Saunas: Health Benefits (& Caveats)

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The Heat Is On

In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you your (health-related) opinion on saunas, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

  • About 53% said it is “a healthful activity with many benefits”
  • About 25% said it is “best avoided; I feel like I’m dying in there”
  • About 12% said “it feels good and therefore can’t be all bad”

So what does the science say?

The heat of saunas carries a health risk: True or False?

False, generally speaking, for any practical purposes. Of course, anything in life comes with a health risk, but statistically speaking, your shower at home is a lot more dangerous than a sauna (risk of slipping with no help at hand).

It took a bit of effort to find a paper on the health risks of saunas, because all the papers on PubMed etc coming up for those keywords were initially papers with “reduces the risk of…”, i.e. ways in which the sauna is healthy.

However, we did find one:

❝Contraindications to sauna bathing include unstable angina pectoris, recent myocardial infarction, and severe aortic stenosis.

Sauna bathing is safe, however, for most people with coronary heart disease with stable angina pectoris or old myocardial infarction.

Very few acute myocardial infarctions and sudden deaths occur in saunas, but alcohol consumption during sauna bathing increases the risk of hypotension, arrhythmia, and sudden death, and should be avoided. ❞

~ Dr. Matti Hannuksela & Dr. Samer Ellahham

Source: Benefits and risks of sauna bathing

So, very safe for most people, safe even for most people with heart disease, but there are exceptions so check with your own doctor of course.

And drinking alcohol anywhere is bad for the health, but in a sauna it’s a truly terrible idea. As an aside, please don’t drink alcohol in the shower, either (risk of slipping with no help at hand, and this time, broken glass too).

On the topic of it being safe for most people’s hearts, see also:

Beneficial effects of sauna bathing for heart failure patients

As an additional note, those who have a particular sensitivity to the heat, may (again please check with your own doctor, as your case may vary) actually benefit from moderate sauna use, to reduce the cardiovascular strain that your body experiences during heatwaves (remember, you can get out of a sauna more easily than you can get out of a heatwave, so for many people it’s a lot easier to do moderation and improve thermoregulatory responses):

Passive heat therapy: a promising preventive measure for people at risk of adverse health outcomes during heat extremes

Sauna usage can bring many health benefits: True or False?

True! Again, at least for most people. As well as the above-discussed items, here’s one for mortality rates in healthy Finnish men:

Sauna bathing and mortality risk: unraveling the interaction with systolic blood pressure in a cohort of Finnish men

Not only that, also…

❝The Finnish saunas have the most consistent and robust evidence regarding health benefits and they have been shown to decrease the risk of health outcomes such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, thromboembolism, dementia, and respiratory conditions; may improve the severity of musculoskeletal disorders, COVID-19, headache and flu, while also improving mental well-being, sleep, and longevity.

Finnish saunas may also augment the beneficial effects of other protective lifestyle factors such as physical activity.

The beneficial effects of passive heat therapies may be linked to their anti-inflammatory, cytoprotective and anti-oxidant properties and synergistic effects on neuroendocrine, circulatory, cardiovascular and immune function.

Passive heat therapies, notably Finnish saunas, are emerging as potentially powerful and holistic strategies to promoting health and extending the healthspan in all populations. ❞

~ Dr. Jari Laukkanen & Dr. Setor Kunutsor

Source: The multifaceted benefits of passive heat therapies for extending the healthspan: A comprehensive review with a focus on Finnish sauna

(the repeated clarification of “Finnish sauna” is not a matter of fervent nationalism, by the way, but rather a matter of disambiguating it from Swedish sauna, which has some differences, most notably a lack of steam)

That reminds us: in Scandinavia, it is usual to use a sauna naked, and in Finland in particular, it is a common social activity amongst friends, coworkers, etc. In the US, many people are not so comfortable with nudity, and indeed, many places that provide saunas, may require the wearing of swimwear. But…

Just one problem: if you’re wearing swimwear because you’ve just been swimming in a pool, you now have chlorinated water soaked into your swimwear, which in the sauna, will become steam + chlorine gas. That’s not so good for your health (and is one reason, beyond tradition and simple normalization, for why swimwear is usually not permitted in Finnish saunas).

