Science of Pilates – by Tracy Ward
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 reviewed other books in this series, “Science of Yoga” and “Science of HIIT” (they’re great too; check them out!). What does this one add to the mix?
Pilates is a top-tier “combination exercise” insofar as it checks a lot of boxes, e.g:
- Strength—especially core strength, but also limbs
- Mobility—range of motion and resultant reduction in injury risk
- Stability—impossible without the above two things, but Pilates trains this too
- Fitness—many dynamic Pilates exercises can be performed as cardio and/or HIIT.
The author, a physiotherapist, explains (as the title promises!) the science of Pilates, with:
- the beautifully clear diagrams we’ve come to expect of this series,
- equally clear explanations, with a great balance of simplicity of terms and depth where necessary, and
- plenty of citations for the claims made, linking to lots of the best up-to-date science.
Bottom line: if you are in a position to make a little time for Pilates (if you don’t already), then there is nobody who would not benefit from reading this book.
Click here to check out Science of Pilates, and keep your body well!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer – by Dr. Patrick Walsh & Janet Farrar Worthington
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.
Prostate cancer is not glamorous or fun, and neither is this book.
Nevertheless, it’s a disease that affects 12% of men in general, and 60% of men aged 60+, with that percentage climbing every year after that.
So, if you have a prostate or love someone who has one, this book is worthwhile reading—yes, even as a preventative.
Like many cancers, prostate cancer is easy to treat if caught very early, becomes harder to treat as it goes, and almost impossible to cure if it gets as far as metastasis (i.e., it spread). Like all cancers, it’s better off avoided entirely if possible.
This book covers all the stages:
- How to avoid it
- How to check for it
- How to “nip it in the bud”
- Why some might want to delay treatment (!)
- What options are available afterwards
This latter is quite extensive, and covers not just surgery, but radiation, thermo- or cryoablation, and hormone therapy.
And as for surgery, not just “remove the tumor”, but other options like radical prostatectomy, and even orchiectomy. Not many men will choose to have their testicles removed to stop them from feeding the prostate, but the point is that this book is comprehensive.
It’s asking whenever possible “is there another option?” and exploring all options, with information and without judgment, at each stage.
The writing style (likely co-author Worthington’s influence; she is an award-winning science-writer) is very “for the layman”, and that’s really helpful in demystifying a lot of what can be quite opaque in the field of oncology.
Bottom line: absolutely not an enjoyable read, but a potentially lifesaving one, especially given the odds we mentioned up top.
Click here to check out Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide To Surviving Prostate Cancer, and be prepared!
Share This Post
-
Older adults need another COVID-19 vaccine
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.
What you need to know
- The CDC recommends people 65 and older and immunocompromised people receive an additional dose of the updated COVID-19 vaccine this spring—if at least four months have passed since they received a COVID-19 vaccine.
- Updated COVID-19 vaccines are effective at protecting against severe illness, hospitalization, death, and long COVID.
- The CDC also shortened the isolation period for people who are sick with COVID-19.
Last week, the CDC said people 65 and older should receive an additional dose of the updated COVID-19 vaccine this spring. The recommendation also applies to immunocompromised people, who were already eligible for an additional dose.
Older adults made up two-thirds of COVID-19-related hospitalizations between October 2023 and January 2024, so enhancing protection for this group is critical.
The CDC also shortened the isolation period for people who are sick with COVID-19, although the contagiousness of COVID-19 has not changed.
Read on to learn more about the CDC’s updated vaccination and isolation recommendations.
Who is eligible for another COVID-19 vaccine this spring?
The CDC recommends that people ages 65 and older and immunocompromised people receive an additional dose of the updated COVID-19 vaccine this spring—if at least four months have passed since they received a COVID-19 vaccine. It’s safe to receive an updated COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna, or Novavax, regardless of which COVID-19 vaccines you received in the past.
Updated COVID-19 vaccines are available at pharmacies, local clinics, or doctor’s offices. Visit Vaccines.gov to find an appointment near you.
