Simple, 10-Minute Hip Opening Routine
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Hips Feeling Stiff?
If so, Flow with Adee’s video (below) has just the solution with a quick 10-minute hip-opening routine. Designed for intermediates but open to all, we love Adee’s work and recommend that you reach out to her to tell her what you’d like to see next.
Other Methods
If you’re a book lover, we’ve reviewed a fantastic book on reducing hip pain. Alternatively, learn stretching from a ballerina with Jasmine McDonald’s ballet stretching routine.
Otherwise, enjoy today’s video:
How was the video? If you’ve discovered any great videos yourself that you’d like to share with fellow 10almonds readers, then please do email them to us!
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Evidence doesn’t support spinal cord stimulators for chronic back pain – and they could cause harm
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In an episode of ABC’s Four Corners this week, the use of spinal cord stimulators for chronic back pain was brought into question.
Spinal cord stimulators are devices implanted surgically which deliver electric impulses directly to the spinal cord. They’ve been used to treat people with chronic pain since the 1960s.
Their design has changed significantly over time. Early models required an external generator and invasive surgery to implant them. Current devices are fully implantable, rechargeable and can deliver a variety of electrical signals.
However, despite their long history, rigorous experimental research to test the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulators has only been conducted this century. The findings don’t support their use for treating chronic pain. In fact, data points to a significant risk of harm.
What does the evidence say?
One of the first studies used to support the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulators was published in 2005. This study looked at patients who didn’t get relief from initial spinal surgery and compared implantation of a spinal cord stimulator to a repeat of the spinal surgery.
Although it found spinal cord stimulation was the more effective intervention for chronic back pain, the fact this study compared the device to something that had already failed once is an obvious limitation.
Later studies provided more useful evidence. They compared spinal cord stimulation to non-surgical treatments or placebo devices (for example, deactivated spinal cord stimulators).
A 2023 Cochrane review of the published comparative studies found nearly all studies were restricted to short-term outcomes (weeks). And while some studies appeared to show better pain relief with active spinal cord stimulation, the benefits were small, and the evidence was uncertain.
Only one high-quality study compared spinal cord stimulation to placebo up to six months, and it showed no benefit. The review concluded the data doesn’t support the use of spinal cord stimulation for people with back pain.
What about the harms?
The experimental studies often had small numbers of participants, making any estimate of the harms of spinal cord stimulation difficult. So we need to look to other sources.
A review of adverse events reported to Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration found the harms can be serious. Of the 520 events reported between 2012 and 2019, 79% were considered “severe” and 13% were “life threatening”.
We don’t know exactly how many spinal cord stimulators were implanted during this period, however this surgery is done reasonably widely in Australia, particularly in the private and workers compensation sectors. In 2023, health insurance data showed more than 1,300 spinal cord stimulator procedures were carried out around the country.
In the review, around half the reported harms were due to a malfunction of the device itself (for example, fracture of the electrical lead, or the lead moved to the wrong spot in the body). The other half involved declines in people’s health such as unexplained increased pain, infection, and tears in the lining around the spinal cord.
More than 80% of the harms required at least one surgery to correct the problem. The same study reported four out of every ten spinal cord stimulators implanted were being removed.
Chronic back pain can be debilitating. CGN089/Shutterstock High costs
The cost here is considerable, with the devices alone costing tens of thousands of dollars. Adding associated hospital and medical costs, the total cost for a single procedure averages more than $A50,000. With many patients undergoing multiple repeat procedures, it’s not unusual for costs to be measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Rebates from Medicare, private health funds and other insurance schemes may go towards this total, along with out-of-pocket contributions.
Insurers are uncertain of the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulators, but because their implantation is listed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule and the devices are approved for reimbursement by the government, insurers are forced to fund their use.
Industry influence
If the evidence suggests no sustained benefit over placebo, the harms are significant and the cost is high, why are spinal cord stimulators being used so commonly in Australia? In New Zealand, for example, the devices are rarely used.