Want to read more?

You might like our previous main feature,

Turning Up The Heat Against Diabetes & Alzheimer’s ← you guessed it, sauna may be beneficial against these too

Take care!

Don’t Forget…

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  • Childhood Vaccination Rates, a Rare Health Bright Spot in Struggling States, Are Slipping

    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.

    Jen Fisher can do only so much to keep her son safe from the types of infections that children can encounter at school. The rest, she said, is up to other students and parents in their hometown of Franklin, Tennessee.

    Fisher’s son Raleigh, 12, lives with a congenital heart condition, which has left him with a weakened immune system. For his protection, Raleigh has received all the recommended vaccines for a child his age. But even with his vaccinations, a virus that might only sideline another child could sicken him and land him in the emergency room, Fisher said.

    “We want everyone to be vaccinated so that illnesses like measles and things that have basically been eradicated don’t come back,” Fisher said. “Those can certainly have a very adverse effect on Raleigh.”

    For much of Raleigh’s life, Fisher could take comfort in the high childhood vaccination rate in Tennessee — a public health bright spot in a conservative state with poor health outcomes and one of the shortest life expectancies in the nation.

    Mississippi and West Virginia, two similarly conservative states with poor health outcomes and short life expectancies, also have some of the highest vaccination rates for kindergartners in the nation — a seeming contradiction that stems from the fact that childhood vaccination requirements don’t always align with states’ other characteristics, said James Colgrove, a Columbia University professor who studies factors that influence public health.

    “The kinds of policies that states have don’t map neatly on to ‘red’ versus ‘blue’ or one region or another,” Colgrove said.

    Advocates, doctors, public health officials, and researchers worry such public health bright spots in some states are fading: Many states have recently reported an increase in people opting out of vaccines for their kids as Americans’ views shift.

    During the 2023-24 school year, the percentage of kindergartners exempted from one or more vaccinations rose to 3.3%, the highest ever reported, with increases in 40 states and Washington, D.C., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Tennessee and Mississippi were among those with increases. Nearly all exemptions nationally were for nonmedical reasons.

    Vaccine proponents worry anti-vaccine messaging could accelerate a growing “health freedom” movement that has been pushed by leaders in states such as Florida. Momentum against vaccines is likely to continue to grow with the election of Donald Trump as president and his proposed nomination of anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Pediatricians in states with high exemption rates, such as Florida and Georgia, say they’re concerned by what they see — declining immunization levels for kindergartners, which could lead to a resurgence in vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles. The Florida Department of Health reported nonmedical exemption rates as high as 50% for children in some areas.

    “The religious exemption is huge,” said Brandon Chatani, a pediatric infectious disease doctor in Orlando. “That has allowed for an easy way for these kids to enter schools without vaccines.”

    In many states, it’s easier to get a religious exemption than a medical one, which often requires signoff from a doctor.

    Over the past decade, California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York have removed religious and philosophical exemptions from school vaccination requirements. West Virginia has not had them.

    Idaho, Alaska, and Utah had the highest exemption rates for the 2023-24 school year, according to the CDC. Those states allow parents or legal guardians to exempt their children for religious reasons by submitting a notarized form or a signed statement.

    Florida and Georgia, with some of the lowest reported minimum vaccination rates for kindergartners, allow parents to exempt their children by submitting a form with the child’s school or day care.

    Both states have reported declines in uptake of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, which is one of the most common childhood shots. In Georgia, MMR coverage for kindergartners dropped to 88.4% in the 2023-24 school year from 93.1% in 2019-20, according to the CDC. Florida dropped to 88.1% from 93.5% during the same period.

    Andi Shane, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in Atlanta, traces Georgia’s declining rates to families who lack access to a pediatrician. State policies on exemptions are also key, she said.

    “There’s lots of data to support the fact that when personal belief exemptions are not permitted, that vaccination rates are higher,” she said.

