The Anti-Stress Herb That Also Fights Cancer
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What does Rhodiola rosea actually do, anyway?
Rhodiola rosea (henceforth, “rhodiola”) is a flowering herb whose roots have adaptogenic properties.
In the cold, mountainous regions of Europe and Asia where it grows, it has been used in herbal medicine for centuries to alleviate anxiety, fatigue, and depression.
What does the science say?
Well, let’s just say the science is more advanced than the traditional use:
❝In addition to its multiplex stress-protective activity, Rhodiola rosea extracts have recently demonstrated its anti-aging, anti-inflammation, immunostimulating, DNA repair and anti-cancer effects in different model systems❞
Nor is how it works a mystery, as the same paper explains:
❝Molecular mechanisms of Rhodiola rosea extracts’s action have been studied mainly along with one of its bioactive compounds, salidroside. Both Rhodiola rosea extracts and salidroside have contrasting molecular mechanisms on cancer and normal physiological functions.
For cancer, Rhodiola rosea extracts and salidroside inhibit the mTOR pathway and reduce angiogenesis through down-regulation of the expression of HIF-1α/HIF-2α.
For normal physiological functions, Rhodiola rosea extracts and salidroside activate the mTOR pathway, stimulate paracrine function and promote neovascularization by inhibiting PHD3 and stabilizing HIF-1α proteins in skeletal muscles❞
~ Ibid.
And, as for the question of “do the supplements work?”,
❝In contrast to many natural compounds, salidroside is water-soluble and highly bioavailable via oral administration❞
~ Ibid.
And as to how good it is:
❝Rhodiola rosea extracts and salidroside can impose cellular and systemic benefits similar to the effect of positive lifestyle interventions to normal physiological functions and for anti-cancer❞
~ Ibid.
Source: Rhodiola rosea: anti-stress, anti-aging, and immunostimulating properties for cancer chemoprevention
But that’s not all…
We can’t claim this as a research review if we only cite one paper (even if that paper has 144 citations of its own), and besides, it didn’t cover all the benefits yet!
Let’s first look at the science for the “traditional use” trio of benefits:
When you read those, what are your first thoughts?
Please don’t just take our word for things! Reading even just the abstracts (summaries) at the top of papers is a very good habit to get into, if you don’t have time (or easy access) to read the full text.
Reading the abstracts is also a very good way to know whether to take the time to read the whole paper, or whether it’s better to skip onto a different one.
- Perhaps you noticed that the paper we cited for anxiety was quite a small study.
- The fact is, while we found mountains of evidence for rhodiola’s anxiolytic (antianxiety) effects, they were all small and/or animal studies. So we picked a human study and went with it as illustrative.
- Perhaps you noticed that the paper we cited for fatigue pertained mostly to stress-related fatigue.
- This, we think, is a feature not a bug. After all, most of us experience fatigue because of the general everything of life, not because we just ran a literal marathon.
- Perhaps you noticed that the paper we cited for depression said it didn’t work as well as sertraline (a very common pharmaceutical SSRI antidepressant).
- But, it worked almost as well and it had far fewer adverse effects reported. Bear in mind, the side effects of antidepressants are the reason many people avoid them, or desist in taking them. So rhodiola working almost as well as sertraline for far fewer adverse effects, is quite a big deal!
Bonus features
Rhodiola also putatively offers protection against Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and cerebrovascular disease in general:
Rosenroot (Rhodiola): Potential Applications in Aging-related Diseases
It may also be useful in the management of diabetes (types 1 and 2), but studies so far have only been animal studies, and/or in vitro studies. Here are two examples:
- Antihyperglycemic action of rhodiola-aqeous extract in type 1 diabetic rats
- Evaluation of Rhodiola crenulata and Rhodiola rosea for management of type 2 diabetes and hypertension
How much to take?
Dosages have varied a lot in studies. However, 120mg/day seems to cover most bases. It also depends on which of rhodiola’s 140 active compounds a particular benefit depends on, though salidroside and rosavin are the top performers.
Where to get it?
As ever, we don’t sell it (or anything else) but here’s an example product on Amazon.
Enjoy!
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What are heart rate zones, and how can you incorporate them into your exercise routine?
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If you spend a lot of time exploring fitness content online, you might have come across the concept of heart rate zones. Heart rate zone training has become more popular in recent years partly because of the boom in wearable technology which, among other functions, allows people to easily track their heart rates.
Heart rate zones reflect different levels of intensity during aerobic exercise. They’re most often based on a percentage of your maximum heart rate, which is the highest number of beats your heart can achieve per minute.
