short, who is crossing whose palms with silver for a seal of approval… And what that means for us as consumers.

    A strength of this book that sets it apart from many of its genre, by the way, is that while being deeply critical of certain institutions’ practices, it doesn‘t digress into tinfoil-hat pseudoscientific scaremongering, either. Here at 10almonds we love actual science, so that was good to see too.

    Bottom line: is you’d like to know “can they say that and get away with it if it’s not true?” and make decisions based on the actual nutritional value of things, this is a great book for you.

    Click here to check out “Feeding You Lies” on Amazon and make your shopping healthier!

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  • Rebalancing Dopamine (Without “Dopamine Fasting”)

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    Rebalancing Dopamine (Without “Dopamine Fasting”)

    Listen to Dr. Anna Lembke's podcast focusing on rebalancing the brain's dopamine levels through fasting.
    Credit Steve Fisch

    This is Dr. Anna Lembke. She’s a professor of psychiatry at Stanford, and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic—as well as running her own clinical practice, and serving on the board of an array of state and national addiction-focused organizations.

    Today we’re going to look at her work on dopamine management…

    Getting off the hedonic treadmill

    For any unfamiliar with the term, the “hedonic treadmill” is what happens when we seek pleasure, enjoy the pleasure, the pleasure becomes normalized, and now we need to seek a stronger pleasure to get above our new baseline.

    In other words, much like running on a reciprocal treadmill that just gets faster the faster we run.

    What Dr. Lembke wants us to know here: pleasure invariably leads to pain

    This is not because of some sort of extrinsic moral mandate, nor even in the Buddhist sense. Rather, it is biology.

    Pleasure and pain are processed by the same part of the brain, and if we up one, the other will be upped accordingly, to try to keep a balance.

    Consequently, if we recklessly seek “highs”, we’re going to hit “lows” soon enough. Whether that’s by drugs, sex, or just dopaminergic habits like social media overuse.

    Dr. Lembke’s own poison of choice was trashy romance novels, by the way. But she soon found she needed more, and more, and the same level wasn’t “doing it” for her anymore.

    So, should we just give up our pleasures, and do a “dopamine fast”?

    Not so fast!

    It depends on what they are. Dopamine fasting, per se, does not work. We wrote about this previously:

    Short On Dopamine? Science Has The Answer

    However, when it comes to our dopaminergic habits, a short period (say, a couple of weeks) of absence of that particular thing can help us re-find our balance, and also, find insight.

    Lest that latter sound wishy-washy: this is about realizing how bad an overuse of some dopaminergic activity had become, the better to appreciate it responsibly, going forwards.

    So in other words, if your poison is, as in Dr. Lembke’s case, trashy romance novels, you would abstain from them for a couple of weeks, while continuing to enjoy the other pleasures in life uninterrupted.

    Substances that create a dependency are a special case

    There’s often a popular differentiation between physical addictions (e.g. alcohol) and behavioral addictions (e.g. video games). And that’s fair; physiologically speaking, those may both involve dopamine responses, but are otherwise quite different.

    However, there are some substances that are physical addictions that do not create a physical dependence (e.g. sugar), and there are substances that create a physical dependence without being addictive (e.g. many antidepressants)

    See also: Addiction and physical dependence are not the same thing

    In the case of anything that has created a physical dependence, Dr. Lembke does not recommend trying to go “cold turkey” on that without medical advice and supervision.

    Going on the counterattack

    Remember what we said about pleasure and pain being processed in the same part of the brain, and each rising to meet the other?

    While this mean that seeking pleasure will bring us pain, the inverse is also true.

    Don’t worry, she’s not advising us to take up masochism (unless that’s your thing!). But there are very safe healthy ways that we can tip the scales towards pain, ultimately leading to greater happiness.

    Cold showers are an example she cites as particularly meritorious.

    As a quick aside, we wrote about the other health benefits of these, too:

    A Cold Shower A Day Keeps The Doctor Away?

    Further reading

    Want to know more? You might like her book:

    Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

    Enjoy!

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  • A new government inquiry will examine women’s pain and treatment. How and why is it different?

    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.

    The Victorian government has announced an inquiry into women’s pain. Given women are disproportionately affected by pain, such a thorough investigation is long overdue.

