It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

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 😎

❝I have a question about seafood as healthy, doesn’t eating shellfish contribute to gout?❞

It can do! Gout (a kind of inflammatory arthritis characterized by the depositing of uric acid crystals in joints) has many risk factors, and diet is one component, albeit certainly the most talked-about one.

First, you may be wondering: isn’t all arthritis inflammatory? Since arthritis is by definition the inflammation of joints, this is a reasonable question, but when it comes to classifying the kinds, “inflammatory” arthritis is caused by inflammation, while “non-inflammatory” arthritis (a slightly confusing name) merely has inflammation as one of its symptoms (and is caused by physical wear-and-tear). For more information, see:

• Tips For Avoiding/Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis ←inflammatory
• Tips For Avoiding/Managing Osteoarthritis ← “non-inflammatory”

As for gout specifically, top risk factors include:

• Increasing age: risk increases with age
• Being male: women do get gout, but much less often
• Hypertension: all-cause hypertension is the biggest reasonably controllable factor

There’s not a lot we can do about age (but of course, looking after our general health will tend to slow biological aging, and after all, diseases only care about the state of our body, not what the date on the calendar is).

As for sex, this risk factor is hormones, and specifically has to do with estrogen and testosterone’s very different effects on the immune system (bearing in mind that chronic inflammation is a disorder of the immune system). However, few if any men would take up feminizing hormone therapy just to lower their gout risk!

That leaves hypertension, which happily is something that we can all (barring extreme personal circumstances) do quite a bit about. Here’s a good starting point:

Hypertension: Factors Far More Relevant Than Salt

…and for further pointers:

How To Lower Your Blood Pressure (Cardiologists Explain)

As for diet specifically (and yes, shellfish):

The largest study into this (and thus, one of the top ones cited in a lot of other literature) looked at 47,150 men with no history of gout at the baseline.

So, with the caveat that their findings could have been different for women, they found:

• Eating meat in general increased gout risk
  • Narrowing down specific meats: beef, pork, and lamb were the worst offenders
• Eating seafood in general increased gout risk
  • Narrowing down specific seafoods: all seafoods increased gout risk within a similar range
  • As a specific quirk of seafoods: the risk was increased if the man had a BMI under 25
• Eating dairy in general was not associated with an increased risk of gout
  • Narrowing down specific dairy foods: low-fat dairy products such as yogurt were associated with a decreased risk of gout
• Eating purine-rich vegetables in general was not associated with an increased risk of gout
  • Narrowing down to specific purine-rich vegetables: no purine-rich vegetable was associated with an increase in the risk of gout

Dairy products were included in the study, as dairy products in general and non-fermented dairy products in particular are often associated with increased inflammation. However, the association was simply not found to exist when it came to gout risk.

Purine-rich vegetables were included in the study, as animal products highest in purines have typically been found to have the worst effect on gout. However, the association was simply not found to exist when it came to plants with purines.

You can read the full study here:

Purine-Rich Foods, Dairy and Protein Intake, and the Risk of Gout in Men

So, the short answer to your question of “doesn’t eating shellfish contribute to the risk of gout” is:

Yes, it can, but occasional consumption probably won’t result in gout unless you have other risk factors going against you.

If you’re a slim male 80-year-old alcoholic smoker with hypertension, then definitely do consider skipping the lobster, but honestly, there may be bigger issues to tackle there.

And similarly, obviously skip it if you have a shellfish allergy, and if you’re vegan or vegetarian or abstain from shellfish for religious reasons, then you can certainly live very healthily without ever having any.

See also: Do We Need Animal Products, To Be Healthy?

For most people most of the time, a moderate consumption of seafood, including shellfish if you so desire, is considered healthy.

As ever, do speak with your own doctor to know for sure, as your individual case may vary.

For reference, this question was surely prompted by the article:

Lobster vs Crab – Which is Healthier?

Take care!