    In December, Georgia public health officials put out an advisory saying the state had recorded significantly more whooping cough cases than in the prior year. According to CDC data, Georgia reported 280 cases in 2024 compared with 96 the year before.

    Until 2023, Mississippi was one of the few states that allowed parents to opt out of vaccinating their kids only for medical reasons — and only with the approval of a doctor. That gave it among the highest vaccination rates in the nation as of the 2023-24 school year.

    “It’s one of the few things Mississippi has done well,” said Anita Henderson, a pediatrician who has practiced in the southern part of the state for nearly 30 years. In terms of health, she said, childhood vaccination rates were the state’s one “shining star.”

    But that changed in April 2023 when a federal judge ordered state officials to start allowing religious exemptions. The ruling has emboldened many families, Henderson said.

    “We are seeing more and more skepticism, more and more vaccine hesitancy, and a lack of confidence because of this ruling,” she said.

    State officials have granted more than 5,000 religious exemptions since the court order allowing them, according to the state health department. Daniel Edney, the state health officer, said most of the requests have come from “more affluent” residents in “pockets” of the state.

    “Most people listen to the expert opinions of their pediatricians and family medicine doctors to stay on the vaccine schedule, because it’s what is best to protect their children,” he said.

    West Virginia’s vaccine law — which hasn’t allowed nonmedical exemptions — also could soon change, Matthew Christiansen said in December before he resigned as the state’s health officer.

    A bill that would have broadened exemptions made it through the legislature last year but was vetoed by outgoing Republican Gov. Jim Justice. The new governor, Republican Pat Morrisey, has been a vocal critic of vaccine mandates. And just a day after being inaugurated, he issued an executive order to propose provisions by Feb. 1 that could allow religious and conscientious exemptions.

    “I want to send a message that if you have a religious belief, then we’re going to have an exception,” he said at a Jan. 14 press conference. “We’re not going to be the outlier.”

    People asserting their personal freedoms to decline vaccines for their kids can ultimately curtail the ability of others to live full lives, Christiansen said. “Kids getting measles and mumps and polio and being paralyzed for their whole life is an impediment on personal freedom and autonomy for those kids,” he said.

    Since the covid pandemic, anti-vaccine sentiment has been growing in Tennessee. One organization, Stand for Health Freedom, drafted a letter for constituents to send to their state lawmakers calling for the resignation of the medical director of Tennessee’s Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization Program. The group said she demonstrated a “lack of respect for the informed consent rights” of the people.

    “They feel emboldened by the idea that this presidential administration seems to feel very strongly that a lot of these issues should be taken back to the states,” said Emily Delikat, director of Tennessee Families for Vaccines, a pro-vaccine group.

    Ultimately, like many effective public health interventions, vaccines are a victim of their own success, said Henderson, the Mississippi pediatrician. Most people haven’t seen outbreaks of measles or polio, so they forget how dangerous the diseases are, she said.

    “It may unfortunately take a resurgence of those diseases to raise awareness to the fact that these are dangerous, these are deadly, these are preventable,” she said. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

    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.

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  • Languishing – by Prof. Corey Keyes

    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’ve written before about depression and “flourishing” but what about when one isn’t exactly flourishing, but is not necessarily in the depths of depression either? That’s what this book is about.

    Prof. Keyes offers, from his extensive research, hope for those who do not check enough of the boxes to be considered depressed, but who are also definitely more in the lane of “surviving” than “thriving”.

    Specifically, he outlines five key ways to make the step from languishing to flourishing, based not on motivational rhetoric, but actual data-based science:

    1. Learn (creating your personal story of self-growth)
    2. Connect (building relationships, on the individual level and especially on the community level)
    3. Transcend (developing psychological resilience to the unexpected)
    4. Help (others! This is about finding your purpose, and then actively living it)
    5. Play (this is a necessary “recharge” element that many people miss, especially as we get older)

    With regard to finding one’s purpose being given the one-word summary of “help”, this is a callback to our tribal origins, and how we thrive and flourish best and feel happiest when we have a role to fulfil and provide value to those around us)

    Bottom line: if you’re not at the point of struggling to get out of bed each day, but you’re also not exactly leaping out of bed with a smile, this book can help get you from one place to the other.