Doctors who implant spinal cord stimulators in Australia are well remunerated and funding arrangements are different in New Zealand. But the main reason behind the lack of use in New Zealand is because pain specialists there are not convinced of their effectiveness.
In Australia and elsewhere, the use of spinal cord stimulators is heavily promoted by the pain specialists who implant them, and the device manufacturers, often in unison. The tactics used by the spinal cord stimulator device industry to protect profits have been compared to tactics used by the tobacco industry.
A 2023 paper describes these tactics which include flooding the scientific literature with industry-funded research, undermining unfavourable independent research, and attacking the credibility of those who raise concerns about the devices.
It’s not all bad news
Many who suffer from chronic pain may feel disillusioned after watching the Four Corners report. But it’s not all bad news. Australia happens to be home to some of the world’s top back pain researchers who are working on safe, effective therapies.
New approaches such as sensorimotor retraining, which includes reassurance and encouragement to increase patients’ activity levels, cognitive functional therapy, which targets unhelpful pain-related thinking and behaviour, and old approaches such as exercise, have recently shown benefits in robust clinical research.
If we were to remove funding for expensive, harmful and ineffective treatments, more funding could be directed towards effective ones.
Ian Harris, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, UNSW Sydney; Adrian C Traeger, Research Fellow, Institute for Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney, and Caitlin Jones, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Real Way To Eat More Veg If You Don’t Like Veg
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.
Let us start by assuming you’re aware you can blend them into a soup. Juicing is also an option.
Turning vegetables into a liquid will keep most of their nutrients, but be aware that soup-ifying will lose some fiber, and juicing will lose all (or nearly all) of the fiber.
See also: Can you drink your fruit and vegetables? How does juice compare to the whole food?
If you do opt for juicing, please have it alongside something that’s not juice, because otherwise it will wreak havoc on your gut:
3 Day Juice Fasting? Not So Fast!
…not to mention your blood sugar levels:
Fruit Is Healthy; Juice Isn’t (Here’s Why)
For a deeper dive into the physiology of why that happens, check out: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
Ask yourself one question
No, this isn’t about whether you feel lucky. Rather, the question is:
Why don’t you like veg?
To be clear, this is not challenging you to justify your dislike. Your likes and dislikes require no justification; they simply are.
But! It is important, to be able to proceed with this, for you to understand what it is about veg that you don’t like.
- For some people it’s the flavors (in which case cooking vigorously will kill most flavors)
- For some it’s the lack of flavors (in which case, time to go light on the cooking, heavy on the seasoning)
- For some, it’s the textures (needing them to not be soft)
- For some, it’s the textures (needing them to not be varied)
- For some, it’s about needing to do too much prep (needing something easier)
With regard to “too much flavor”, as we say, that’s easy; just cook it more and the flavor will go. Yes, you’ll probably lose some nutrients too, but you’ll still get some.
With regard to “not enough flavor”, then by all means cook them less, where safely possible (for example, potatoes are poisonous raw, so please still cook those). See also:
Make Your Vegetables Work Better Nutritionally ← this is about which veg you should cook more or less or differently, for optimal nutrients
And to add the healthiest extra flavors of all: Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
With regard to needing them to not be soft, most are good raw, e.g. carrots, celery, bell peppers, cucumber, as some top items.
Remember also that salad doesn’t have to have soft leaves! You can make it out of anything you want; nobody can stop you!
See for example: Supergreen Superfood Salad Slaw ← so very crunchy!
If you are cooking, though, remember that you can choose vegetables will stay crunchy if cooked lightly (for example just quickly stir-frying), such as sugarsnap peas, cabbage, water chestnuts, Brussels sprouts (slice them!), bamboo shoots, etc.
With regard to needing the textures to not be varied, that usually means making them soft, and simply means cooking them generously. It’s possible that you might not like the smell of some vegetables while cooking (cruciferous vegetables are a common one for this complaint), so you might want to just skip those ones.
There are also ways of getting in things that are soft and homogenous without cooking, so such hummus, guacamole, and other similar dips!