But what are the different heart rate zones, and how can you use these zones to optimise your workout?
The three-zone model
While there are several models used to describe heart rate zones, the most common model in the scientific literature is the three-zone model, where the zones may be categorised as follows:
- zone 1: 55%–82% of maximum heart rate
- zone 2: 82%–87% of maximum heart rate
- zone 3: 87%–97% of maximum heart rate.
If you’re not sure what your maximum heart rate is, it can be calculated using this equation: 208 – (0.7 × age in years). For example, I’m 32 years old. 208 – (0.7 x 32) = 185.6, so my predicted maximum heart rate is around 186 beats per minute.
There are also other models used to describe heart rate zones, such as the five-zone model (as its name implies, this one has five distinct zones). These models largely describe the same thing and can mostly be used interchangeably.
What do the different zones involve?
The three zones are based around a person’s lactate threshold, which describes the point at which exercise intensity moves from being predominantly aerobic, to predominantly anaerobic.
Aerobic exercise uses oxygen to help our muscles keep going, ensuring we can continue for a long time without fatiguing. Anaerobic exercise, however, uses stored energy to fuel exercise. Anaerobic exercise also accrues metabolic byproducts (such as lactate) that increase fatigue, meaning we can only produce energy anaerobically for a short time.
On average your lactate threshold tends to sit around 85% of your maximum heart rate, although this varies from person to person, and can be higher in athletes.
Wearable technology has taken off in recent years. Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels In the three-zone model, each zone loosely describes one of three types of training.
Zone 1 represents high-volume, low-intensity exercise, usually performed for long periods and at an easy pace, well below lactate threshold. Examples include jogging or cycling at a gentle pace.
Zone 2 is threshold training, also known as tempo training, a moderate intensity training method performed for moderate durations, at (or around) lactate threshold. This could be running, rowing or cycling at a speed where it’s difficult to speak full sentences.
Zone 3 mostly describes methods of high-intensity interval training, which are performed for shorter durations and at intensities above lactate threshold. For example, any circuit style workout that has you exercising hard for 30 seconds then resting for 30 seconds would be zone 3.
Striking a balance
To maximise endurance performance, you need to strike a balance between doing enough training to elicit positive changes, while avoiding over-training, injury and burnout.
While zone 3 is thought to produce the largest improvements in maximal oxygen uptake – one of the best predictors of endurance performance and overall health – it’s also the most tiring. This means you can only perform so much of it before it becomes too much.
Training in different heart rate zones improves slightly different physiological qualities, and so by spending time in each zone, you ensure a variety of benefits for performance and health.
So how much time should you spend in each zone?
Most elite endurance athletes, including runners, rowers, and even cross-country skiers, tend to spend most of their training (around 80%) in zone 1, with the rest split between zones 2 and 3.
Because elite endurance athletes train a lot, most of it needs to be in zone 1, otherwise they risk injury and burnout. For example, some runners accumulate more than 250 kilometres per week, which would be impossible to recover from if it was all performed in zone 2 or 3.
Of course, most people are not professional athletes. The World Health Organization recommends adults aim for 150–300 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week, or 75–150 minutes of vigorous exercise per week.
If you look at this in the context of heart rate zones, you could consider zone 1 training as moderate intensity, and zones 2 and 3 as vigorous. Then, you can use heart rate zones to make sure you’re exercising to meet these guidelines.
What if I don’t have a heart rate monitor?
If you don’t have access to a heart rate tracker, that doesn’t mean you can’t use heart rate zones to guide your training.
The three heart rate zones discussed in this article can also be prescribed based on feel using a simple 10-point scale, where 0 indicates no effort, and 10 indicates the maximum amount of effort you can produce.
With this system, zone 1 aligns with a 4 or less out of 10, zone 2 with 4.5 to 6.5 out of 10, and zone 3 as a 7 or higher out of 10.
Heart rate zones are not a perfect measure of exercise intensity, but can be a useful tool. And if you don’t want to worry about heart rate zones at all, that’s also fine. The most important thing is to simply get moving.
Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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When Did You Last Have a Cognitive Health Check-Up?
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When Did You Last Have a Cognitive Health Check-Up?
Regular health check-ups are an important part of a good health regime, especially as we get older. But after you’ve been prodded, probed, sampled and so forth… When did you last have a cognitive health check-up?
Keeping on top of things
In our recent Monday Research Review main feature about citicoline, we noted that it has beneficial effects for a lot of measures of cognitive health.
And that brought us to realize: just how on top of this are we?