    Click here to check out Languishing, and flourish instead!

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  • Older Men’s Connections Often Wither When They’re on Their Own

    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.

    At age 66, South Carolina physician Paul Rousseau decided to retire after tending for decades to the suffering of people who were seriously ill or dying. It was a difficult and emotionally fraught transition.

    “I didn’t know what I was going to do, where I was going to go,” he told me, describing a period of crisis that began in 2017.

    Seeking a change of venue, Rousseau moved to the mountains of North Carolina, the start of an extended period of wandering. Soon, a sense of emptiness enveloped him. He had no friends or hobbies — his work as a doctor had been all-consuming. Former colleagues didn’t get in touch, nor did he reach out.

    His wife had passed away after a painful illness a decade earlier. Rousseau was estranged from one adult daughter and in only occasional contact with another. His isolation mounted as his three dogs, his most reliable companions, died.

    Rousseau was completely alone — without friends, family, or a professional identity — and overcome by a sense of loss.

    “I was a somewhat distinguished physician with a 60-page resume,” Rousseau, now 73, wrote in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in May. “Now, I’m ‘no one,’ a retired, forgotten old man who dithers away the days.”

    In some ways, older men living alone are disadvantaged compared with older women in similar circumstances. Research shows that men tend to have fewer friends than women and be less inclined to make new friends. Often, they’re reluctant to ask for help.

    “Men have a harder time being connected and reaching out,” said Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist who directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has traced the arc of hundreds of men’s lives over a span of more than eight decades. The men in the study who fared the worst, Waldinger said, “didn’t have friendships and things they were interested in — and couldn’t find them.” He recommends that men invest in their “social fitness” in addition to their physical fitness to ensure they have satisfying social interactions.

    Slightly more than 1 in every 5 men ages 65 to 74 live alone, according to 2022 Census Bureau data. That rises to nearly 1 in 4 for those 75 or older. Nearly 40% of these men are divorced, 31% are widowed, and 21% never married.

    That’s a significant change from 2000, when only 1 in 6 older men lived by themselves. Longer life spans for men and rising divorce rates are contributing to the trend. It’s difficult to find information about this group — which is dwarfed by the number of women who live alone — because it hasn’t been studied in depth. But psychologists and psychiatrists say these older men can be quite vulnerable.

    When men are widowed, their health and well-being tend to decline more than women’s.

    “Older men have a tendency to ruminate, to get into our heads with worries and fears and to feel more lonely and isolated,” said Jed Diamond, 80, a therapist and the author of “Surviving Male Menopause” and “The Irritable Male Syndrome.”

    Add in the decline of civic institutions where men used to congregate — think of the Elks or the Shriners — and older men’s reduced ability to participate in athletic activities, and the result is a lack of stimulation and the loss of a sense of belonging.

    Depression can ensue, fueling excessive alcohol use, accidents, or, in the most extreme cases, suicide. Of all age groups in the United States, men over age 75 have the highest suicide rate, by far.

    For this column, I spoke at length to several older men who live alone. All but two (who’d been divorced) were widowed. Their experiences don’t represent all men who live alone. But still, they’re revealing.

    The first person I called was Art Koff, 88, of Chicago, a longtime marketing executive I’d known for several years. When I reached out in January, I learned that Koff’s wife, Norma, had died the year before, leaving him hobbled by grief. Uninterested in eating and beset by unremitting loneliness, Koff lost 45 pounds.

    “I’ve had a long and wonderful life, and I have lots of family and lots of friends who are terrific,” Koff told me. But now, he said, “nothing is of interest to me any longer.”

    “I’m not happy living this life,” he said.

    Nine days later, I learned that Koff had died. His nephew, Alexander Koff, said he had passed out and was gone within a day. The death certificate cited “end stage protein calorie malnutrition” as the cause.