With regard to needing it to require less prep, buy things ready-prepped as much as you can! Get in that frozen veg, or canned, it’s all good. Or even just ready-prepared stir-fry veg that you just need to toss into a wok.
We’ll tell you an extra secret: you can even literally just order take-out of your favorite vegetable dishes. Yes, there’ll probably be a bit more salt and maybe even sugar than you might use at home, but you’re getting vegetables in, and a positive attitude to diet (i.e., focusing on what to include, rather than what to exclude) will almost always result in the heathiest balance.
Also, getting things ready mixed (e.g. mixed frozen veg over separate) also cuts down on prep time and things you need to do. similarly, some of the things we mentioned earlier are zero-prep if bought ready-made, e.g. the hummus, guacamole, etc.
Still not a fan of veg?
All is not lost. As it turns out, fruit and vegetable extracts are still beneficial even in supplement form!
See: Are Fruit & Vegetable Extract Supplements Worth It?
Take care!
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Improving Women’s Health Across the Lifespan – by Dr. Michelle Tollefson et al.
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 say “et al.”, because this hefty book (504 pages) is a compilation of contributions by about 60 authors, of whom, 100% are doctors and about 90% are women.
As one might expect from a book with many small self-contained chapters by such a lot of doctors, the content is very diverse, though the style is consistent throughout, likely due to the authors working from a style sheet, plus the work of the editorial team.
About that content: the focus here is lifestyle medicine, and while much of the advice will go for men too (most people are unlikely to go wrong with “eat more fruits and vegetables and get better sleep” etc), anything more detailed than that (of which there’s a lot) is focussed on women. Hence, we get chapters on optimal nutrition for women, physical activity for women, sleep and women’s health, etc, as well as topics that can affect everyone but disproportionately affect women—ranging from autoimmune diseases to social burdens that affect health in measurable ways. There’s also, as you might expect, plenty about sexual health, pregnancy-related health, menopausal health, and so forth.
The strength of this book is really in its diversity; it’s very much a case of “60 heads are better than one”, and as such, we’re pretty much getting 60 books for the price of one here, as each author brings what they are most specialized in.
Bottom line: if you are a woman and/or love a woman, this book is packed with information that will be of interest and applicable use.
Click here to check out Improving Women’s Health Across The Lifespan, and do just that!
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Red Potatoes vs Russet Potatoes – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing red potatoes to russet potatoes, we picked the russet.
Why?
In terms of macros, russet potatoes have more fiber, carbs, and protein; the ratio of fiber and carbs also gives them the lower glycemic index*, so really, a complete win for russets in the macros category.
*Glycemic index of potatoes change a lot depending on what you do to them, but this statement (about russets having the lower GI) continues to hold true on a like-for-like basis, i.e. assuming we continue to compare the potatoes having been cooked the same way as each other. They’re poisonous raw, so please don’t eat them that way. We right now are looking at stats for potatoes “flesh and skin, baked“, which is generally considered the healthiest way to eat potatoes. Obviously, if you make them into mash then the glycemic index will be sky-high, and if you make them into fries they’ll now have lots of fat added, etc. So let’s just stick to the baked potatoes for now.
In the category of vitamins, red potatoes have more vitamin C, while russet potatoes have more vitamin B6. All the other minerals are close enough between both potatoes to be within reasonable margins of variation/error (in particular, they are both fair sources of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, and B9), so it’s really just between those two vitamins, so we’ll call this round a tie.
When it comes to minerals, red potatoes have more copper, phosphorus, and zinc, while russet potatoes have more calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, and potassium. Thus, a win for russets here.
Adding up the sections gives an overall win for russets, but by all means, enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Enjoy!
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Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Potassium
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Everybody knows we need potassium; not everybody knows why. In fact, there are a lot of things it does for us; we’ll let Harvard Health sum it up in few words:
❝Potassium is necessary for the normal functioning of all cells. It regulates the heartbeat, ensures proper function of the muscles and nerves, and is vital for synthesizing protein and metabolizing carbohydrates.❞
Read in full: Harvard Health | The Importance Of Potassium
However, we’re going to focus on one aspect of that:
When 0 K Is Not OK
Potassium (chemical symbol: K) helps regulate blood pressure by doing the opposite of what sodium does: high sodium intake increases blood volume and pressure by retaining fluid, while potassium promotes sodium excretion through urine, reducing fluid retention and lowering blood pressure.