Your writer here today could tell you what her sleep was like on any night in the past year, what her heart rate was like, her weight, and all that. Moods too! There’s an app for that. But cognitive health? My last IQ test was in 2001, and I forget when my last memory test was.
It’s important to know how we’re doing, or else how to we know if there has been some decline? We’ve talked previously about the benefits of brain-training of various kinds to improve cognition, so in some parts we’ll draw on the same resources today, but this time the focus is on getting quick measurements that we can retest regularly (mark the calendar!)
Some quick-fire tests
These tests are all free, quick, and accessible. Some of them will try to upsell you on other (i.e. paid) services; we leave that to your own discretion, but the things we’ll be using today are free.
Test your verbal memory
This one’s a random word list generator. It defaults to 12 words, but you can change that if you like. Memorize the words, and then test yourself by seeing how many you can write down from memory. If it gets too easy, crank up the numbers.
Test your visual memory
This one’s a series of images; the test is to click to say whether you’ve seen this exact image previously in the series or not.
Test your IQ
This one’s intended to be general purpose intelligence; in reality, IQ tests have their flaws too, but it’s not a bad metric to keep track of. Just don’t get too hung up on the outcome, and remember, your only competition is yourself!
Test your attention / focus
This writer opened this and this three other attention tests (to get you the best one) before getting distracted, noting the irony, and finally taking the test. Hopefully you can do better!
Test your creativity
This one’s a random object generator. Give yourself a set period of time (per your preference, but make a note of the time you allow yourself, so that you can use the same time period when you retest yourself at a later date) in which to list as many different possible uses for the item.
Test your musical sense
This one’s a pitch recognition test. So, with the caveat that it is partially testing your hearing as well as your cognition, it’s a good one to take and regularly retest in any case.
How often should you retest?
There’s not really any “should” here, but to offer some advice:
- If you take them too often, you might find you get bored of doing so and stop, essentially burning out.
- If you don’t take them regularly, you may forget, lose this list of tests, etc.
- Likely a good “sweet spot” is quarterly or six-monthly, but there’s nothing wrong with testing annually either.
It’s all about the big picture, after all.
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The 4 Bad Habits That Cause The Most Falls While Walking
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The risk of falling becomes greater (both in probability and in severity of consequences) as we get older. But, many people who do fall do so for the same reasons, some of which are avoidable. Dr. Doug Weiss has advice based on extensive second-hand experience:
Best foot forward!
If any of these prompt a “surely nobody does that” response, then, good for you to not have that habit, but Dr. Weiss has seen many patients who thusly erred. And if any of these do describe how you walk, then well, you’re not alone—time to fix it, though!
- Walking with Stiff Legs: walking with a hyperextended (straight) knee instead of a slight bend (5-15°) makes it harder to adjust balance, increasing the risk of falls. This can also put extra pressure on the joints, potentially leading to osteoarthritis.
- Crossing Legs While Turning: turning by crossing one leg over the other is a common cause of falls, particularly in the elderly. To avoid this, when turning step first with the foot that is on the side you are going to go. If you have the bad habit, this may feel strange at first, but you will soon adapt.
- Looking Down While Walking: focusing only on the ground directly in front of you can cause you to miss obstacles ahead, leading to falls. Instead, practice “scanning”, alternating between looking down at the ground and looking up to maintain awareness of your surroundings.
- Shuffling Instead of Tandem Walking: shuffling with feet far apart, rather than walking with one foot in front of the other, reduces balance and increases the risk of tripping. Tandem walking, where one foot is placed directly in front of the other, is the safer and more balanced way to walk.
It also helps disguise your numbers.
For more details on all of these, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Fall Special (How To Not Fall, And How To Minimize Injury If You Do) ← this never seems like an urgent thing to learn, but trust us, it’s more fun to read it now, than from your hospital bed later
Take care!
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Apricot vs Banana – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing apricot to banana, we picked the banana.
Why?
Both are great, and it was close!
In terms of macros, apricot has more protein, while banana has more carbs and fiber; both are low glycemic index foods, and we’ll call this category a tie.
In the category of vitamins, apricot has more of vitamins A, C, E, and K, while banana has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, and choline, giving banana the win by strength of numbers. It’s worth noting though that apricots are one of the best fruits for vitamin A in particular.
When it comes to minerals, apricot has slightly more calcium, iron, and zinc, while banana has a lot more magnesium, manganese, potassium, and selenium, meaning a moderate win for banana here.
Adding up the sections makes for an overall win for banana—but of course, by all means enjoy either or both!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Top 8 Fruits That Prevent & Kill Cancer ← we argue for apricots as bonus number 9 on the list
Take care!