    The transition from being coupled to being single can be profoundly disorienting for older men. Lodovico Balducci, 80, was married to his wife, Claudia, for 52 years before she died in October 2023. Balducci, a renowned physician known as the “patriarch of geriatric oncology,” wrote about his emotional reaction in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, likening Claudia’s death to an “amputation.”

    “I find myself talking to her all the time, most of the time in my head,” Balducci told me in a phone conversation. When I asked him whom he confides in, he admitted, “Maybe I don’t have any close friends.”

    Disoriented and disorganized since Claudia died, he said his “anxiety has exploded.”

    We spoke in late February. Two weeks later, Balducci moved from Tampa to New Orleans, to be near his son and daughter-in-law and their two teenagers.

    “I am planning to help as much as possible with my grandchildren,” he said. “Life has to go on.”

    Verne Ostrander, a carpenter in the small town of Willits, California, about 140 miles north of San Francisco, was reflective when I spoke with him, also in late February. His second wife, Cindy Morninglight, died four years ago after a long battle with cancer.

    “Here I am, almost 80 years old — alone,” Ostrander said. “Who would have guessed?”

    When Ostrander isn’t painting watercolors, composing music, or playing guitar, “I fall into this lonely state, and I cry quite a bit,” he told me. “I don’t ignore those feelings. I let myself feel them. It’s like therapy.”

    Ostrander has lived in Willits for nearly 50 years and belongs to a men’s group and a couples’ group that’s been meeting for 20 years. He’s in remarkably good health and in close touch with his three adult children, who live within easy driving distance.

    “The hard part of living alone is missing Cindy,” he told me. “The good part is the freedom to do whatever I want. My goal is to live another 20 to 30 years and become a better artist and get to know my kids when they get older.”

    The Rev. Johnny Walker, 76, lives in a low-income apartment building in a financially challenged neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. Twice divorced, he’s been on his own for five years. He, too, has close family connections. At least one of his several children and grandchildren checks in on him every day.

    Walker says he had a life-changing religious conversion in 1993. Since then, he has depended on his faith and his church for a sense of meaning and community.

    “It’s not hard being alone,” Walker said when I asked whether he was lonely. “I accept Christ in my life, and he said that he would never leave us or forsake us. When I wake up in the morning, that’s a new blessing. I just thank God that he has brought me this far.”

    Waldinger recommended that men “make an effort every day to be in touch with people. Find what you love — golf, gardening, birdwatching, pickleball, working on a political campaign — and pursue it,” he said. “Put yourself in a situation where you’re going to see the same people over and over again. Because that’s the most natural way conversations get struck up and friendships start to develop.”

    Rousseau, the retired South Carolina doctor, said he doesn’t think about the future much. After feeling lost for several years, he moved across the country to Jackson, Wyoming, in the summer of 2023. He embraced solitude, choosing a remarkably isolated spot to live — a 150-square-foot cabin with no running water and no bathroom, surrounded by 25,000 undeveloped acres of public and privately owned land.

    “Yes, I’m still lonely, but the nature and the beauty here totally changed me and focused me on what’s really important,” he told me, describing a feeling of redemption in his solitude.

    Rousseau realizes that the death of his parents and a very close friend in his childhood left him with a sense of loss that he kept at bay for most of his life. Now, he said, rather than denying his vulnerability, he’s trying to live with it. “There’s only so long you can put off dealing with all the things you’re trying to escape from.”

    It’s not the life he envisioned, but it’s one that fits him, Rousseau said. He stays busy with volunteer activities — cleaning tanks and running tours at Jackson’s fish hatchery, serving as a part-time park ranger, and maintaining trails in nearby national forests. Those activities put him in touch with other people, mostly strangers, only intermittently.

    What will happen to him when this way of living is no longer possible?

    “I wish I had an answer, but I don’t,” Rousseau said. “I don’t see my daughters taking care of me. As far as someone else, I don’t think there’s anyone else who’s going to help me.”