    The inquiry, the first of its kind in Australia and the first we’re aware of internationally, is expected to take a year. It aims to improve care and services for Victorian girls and women experiencing pain in the future.

    The gender pain gap

    Globally, more women report chronic pain than men do. A survey of over 1,750 Victorian women found 40% are living with chronic pain.

    Approximately half of chronic pain conditions have a higher prevalence in women compared to men, including low back pain and osteoarthritis. And female-specific pain conditions, such as endometriosis, are much more common than male-specific pain conditions such as chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome.

    These statistics are seen across the lifespan, with higher rates of chronic pain being reported in females as young as two years old. This discrepancy increases with age, with 28% of Australian women aged over 85 experiencing chronic pain compared to 18% of men.

    It feels worse

    Women also experience pain differently to men. There is some evidence to suggest that when diagnosed with the same condition, women are more likely to report higher pain scores than men.

    Similarly, there is some evidence to suggest women are also more likely to report higher pain scores during experimental trials where the same painful pressure stimulus is applied to both women and men.

    Pain is also more burdensome for women. Depression is twice as prevalent in women with chronic pain than men with chronic pain. Women are also more likely to report more health care use and be hospitalised due to their pain than men.

    woman lies in bed in pain
    Women seem to feel pain more acutely and often feel ignored by doctors.
    Shutterstock

    Medical misogyny

    Women in pain are viewed and treated differently to men. Women are more likely to be told their pain is psychological and dismissed as not being real or “all in their head”.

    Hollywood actor Selma Blair recently shared her experience of having her symptoms repeatedly dismissed by doctors and put down to “menstrual issues”, before being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2018.

    It’s an experience familiar to many women in Australia, where medical misogyny still runs deep. Our research has repeatedly shown Australian women with pelvic pain are similarly dismissed, leading to lengthy diagnostic delays and serious impacts on their quality of life.

    Misogyny exists in research too

    Historically, misogyny has also run deep in medical research, including pain research. Women have been viewed as smaller bodied men with different reproductive functions. As a result, most pre-clinical pain research has used male rodents as the default research subject. Some researchers say the menstrual cycle in female rodents adds additional variability and therefore uncertainty to experiments. And while variability due to the menstrual cycle may be true, it may be no greater than male-specific sources of variability (such as within-cage aggression and dominance) that can also influence research findings.

    The exclusion of female subjects in pre-clinical studies has hindered our understanding of sex differences in pain and of response to treatment. Only recently have we begun to understand various genetic, neurochemical, and neuroimmune factors contribute to sex differences in pain prevalence and sensitivity. And sex differences exist in pain processing itself. For instance, in the spinal cord, male and female rodents process potentially painful stimuli through entirely different immune cells.

    These differences have relevance for how pain should be treated in women, yet many of the existing pharmacological treatments for pain, including opioids, are largely or solely based upon research completed on male rodents.

    When women seek care, their pain is also treated differently. Studies show women receive less pain medication after surgery compared to men. In fact, one study found while men were prescribed opioids after joint surgery, women were more likely to be prescribed antidepressants. In another study, women were more likely to receive sedatives for pain relief following surgery, while men were more likely to receive pain medication.

    So, women are disproportionately affected by pain in terms of how common it is and sensitivity, but also in how their pain is viewed, treated, and even researched. Women continue to be excluded, dismissed, and receive sub-optimal care, and the recently announced inquiry aims to improve this.

    What will the inquiry involve?

    Consumers, health-care professionals and health-care organisations will be invited to share their experiences of treatment services for women’s pain in Victoria as part of the year-long inquiry. These experiences will be used to describe the current service delivery system available to Victorian women with pain, and to plan more appropriate services to be delivered in the future.

    Inquiry submissions are now open until March 12 2024. If you are a Victorian woman living with pain, or provide care to Victorian women with pain, we encourage you to submit.

    The state has an excellent track record of improving women’s health in many areas, including heart, sexual, and reproductive health, but clearly, we have a way to go with women’s pain. We wait with bated breath to see the results of this much-needed investigation, and encourage other states and territories to take note of the findings.The Conversation

    Jane Chalmers, Senior Lecturer in Pain Sciences, University of South Australia and Amelia Mardon, PhD Candidate, University of South Australia

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

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