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No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
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What’s on your mind, really?
We hear a lot about “the evidence-based benefits of mindfulness”, but what actually are they? And what is the evidence? And, perhaps most importantly: how do we do it?
What are the benefits?
The benefits of mindfulness are many, and include:
- reducing stress
- reducing pain
- improving quality of life
- reducing fatigue
- providing relief from digestive disorders
- reducing symptoms of sleep disorders
- improving immune response
- providing support for caregivers
The evidence is also abundant, and includes:
- Effects of mindfulness exercises as stand-alone intervention on symptoms of anxiety and depression: Systematic review and meta-analysis
- Fusing character strengths and mindfulness interventions: Benefits for satisfaction and performance
- Evidence for the Role of Mindfulness in Cancer: Benefits and Techniques
- Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on anxiety symptoms: A systematic review and meta-analysis
- The benefits of meditation and mindfulness practices during times of crisis such as COVID-19
Sounds great… What actually is it, though?
Mindfulness is the state of being attentive to one’s mind. This is at its heart a meditative practice, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be sitting in the lotus position with candles—mindfulness can be built into any daily activity, or even no activity at all.
An exercise you can try right now:
Take a moment to notice everything you can hear. For this writer, that includes:
- The noise of my keystrokes as I type
- The ticking of the clock on the wall
- The gentle humming of my computer’s processor
- The higher-pitched noise of my computer’s monitor
- Birdsong outside
- Traffic further away
- My own breathing
- The sound of my eyelids as I blink
Whatever it is for you, notice how much you can notice that you had previously taken for granted.
You can repeat this exercise with other senses, by the way! For example:
- Notice five things you can see in your immediate environment that you’ve never noticed before. If you’re at home reading this, you probably think you’re very familiar with everything around you, but now see that mark on the wall you’d never noticed before, or a quirk of some electrical wiring, or the stitching on some furnishing, for example.
- Notice the textures of your clothes, or your face, or perhaps an object you’ve never paid attention to touching before. Your fingertips, unless you have some special reason this doesn’t apply to you, are far more sensitive than you probably give them credit for, and can notice the tiniest differentiation in textures, so take a moment to do that now.
- Mindful eating can be an especially healthful practice because it requires that we pay every attention to what we’re putting in our mouth, tasting, chewing, swallowing. No more thoughtlessly downing a box of cookies; every bite is now an experience. On the one hand, you’ll probably eat less at a sitting. On the other hand, what a sensory experience! It really reminds one that life is for living, not just for zipping through at a speed-run pace!
What about mindfulness as a meditative practice?
Well, those are meditative practices! But yes, mindfulness goes for more formal meditation too. For example:
Sit comfortably, with good posture, whatever that means to you. No need to get too caught up in the physical mechanics here—it’d take a whole article. For now, if you’re sitting and comfortable, that’s enough.
Notice your breathing. No need to try to control it—that’s not what this is about today. Just notice it. The in, the out, whether you breathe to your chest or abdomen, through your nose or mouth, don’t worry about doing it “right”, just notice what you are doing. Observe without judgement.
Notice your thoughts—no need to try to stop them. Notice noticing your thoughts, and again, observe without judgement. Notice your feelings; are you angry, hopeful, stressed, serene? There are no wrong answers here, and there’s nothing you should try to “correct”. Just observe. No judgement, only observe. Watch your thoughts, and watch your thoughts go.
Did you forget about your breathing while watching your thoughts? Don’t worry about that either if so, just notice that it happened. If you have any feelings about that, notice them too, and carry on observing.
We go through so much of our lives in “autopilot”, that it can be an amazing experience to sometimes just “be”—and be aware of being.
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The Osteoporosis Breakthrough – by Dr. Doug Lucas
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“Osteoporosis” and “break” often don’t go well together, but here they do. So, what’s the breakthrough here?
There isn’t one, honestly. But if we overlook the marketing choices and focus on the book itself, the content here is genuinely good:
The book offers a comprehensive multivector approach to combatting osteoporosis, e.g:
- Diet
- Exercise
- Other lifestyle considerations
- Supplements
- Hormones
- Drugs
The author considers drugs a good and important tool for some people with osteoporosis, but not most. The majority of people, he considers, will do better without drugs—by tackling things more holistically.
The advice here is sound and covers all reasonable angles without getting hung up on the idea of there being a single magical solution for all.
Bottom line: if you’re looking for a book that’s a one-stop-shop for strategies against osteoporosis, this is a good option.
Click here to check out The Osteoporosis Breakthrough, and keep your bones strong!
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