    We’re eager to hear from readers about questions you’d like answered, problems you’ve been having with your care, and advice you need in dealing with the health care system. Visit http://kffhealthnews.org/columnists to submit your requests or tips.

    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.

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  • Radical Longevity – by Dr. Ann Gittleman

    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.

    Dr. Gittleman takes a comprehensive approach, advising us about avoiding AGEs, freeing up fascia, stimulating cellular rejuvenation, the mind-gut connection, keeping the immune system healthy, and more.

    The “plan” promised by the subtitle involves identifying the key factors of nutrition and lifestyle most impactful to you, and adjusting them accordingly, in a multistep, author-walks-the-reader-by-the-hand process.

    There’s also, for those who prefer it, a large section (seven chapters) on a body part/system by body part/system approach, e.g. brain health, heart health, revitalizing skin, reversing hair loss, repairing bones, muscles, joints, etc.

    The writing style is quite casual,butalso with a mind to education, with its call-out boxes, bullet-point summaries, and so forth. There is a “select references” section, but if one wants to find studies, it’s often necessary to go looking, as there aren’t inline citations.

    Bottom line: we’d love to see better referencing, but otherwise this is a top-tier anti-aging book, and a lot more accessible than most, without skimping on depth and breadth.

    Click here to check out Radical Longevity, and get rejuvenating radically!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Bird Flu: Children At High Risk; Older Adults Not So Much

    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 this week’s news roundup…

    Children at highest risk for bird flu

    When a new infectious disease comes out, we get used to hearing the usual refrain, “children, the elderly, those with compromised immune systems” are those considered at greatest risk, and therefore first in line for vaccines.

    In this case, however, it seems that older adults appear to be rather more resilient to bird flu than children, and it’s noted that early childhood influenza exposure can elicit immune responses that last a lifetime. For those whose lifetime was not curtailed by the initial infection, that means they may enjoy extra defenses now.

    You may be wondering whether this headline statement is just a hypothesis based on that, and no, it’s not. It’s a (albeit tentative, like most things in any emerging science, as responses to a novel infection will always be) conclusion based on blood samples from a little over 150 people born between 1927 and 2026 (so, quite a range), and examining the antibodies found therein; adults born prior to 1968 are the ones who are most likely to have been exposed to H1N1 or H2N2 in childhood, resulting in them now having antibodies that work against the H5N1 virus (but still, by all means please do take all sensible precautions anyway!):

    Read in full: Older adults might be more resistant to bird flu infections than children, research finds

    Related: What you need to know about H5N1 bird flu

    GLP-1 Receptor Agonists? They work, but at what cost?

    We’re not talking about the side effects this time! Nor even the “what happens if you stop taking it” problems.

    Rather, the “cost” in this case is the literal financial cost; out of a selection of weight loss drugs examined, semaglutide (such as Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (such as Zepbound and Eli Lilly) were the only ones deemed to not be cost-effective for patients:

    Read in full: Semaglutide, tirzepatide not deemed cost-effective obesity therapies despite benefits

    Related: Most People Who Start GLP-1 RAs Quit Them Within A Year (Here’s Why)

    Inflammation now, brittle bones later

    Chronic inflammation is a root cause of many diseases (due in part to how it weakens the immune system, but also because of how the body functions so badly in general when it’s constantly at war with itself, as is the case in chronic inflammation), and it worsens many diseases that it doesn’t outright cause.

    In this case, the new science is that chronic inflammation also makes changes to bone density over time.

    Spoiler: the changes are not good changes

    Furthermore, this holds true for young people also, not just people in the usual demographic that one would expect for brittle bones (especially: older women with untreated menopause, but also just anyone older than middle-aged in general, as most people start losing about 1% of bone density per year after their mid-30s).

    Read in full: Inflammation proteins linked to bone density changes over time

    Related: The Bare-Bones Truth About Osteoporosis

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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

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  • Thinking of trying a new diet? 4 questions to ask yourself before you do

    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 live in a society that glorifies dieting, with around 42% of adults globally having tried to lose weight. Messages about dieting and weight loss are amplified on social media, with a never-ending cycle of weight loss fads and diet trends.