Research has shown that increasing potassium intake can reduce systolic blood pressure by an average of 3.49 units, with even greater reductions (up to 7 units) at higher potassium intakes of 3,500–4,700 mg/day:
❝Increased potassium intake reduced systolic blood pressure by 3.49 (95% confidence interval 1.82 to 5.15) mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure by 1.96 (0.86 to 3.06) mm Hg in adults, an effect seen in people with hypertension but not in those without hypertension.
Systolic blood pressure was reduced by 7.16 (1.91 to 12.41) mm Hg when the higher potassium intake was 90-120 mmol/day, without any dose response.
Increased potassium intake had no significant adverse effect on renal function, blood lipids, or catecholamine concentrations in adults.
An inverse statistically significant association was seen between potassium intake and risk of incident stroke (risk ratio 0.76, 0.66 to 0.89).❞
Read in full: Effect of increased potassium intake on cardiovascular risk factors and disease: systematic review and meta-analyses
Note that the blood-pressure-lowering effect not being seen in people without hypertension is a good thing too; if your blood pressure is already healthy, you don’t want it to be lower!
For most people, though, the BP numbers could stand to be lower.
So, should I eat more bananas?
Potassium-rich foods include most fruit*, leafy greens, broccoli, lentils, and beans.
*because of some popular mentions in TV shows, people get hung up on bananas being a good source of potassium. Which they are, but they’re not even in the top 10 of fruits for potassium. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of fruits that have more potassium than bananas, portion for portion:
- Honeydew melon
- Papaya
- Mango
- Prunes
- Figs
- Dates
- Nectarine
- Cantaloupe melon
- Kiwi
- Orange
However, fruit is mostly water weight, and if we take the top-scorer from that list, the honeydew, we see that you’d need to eat 2kg of honeydew melon per day to get your ideal potassium needs met.
So, supplementation?
That’s probably a good idea for most people.
This is especially an issue because a lot of people take a daily “multivitamins and minerals” tablet, and figure it’ll cover whatever their diet misses.
That’s reasonable logic, but those kinds of supplements don’t usually have potassium, for the simple reason that to get even the low-end recommended daily amount (3.4g), then no matter how you slice it, you cannot fit 3.4g of potassium into a multivitamin tablet that weighs about 1g in total and has a lot of other things in there too. So, they usually just skip it entirely, or include a very tiny amount.
So, if you want to supplement, soluble powder is probably better than tablets; here’s an example product on Amazon—by all means feel free to shop around.
Additionally, you might want to consider, if you use salt in your cooking, switching sodium chloride (table salt, sea salt, rock salt, etc) for potassium chloride, which is also “salty” to the taste but has the double-effect of reducing your sodium intake while increasing your potassium intake.
“Low sodium salt” as sold in supermarkets is very often a mixture of sodium chloride and potassium chloride—check the labels, and try to choose one with a good potassium ratio.
See also: Why the WHO has recommended switching to a healthier salt alternative
Want to learn more?
Check out:
10 Ways To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally ← getting more potassium is #3 on the list!
Take care!
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How To Triple Your Chances Of Getting The “Razorblade Throat” COVID Variant Or Long COVID
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Well, that sounds like fun, doesn’t it? More formally known as variant NB.1.8.1, also called Nimbus (after the “NB” in its official name), comes under the Omicron variant umbrella, and is generally not nice.
Along with all the usual COVID symptoms, it is characterized by usually causing a razorblade sensation in the throat, along with gastrointestinal upset, including nausea and vomiting, which latter is probably the last thing you want if you have a “razorblade throat”.
Stats we know: in the US, it’s currently (at time of writing) the most popular variant, accounting for 43% of cases
Stats we don’t know: in the US, it’s currently (at time of writing) responsible for:
- a 21% increase in infections since the previous week
- a 40% increase in hospitalizations since the previous week
- a 36% decrease in deaths since the previous month
You may be wondering how we are giving numbers for what we said we don’t know. The answer is that COVID reporting is increasingly suffering from considerable reporting bias, that is to say, “it doesn’t count if we don’t count it”; low numbers look better for the government.
It’s the statistical equivalent of the old “if you need to use our accessible bathroom for disabled customers, please ask for the key at the desk upstairs” and then reporting that there was very low demand for it since almost nobody went upstairs to ask for the key.
Indeed, the above infection rate is generally being reported as, for example:
❝More of an uptick than a surge, the COVID case weekly positivity rate increased to 5.1% as of July 19, compared to 4.2% the week before, representing an increase of 0.3%, according to the CDC.❞
…and, that is mathematically very incorrect! A jump from 4.2 to 5.1 is not a 0.3% increase! It’s not even a 0.3 percentage points increase, it’s a 0.9 percentage points increase. Frankly, we don’t know where they got the 0.3% figure from, since the 0.9 percentage points increase can be arrived at easily by counting on one’s fingers.
As for the actual percentage increase:
- 4.2 is (of course) 100% of 4.2
- 5.1 is (grabbing a calculator) 121% of 4.2
- That is a 21% increase
…which is very different from the 0.3% increase claimed.
One important thing to understand before we get to tripling your chances of getting it
Remember when we said:
- a 40% increase in hospitalizations since the previous week
- a 36% decrease in deaths since the previous month
It’s easy to read that and think “ok, so, it’s less deadly, that’s at least one good thing”, and while there’s a logic to that… We would suggest that the death rate has gone down because the hospitalization rate has gone up, not because the variant is less deadly per se. Consider:
- You get a cough, it’s annoying, but whatever, you’re pretty sure it’s nothing. Then you can’t breathe, go to hospital, but it’s too late and you die.
- You get a cough, and nausea, and vomiting, and a razorblade throat. You go to hospital, get diagnosed, get treated, and you live.
So, the very unpleasant symptoms themselves are a protective factor, because it means you are more likely to go get treatment.
On which note…
How to triple your chances of getting it
Firstly we’ll note, the two (Omicron variant NB1.8.1, and long COVID) are linked, because higher survivorship rates mean higher long COVID rates (can’t get long COVID if you’re dead).
With that in mind, we’re going to talk about some long COVID research; just keep in mind that this new(ish) variant is more likely to produce long COVID than previous ones.
Researchers (Dr. Candace Feldman et al.) investigated social determinants of health that contribute both to infection rates and long COVID rates.
In few words: people facing financial hardship, food insecurity, limited healthcare access, low social/community support, crowded living conditions, or social disadvantages (e.g. being part of some socially marginalized demographic) are two to three times more likely to develop long COVID (it was already established that they were commensurately more likely to get infected in the first place).
This was arrived at by looking at 3,700 adults infected during the Omicron wave, tracking social risk factors at infection, and long COVID symptoms six months later. The significance of the data was high, and more social risk factors correlated with higher long COVID risk, even after adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity, disease severity, vaccination, and pregnancy status.
The researchers concluded that addressing social risk factors—like improving access to food, healthcare, and safe housing—may be essential to reducing long COVID burden.
You can read the paper here: Social Determinants of Health and Risk for Long COVID in the U.S. RECOVER-Adult Cohort
What this means for you: let us imagine that you, dear reader, are financially secure with good healthcare access, and generally not subject to most of the problems above.
You have to act like it!
So…
If you want to triple your chances of getting infected with the latest variant, if you want to triple your chances of getting long COVID, here’s how to do it:
- Do not get updated vaccinations, even if you have good healthcare access
- Spend time in crowded places, even if you can afford not to
- Eat unhealthily, even if you are not in food insecurity
It’s easy, but a lot of people don’t think about it!
Want to learn more?
Check out:
Why Some People Get Sick More (And How To Not Be One Of Them)
Take care!
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