Under- and uninsured adults can get the updated COVID-19 vaccine for free through the CDC’s Bridge Access Program. If you’re over 60 and unable to leave your home, call the Aging Network at 1-800-677-1116 to learn about free at-home vaccination options.
What are the benefits of staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines?
Staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines prevents severe illness, hospitalization, death, and long COVID.
Additionally, the CDC says staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines is a safer and more reliable way to build protection against COVID-19 than getting sick from COVID-19.
What are the new COVID-19 isolation guidelines?
According to the CDC’s general respiratory virus guidance, people who are sick with COVID-19 or another common respiratory illness, like the flu or RSV, should isolate until they’ve been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication and their symptoms improve.
After that, the CDC recommends taking additional precautions for the next five days: wearing a well-fitting mask, limiting close contact with others, and improving ventilation in your home if you live with others.
If you’re sick with COVID-19, you can infect others for five to 12 days, or longer. Moderately or severely immunocompromised patients may remain infectious beyond 20 days.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Share This Post
-
Do You Have A Personalized Health Plan? (Here’s How)
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 health” is quite a broad umbrella, and while we all have a general idea of what “healthy” looks like, it’s easy to focus on some areas and overlook others.
Of course, how much one does this will still depend on one’s level of interest in health, which can change over the course of life, and (barring serious midlife health-related curveballs such as a cancer diagnosis or something) often looks like an inverse bell curve:
- As small kids, we probably barely thought about health
- As teenagers, we probably had a narrow view of health (often related to whatever is considered sexually attractive at the time)
- In our 20s, may have a bit of a health kick in which we learn and apply a lot… Which often then gets to later take a bit of a back seat to work responsibilities and so forth
- This is commonly followed by a few decades of just trying to make it to Friday by any means necessary (definite risk factor for substance abuse of various kinds), double if we have kids, triple if we have work, kids, and are also solely responsible for managing the household.
- Then just as suddenly as it is predictably, we are ambushed when approaching retirement age by a cluster of age-related increased health risks that we now get to do our best to mitigate—the focus here is “not dying early”. A lot of health education occurs at this time.
- Finally, upon retirement, we actually get the time to truly focus on our health again, and now it’s easier to learn about all aspects of health, even if now there’s a need to juggle many health issues all at once, most of which affect the others.
See also: How Likely Are You To Live To 100? ← in which we can also see a graph of 10almonds subscribers’ ages, consistent with the above
So, let’s recap, and personalize our health plan
There are often things we wish we could have focused on sooner, so now’s the time to figure out what future-you in your next decade (or later!) is going to thank you for having done now.
So, while 20-year-old us might have been focusing on fat levels or athletic performance, how much does that really help us now? (With apologies to any readers in their 20s, but also, with the bonus for you: now’s the perfect time to plan ahead!)
At 10almonds, while we cover very many health topics, we often especially focus on:
- Brain health
- Heart health
- Gut health
…because they affect everything else so much. We’ve listed them there in the order they appear in the body, but in fact it can be useful to view them upside down, because:
- Gut health is critical for good metabolic health (a happy efficient gut allows us to process nutrients, including energy, efficiently)
- Metabolic health is critical for good heart health (a nicely ticking metabolism will not strain our heart)
- Heart health is critical for good brain health (a strong heart will nourish the brain with well-oxygenated blood and the nutrients it also carries)
So, this isn’t a catch-22 at all! There is a clear starting point:
“How do I do the other bits, though?”
We have you covered here: Your Health Audit, From Head To Toe
“Wait, where’s the personalization?”
This comes once you’ve got those above things in order.
Hopefully you know what particular health risks you have—as in, particular to you.
First, you will have any current diagnoses, and a plan for treating those. Many chronic illnesses can be reversed or at least lessened with lifestyle changes, in particular, if we reduce chronic inflammation, which is implicated in countless chronic illnesses, and exacerbates most of the rest.
So: How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation
The same goes for any heightened risks you have as a result of those current diagnoses.