It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

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 😎

❝What’s the science on “no poo”? Is it really better for hair? There are so many mixed reports out there.❞

First, for any unfamiliar: this is not about constipation; rather, it is about skipping shampoo, and either:

• Using an alternative cleaning agent, such as vinegar and/or sodium bicarbonate
• Using nothing at all, just conditioner when wet and brushing when dry

Let’s examine why the trend became a thing: the thinking went “shampoo does not exist in nature, and most of our body is more or less self-cleaning; shampoos remove oils from hair, and the body has to produce more sebum to compensate, resulting in a rapid cycle of dry and greasy hair”.

Now let’s fact-check each of those:

• shampoo does not exist in nature: true (except in the sense that everything that exists can be argued to exist in nature, since nature encompasses everything—but the point is that shampoo is a purely artificial human invention)
• most of our body is more or less self-cleaning: true, but our hair is not, for the same reason our nails are not: they’re not really a living part of the overall organism that is our body, so much as a keratinous protrusion of neatly stacked and hardened dead cells from our body. Dead things are not self-cleaning.
• shampoos remove oils from hair: true; that is what they were invented for and they do it well
• the body has to produce more sebum to compensate, resulting in a rapid cycle of dry and greasy hair: false; or at least, there is no evidence for this.

Our hair’s natural oils are great at protecting it, and also great at getting dirt stuck in it. For the former reason we want the oil there; for the latter reason, we don’t.

So the trick becomes: how to remove the oil (and thus the dirt stuck in it) and then put clean oil back (but not too much, because we don’t want it greasy, just, shiny and not dry)?

The popular answer is: shampoo to clean the hair, conditioner to put an appropriate amount of oil* back.

*these days, mostly not actually oil, but rather silicon-based substitutes, that do the same job of protecting hair and keeping it shiny and not brittle, without attracting so much dirt. Remember also that silicon is inert and very body safe; its molecules are simply too large to be absorbed, which is why it gets used in hair products, some skin products, and lube.

See also: Water-based Lubricant vs Silicon-based Lubricant – Which is Healthier?

If you go “no poo”, then what will happen is either you dry your hair out much worse by using vinegar or (even worse) bicarbonate of soda, or you just have oil (and any dirt stuck in it) in your hair for the life of the hair. As in, each individual strand of hair has a lifespan, and when it falls out, the dirt will go with it. But until that day, it’s staying with you, oil and dirt and all.

If you use a conditioner after using those “more natural” harsh cleaners* that aren’t shampoo, then you’ll undo a lot of the damage done, and you’ll probably be fine.

*in fact, if you’re going to skip shampoo, then instead of vinegar or bicarbonate of soda, dish soap from your kitchen may actually do less damage, because at least it’s pH-balanced. However, please don’t use that either.

If you’re going to err one way or the other with regard to pH though, erring on the side of slightly acidic is much better than slightly alkaline.

More on pH: Journal of Trichology | The Shampoo pH can Affect the Hair: Myth or Reality?

If you use nothing, then brushing a lot will mitigate some of the accumulation of dirt, but honestly, it’s never going to be clean until you clean it.

Our recommendation

When your hair seems dirty, and not before, wash it with a simple shampoo (most have far too many unnecessary ingredients; it just needs a simple detergent, and the rest is basically for marketing; to make it foam completely unnecessarily but people like foam, to make it thicker so it feels more substantial, to make it smell nice, to make it a color that gives us confidence it has ingredients in it, etc).

Then, after rinsing, enjoy a nice conditioner. Again there are usually a lot of unnecessary ingredients, but an argument can be made this time for some being more relevant as unlike with the shampoo, many ingredients are going to remain on your hair after rinsing.

Between washes, if you have long hair, consider putting some hair-friendly oil (such as argan oil or coconut oil) on the tips daily, to avoid split ends.

And if you have tight curly hair, then this advice goes double for you, because it takes a lot longer for natural oils to get from your scalp to the ends of your hair. For those of us with straight hair, it pretty much zips straight on down there within a day or two; not so if you have beautiful 4C curls to take care of!

For more on taking care of hair gently, check out:

Gentler Hair Care Options, According To Science

Take care!