    Amid often conflicting messages and misinformation, if you’re looking for diet advice online, it’s easy to become confused and overwhelmed.

    So before diving into the latest weight loss trend or extreme diet, consider these four questions to help you make a more informed decision.

    PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

    1. Is the diet realistic?

    Have you considered the financial cost of maintaining the diet or lifestyle, and the time and resources that would be required? For example, do you need to purchase specific products, supplements, or follow a rigid meal plan?

    If the diet is coming from someone who is trying to sell you something – such as a particular weight-loss product you need in order to follow the diet – this could be a particular red flag.

    Many extreme diet recommendations come from a place of privilege and overlook food access, affordability, cooking skills, where you live, or even your culture and ethics.

    If the diet has these sorts of issues it can lead to frustration, stress, stigmatisation and feelings of failure for the person trying to adhere to the diet. But the problem may be with the diet itself – not with you.

    Man looks at flour at the supermarket
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    2. Is there evidence to support this diet?

    Self-proclaimed “experts” online will often make claims focused on specific groups, known as target populations. This might be 30- to 50-year-old men with diabetes, for example.

    In some cases, evidence for claims made may come from animal studies, which might not be applicable to humans at all.

    So be aware that if research findings are for a group that doesn’t match your profile, then the results might not be relevant to you.

    It takes time and a lot of high-quality studies to tell us a “diet” is safe and effective, not just one study. Ask yourself, is it supported by multiple studies in humans? Be critical and question the claims before you accept them.

    For accurate information look for government websites, or ask your GP or dietitian.

    3. How will this diet affect my life?

    Food is much more than calories and nutrients. It plays many roles in our lives, and likewise diets can influence our lives in ways we often overlook.

    Socially and culturally, food can be a point of connection and celebration. It can be a source of enjoyment, a source of comfort, or even a way to explore new parts of the world.

    So when you’re considering a new diet, think about how it might affect meaningful moments for you. For example, if you’re going travelling, will your diet influence the food choices you make? Will you feel that you can’t sample the local cuisine? Or would you be deterred from going out for dinner with friends because of their choice of restaurant?

    4. Will this diet make me feel guilty or affect my mental health?

    What is your favourite meal? Does this diet “allow” you to eat it? Imagine visiting your mum who has prepared your favourite childhood meal. How will the diet affect your feelings about these special foods? Will it cause you to feel stressed or guilty about enjoying a birthday cake or a meal cooked by a loved one?

    Studies have shown that dieting can negatively impact our mental health, and skipping meals can increase symptoms of depression and anxiety.

    Many diets fail to consider the psychological aspects of eating, even though our mental health is just as important as physical health. Eating should not make you feel stressed, anxious, or guilty.

    So before starting another diet, consider how it might affect your mental health.

    Moving away from a dieting mindset

    We’re frequently told that weight loss is the path to better health. Whereas, we can prioritise our health without focusing on our weight. Constant messages about the need to lose weight can also be harmful to mental health, and not necessarily helpful for physical health.

    Our research has found eating in a way that prioritises health over weight loss is linked to a range of positive outcomes for our health and wellbeing. These include a more positive relationship with food, and less guilt and stress.

    Our research also indicates mindful and intuitive eating practices – which focus on internal cues, body trust, and being present and mindful when eating – are related to lower levels of depression and stress, and greater body image and self-compassion.

    But like anything, it takes practice and time to build a positive relationship with food. Be kind to yourself, seek out weight-inclusive health-care professionals, and the changes will come. Finally, remember you’re allowed to find joy in food.

    Melissa Eaton, Accredited Practising Dietitian; PhD Candidate, University of Wollongong; Verena Vaiciurgis, Accredited Practising Dietitian; PhD Candidate, University of Wollongong, and Yasmine Probst, Associate Professor, School of Medical, Indigenous and Health Sciences, University of Wollongong

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

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