Next, you will have any genetic health risks—so here’s where genetic testing is a good one-shot tool, to get a lot of information all in one go.
Learn more: The Real Benefit Of Genetic Testing
…and then, of course, take appropriate steps to avoid suffering the things of which you are at increased genetic risk.
Finally, you will have any personal concerns or goals—in other words, what do you want to still be able to do, later in life? It’s easy to say “everything”, but what’s most important?
This writer’s example: I want to remain mobile, free from pain, and sharp of mind.
That doesn’t mean I’ll neglect the rest of my health, but it does mean that I will regularly weigh my choices against whether they are consistent with those three things.
As for how to plan for that?
Check out: Train For The Event Of Your Life! ← this one is mostly about the mobility aspect; staying free from pain is in large part a matter of avoiding inflammation which we already discussed, and staying sharp of mind relies on the gut-heart-brain pipeline we also covered.
You can also, of course, personalize your diet per which areas of health are the most important for you:
Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean (most anti-inflammatory, gut-healthiest, heart-healthiest, brain-healthiest)
Take care!
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
Life Is in the Transitions – by Bruce Feiler
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.
Change happens. Sometimes, because we choose it. More often, we don’t get a choice.
Our bodies change; with time, with illness, with accident or incident, or even, sometimes, with effort. People in our lives change; they come, they go, they get sick, they die. Our working lives change; we get a job, we lose a job, we change jobs, our jobs change, we retire.
Whether we’re undergoing cancer treatment or a religious conversion, whether our families are growing or down to the last few standing, change is inescapable.
Our author makes the case that on average, we each undergo at least 5 major “lifequakes”; changes that shake our lives to the core. Sometimes one will come along when we’ve barely got back on our feet from the previous—if we have at all.
What, then, to do about this? We can’t stop change from occurring, and some changes aren’t easy to “roll with”. Feiler isn’t prescriptive about this, but rather, descriptive:
By looking at the stories of hundreds of people he interviewed for this book, he looks at how people pivoted on the spot (or picked up the pieces!) and made the best of their situation—or didn’t.
Bottom line: zooming out like this, looking at many people’s lives, can remind us that while we don’t get to choose what winds we get swept by, we at least get to choose how we set the sails. The examples of others, as this book gives, can help us make better decisions.
Click here to check out Life Is In The Transitions, and get conscious about how you handle yours!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Older adults need another COVID-19 vaccine
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.
What you need to know
- The CDC recommends people 65 and older and immunocompromised people receive an additional dose of the updated COVID-19 vaccine this spring—if at least four months have passed since they received a COVID-19 vaccine.
- Updated COVID-19 vaccines are effective at protecting against severe illness, hospitalization, death, and long COVID.
- The CDC also shortened the isolation period for people who are sick with COVID-19.
Last week, the CDC said people 65 and older should receive an additional dose of the updated COVID-19 vaccine this spring. The recommendation also applies to immunocompromised people, who were already eligible for an additional dose.
Older adults made up two-thirds of COVID-19-related hospitalizations between October 2023 and January 2024, so enhancing protection for this group is critical.
The CDC also shortened the isolation period for people who are sick with COVID-19, although the contagiousness of COVID-19 has not changed.
Read on to learn more about the CDC’s updated vaccination and isolation recommendations.
Who is eligible for another COVID-19 vaccine this spring?
The CDC recommends that people ages 65 and older and immunocompromised people receive an additional dose of the updated COVID-19 vaccine this spring—if at least four months have passed since they received a COVID-19 vaccine. It’s safe to receive an updated COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna, or Novavax, regardless of which COVID-19 vaccines you received in the past.
Updated COVID-19 vaccines are available at pharmacies, local clinics, or doctor’s offices. Visit Vaccines.gov to find an appointment near you.
Under- and uninsured adults can get the updated COVID-19 vaccine for free through the CDC’s Bridge Access Program. If you’re over 60 and unable to leave your home, call the Aging Network at 1-800-677-1116 to learn about free at-home vaccination options.
What are the benefits of staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines?
Staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines prevents severe illness, hospitalization, death, and long COVID.
Additionally, the CDC says staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines is a safer and more reliable way to build protection against COVID-19 than getting sick from COVID-19.
What are the new COVID-19 isolation guidelines?
According to the CDC’s general respiratory virus guidance, people who are sick with COVID-19 or another common respiratory illness, like the flu or RSV, should isolate until they’ve been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication and their symptoms improve.
After that, the CDC recommends taking additional precautions for the next five days: wearing a well-fitting mask, limiting close contact with others, and improving ventilation in your home if you live with others.
If you’re sick with COVID-19, you can infect others for five to 12 days, or longer. Moderately or severely immunocompromised patients may remain infectious beyond 20 days.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Early Detection May Help Kentucky Tamp Down Its Lung Cancer Crisis
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.
Anthony Stumbo’s heart sank after the doctor shared his mother’s chest X-ray.
“I remember that drive home, bringing her back home, and we basically cried,” said the internal medicine physician, who had started practicing in eastern Kentucky near his childhood home shortly before his mother began feeling ill. “Nobody wants to get told they’ve got inoperable lung cancer. I cried because I knew what this meant for her.”
Now Stumbo, whose mother died the following year, in 1997, is among a group of Kentucky clinicians and researchers determined to rewrite the script for other families by promoting training and boosting awareness about early detection in the state with the highest lung cancer death rate. For the past decade, Kentucky researchers have promoted lung cancer screening, first recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in 2013. These days the Bluegrass State screens more residents who are at high risk of developing lung cancer than any state except Massachusetts — 10.6% of eligible residents in 2022, more than double the national rate of 4.5% — according to the most recent American Lung Association analysis.
The effort has been driven by a research initiative called the Kentucky LEADS (Lung Cancer Education, Awareness, Detection, and Survivorship) Collaborative, which in 2014 launched to improve screening and prevention, to identify more tumors earlier, when survival odds are far better. The group has worked with clinicians and hospital administrators statewide to boost screening rates both in urban areas and regions far removed from academic medical centers, such as rural Appalachia. But, a decade into the program, the researchers face an ongoing challenge as they encourage more people to get tested, namely the fear and stigma that swirl around smoking and lung cancer.
Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other malignancy, and the death rates are worst in a swath of states including Kentucky and its neighbors Tennessee and West Virginia, and stretching south to Mississippi and Louisiana, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s a bit early to see the impact on lung cancer deaths because people may still live for years with a malignancy, LEADS researchers said. Plus, treatment improvements and other factors may also help reduce death rates along with increased screening. Still, data already shows that more cancers in Kentucky are being detected before they become advanced, and thus more difficult to treat, they said. Of total lung cancer cases statewide, the percentage of advanced cases — defined as cancers that had spread to the lymph nodes or beyond — hovered near 81% between 2000 and 2014, according to Kentucky Cancer Registry data. By 2020, that number had declined to 72%, according to the most recent data available.
“We are changing the story of families. And there is hope where there has not been hope before,” said Jennifer Knight, a LEADS principal investigator.
Older adults in their 60s and 70s can hold a particularly bleak view of their mortality odds, given what their loved ones experienced before screening became available, said Ashley Shemwell, a nurse navigator for the lung cancer screening program at Owensboro Health, a nonprofit health system that serves Kentucky and Indiana.
“A lot of them will say, ‘It doesn’t matter if I get lung cancer or not because it’s going to kill me. So I don’t want to know,’” said Shemwell. “With that generation, they saw a lot of lung cancers and a lot of deaths. And it was terrible deaths because they were stage 4 lung cancers.” But she reminds them that lung cancer is much more treatable if caught before it spreads.
The collaborative works with several partners, including the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville, and GO2 for Lung Cancer, and has received grant funding from the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation. Leaders have provided training and other support to 10 hospital-based screening programs, including a stipend to pay for resources such as educational materials or a nurse navigator, Knight said. In 2022, state lawmakers established a statewide lung cancer screening program based in part on the group’s work.
