It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small

We had several requests pertaining to veganism, meatless mondays, and substitutions in recipes—so we’re going to cover those on a different day!

As for questions we’re answering today…

Q: Is there any data on immediate and long term effects of running marathons in one’s forties?

An interesting and very specific question! We didn’t find an overabundance of studies specifically for the short- and long-term effects of marathon-running in one’s 40s, but we did find a couple of relevant ones:

The first looked at marathon-runners of various ages, and found that…

• there are virtually no relevant running time differences (p<0.01) per age in marathon finishers from 20 to 55 years
• the majority of middle-aged and elderly athletes have training histories of less than seven years of running

From which they concluded:

❝The present findings strengthen the concept that considers aging as a biological process that can be considerably speeded up or slowed down by multiple lifestyle related factors.❞

See the study: Performance, training and lifestyle parameters of marathon runners aged 20–80 years: results of the PACE-study

The other looked specifically at the impact of running on cartilage, controlled for age (45 and under vs 46 and older) and activity level (marathon-runners vs sedentary people).

The study had the people, of various ages and habitual activity levels, run for 30 minutes, and measured their knee cartilage thickness (using MRI) before and after running.

They found that regardless of age or habitual activity level, running compressed the cartilage tissue to a similar extent. From this, it can be concluded that neither age nor marathon-running result in long-term changes to cartilage response to running.

Or in lay terms: there’s no reason that marathon-running at 40 should ruin your knees (unless you are doing something wrong).

That may or may not have been a concern you have, but it’s what the study looked at, so hey, it’s information.

Here’s the study: Functional cartilage MRI T2 mapping: evaluating the effect of age and training on knee cartilage response to running

Q: Information on [e-word] dysfunction for those who have negative reactions to [the most common medications]?

When it comes to that particular issue, one or more of these three factors are often involved:

• Hormones
• Circulation
• Psychology

The most common drugs (that we can’t name here) work on the circulation side of things—specifically, by increasing the localized blood pressure. The exact mechanism of this drug action is interesting, albeit beyond the scope of a quick answer here today. On the other hand, the way that they work can cause adverse blood-pressure-related side effects for some people; perhaps you’re one of them.

To take matters into your own hands, so to speak, you can address each of those three things we just mentioned:

Hormones

Ask your doctor (or a reputable phlebotomy service) for a hormone test. If your free/serum testosterone levels are low (which becomes increasingly common in men over the age of 45), they may prescribe something—such as testosterone shots—specifically for that.

This way, it treats the underlying cause, rather than offering a workaround like those common pills whose names we can’t mention here.

Circulation

Look after your heart health; eat for your heart health, and exercise regularly!

Cold showers/baths also work wonders for vascular tone—which is precisely what you need in this matter. By rapidly changing temperatures (such as by turning off the hot water for the last couple of minutes of your shower, or by plunging into a cold bath), your blood vessels will get practice at constricting and maintaining that constriction as necessary.

Psychology

[E-word] dysfunction can also have a psychological basis. Unfortunately, this can also then be self-reinforcing, if recalling previous difficulties causes you to get distracted/insecure and lose the moment. One of the best things you can do to get out of this catch-22 situation is to not worry about it in the moment. Depending on what you and your partner(s) like to do in bed, there are plenty of other equally respectable options, so just switch track!

Having a conversation about this in advance will probably be helpful, so that everyone’s on the same page of the script in that eventuality, and it becomes “no big deal”. Without that conversation, misunderstandings and insecurities could arise for your partner(s) as well as yourself (“aren’t I desirable enough?” etc).

So, to recap, we recommend:

• Have your hormones checked
• Look after your circulation
• Make the decision to have fun!