Jacob Sands, a lung cancer physician at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, credits the LEADS collaborative with encouraging patients to return for annual screening and follow-up testing for any suspicious nodules. “What the Kentucky LEADS program is doing is fantastic, and that is how you really move the needle in implementing lung screening on a larger scale,” said Sands, who isn’t affiliated with the Kentucky program and serves as a volunteer spokesperson for the American Lung Association.
In 2014, Kentucky expanded Medicaid, increasing the number of lower-income people who qualified for lung cancer screening and any related treatment. Adults 50 to 80 years old are advised to get a CT scan every year if they have accumulated at least 20 pack years and still smoke or have quit within the past 15 years, according to the latest task force recommendation, which widened the pool of eligible adults. (To calculate pack years, multiply the packs of cigarettes smoked daily by years of smoking.) The lung association offers an online quiz, called “Saved By The Scan,” to figure out likely eligibility for insurance coverage.
Half of U.S. patients aren’t diagnosed until their cancer has spread beyond the lungs and lymph nodes to elsewhere in the body. By then, the five-year survival rate is 8.2%.
But regular screening boosts those odds. When a CT scan detects lung cancer early, patients have an 81% chance of living at least 20 years, according to data published in November in the journal Radiology.
Some adults, like Lisa Ayers, didn’t realize lung cancer screening was an option. Her family doctor recommended a CT scan last year after she reported breathing difficulties. Ayers, who lives in Ohio near the Kentucky border, got screened at UK King’s Daughters, a hospital in far eastern Kentucky. The scan didn’t take much time, and she didn’t have to undress, the 57-year-old said. “It took me longer to park,” she quipped.
She was diagnosed with a lung carcinoid tumor, a type of neuroendocrine cancer that can grow in various parts of the body. Her cancer was considered too risky for surgery, Ayers said. A biopsy showed the cancer was slow-growing, and her doctors said they would monitor it closely.
Ayers, a lifelong smoker, recalled her doctor said that her type of cancer isn’t typically linked to smoking. But she quit anyway, feeling like she’d been given a second chance to avoid developing a smoking-related cancer. “It was a big wake-up call for me.”
Adults with a smoking history often report being treated poorly by medical professionals, said Jamie Studts, a health psychologist and a LEADS principal investigator, who has been involved with the research from the start. The goal is to avoid stigmatizing people and instead to build rapport, meeting them where they are that day, he said.
“If someone tells us that they’re not ready to quit smoking but they want to have lung cancer screening, awesome; we’d love to help,” Studts said. “You know what? You actually develop a relationship with an individual by accepting, ‘No.’”
Nationally, screening rates vary widely. Massachusetts reaches 11.9% of eligible residents, while California ranks last, screening just 0.7%, according to the lung association analysis.
That data likely doesn’t capture all California screenings, as it may not include CT scans done through large managed care organizations, said Raquel Arias, a Los Angeles-based associate director of state partnerships at the American Cancer Society. She cited other 2022 data for California, looking at lung cancer screening for eligible Medicare fee-for-service patients, which found a screening rate of 1%-2% in that population.
But, Arias said, the state’s effort is “nowhere near what it needs to be.”
The low smoking rate in California, along with its image as a healthy state, “seems to have come with the unintended consequence of further stigmatizing people who smoke,” said Arias, citing one of the findings from a 2022 report looking at lung cancer screening barriers. For instance, eligible patients may be reluctant to share prior smoking habits with their health provider, she said.
Meanwhile, Kentucky screening efforts progress, scan by scan.
At Appalachian Regional Healthcare, 3,071 patients were screened in 2023, compared with 372 in 2017. “We’re just scratching the surface of the potential lives that we can have an effect on,” said Stumbo, a lung cancer screening champion at the health system, which includes 14 hospitals, most located in eastern Kentucky.
The doctor hasn’t shed his own grief about what his family missed after his mother died at age 51, long before annual screening was recommended. “Knowing that my children were born, and never knowing their grandmother,” he said, “just how sad is 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.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: