Is A Visible Six-Pack Obtainable Regardless Of Genetic Predisposition?
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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 😎
❝Is it possible for anyone to get 6-pack abs (even if genetics makes it easier or harder) and how much does it matter for health e.g. waist size etc?❞
Let’s break it down into two parts:
Is it possible for anyone to get 6-pack abs (even if genetics makes it easier or harder)?
Short answer: no
First, a quick anatomy lesson: while “abs” (abdominal muscles) are considered in the plural and indeed they are, what we see as a six-pack is actually only one muscle, the rectus abdominis, which is nestled in between other abdominal muscles that are beyond the scope of our answer here.
The reason that the rectus abdominis looks like six muscles is because there are bands of fascia (connective tissue) lying over it, so we see where it bulges between those bands.
The main difference genes make are as follows:
- Number of fascia bands (and thus the reason that some people get a four-, six-, eight-, or rarely, even ten-pack). Obviously, no amount of training can change this number, any more than doing extra bicep curls will grow you additional arms.
- Density of muscle fibers. Some people have what has been called “superathlete muscle type”, which, while prized by Olympians and other athletes, is on bodybuilding forums less glamorously called being a “hard gainer”. What this means is that muscle fibers are denser, so while training will make muscles stronger, you won’t see as much difference in size. This means that size for size, the person with this muscle type will always be stronger than someone the same size without it, but that may be annoying if you’re trying to build visible definition.
- Twitch type of muscle fibers. Some people have more fast-twitch fibers, some have more slow-twitch fibers. Fast-twitch fibers are better suited for visible abs (and, as the name suggests, quick changes between contracting and relaxing). Slow-twitch fibers are better for endurance, but yield less bulky muscles.
- Inclination to subcutaneous fat storage. This is by no means purely genetic; hormones make the biggest difference, followed by diet. But, genes are an influencing factor, and if your body fat percentage is inclined to be higher than someone else’s, then it’ll take more work to see muscle definition under that fat.
The first of those items is why our simple answer is “no”; because some people are destined to, if muscle is visible, have a four-, eight, or (rarely) ten-pack, making a six-pack unobtainable.
It’s worth noting here that while a bigger number is more highly prized aesthetically, there is literally zero difference healthwise or in terms of performance, because it’s nothing to do with the muscle, and is only about the fascia layout.
The density of muscle fibers is again purely genetic, but it only makes things easier or harder; this part’s not impossible for anyone.
The inclination to subcutaneous fat storage is by far the most modifiable factor, and the thus most readily overcome, if you feel so inclined. That doesn’t mean it will necessarily be easy! But it does mean that it’s relatively less difficult than the others.
How much does it matter for health, e.g. waist size etc?
As you may have gathered from the above, having a six-pack (or indeed a differently-numbered “pack”, if that be your genetic lot) makes no important difference to health:
- The fascia layout is completely irrelevant to health
- The muscle fiber types do make a difference to athletic performance, but not general health when at rest
- The subcutaneous fat storage is a health factor, but probably not how most people think
Healthy body fat percentages are (assuming normal hormones) in the range of 20–25% for women and 15–20% for men.
For most people, having clearly visible abs requires going below those healthy levels. For most people, that’s not optimally healthy. And those you see on magazine covers or in bodybuilding competitions are usually acutely dehydrated for the photo, which is of course not good. They will rehydrate after the shoot.
However, waist size (especially as a ratio, compared to hip size) is very important to health. This has less to do with subcutaneous fat, though, and is more to do with visceral belly fat, which goes under the muscles and thus does not obscure them:
Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It
One final note: fat notwithstanding, and aesthetics notwithstanding, having a strong core is very good for general health; it helps keeps one’s internal organs in place and well-protected, and improves stability, making falls less likely as we get older. Additionally, having muscle improves our metabolic base rate, which is good for our heart. Abs are just one part of core strength (the back being important too, for example), but should not be neglected.
Top-tier exercises to do include planks, and hanging leg raises (i.e. hang from some support, such as a chin-up bar, and raise your legs, which counterintuitively works your abs a lot more than your legs).
Take care!
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Does Quitting Bread For 30 Days Trigger Weight Loss?
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Here’s what’s going on, physiologically:
On the rise
In few words: cutting bread for 30 days can lead to weight loss for some people, but the initial change is often more a matter of reduced water retention and bloating rather than immediate fat loss. In particular, it’s common for people feel lighter within the first week or so because reducing fermentable carbohydrates can decrease gas production and resultant digestive discomfort, especially in those with sensitive guts.
On which note…
About wheat components and tolerance: certain compounds in wheat—such as gluten, lectins, and phytates—don’t affect everyone the same way, but in those whose physiologies don’t handle them well, repeated exposure contributes to low-grade inflammation and/or mineral absorption issues, all of which can trigger feelings of sluggishness.
Speaking of feelings, it’s worth noting that digestion of gluten can produce peptides that mildly interact with opioid receptors, so temporary cravings during the first 1–2 weeks is generally a matter of neurobiological adaptation.
However, there are some more things to consider, for example: bread is primarily starch that rapidly converts to glucose, triggering insulin release, which means that reducing frequent refined carbohydrate exposure (i.e. most bread) will typically lower fasting insulin and improve blood sugar stability over time.
This is relevant also to the weight loss issue, because when insulin spikes happen less often, your body can more easily switch between burning glucose and stored fat.
In short, a 30-day break from bread can function as a short-term self-experiment to observe changes in energy, digestion, cravings, and possibly weight, but long-term metabolic health depends much more on overall dietary patterns than on any single food.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Grains: Bread Of Life, Or Cereal Killer?
Take care!
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Morin: Your Mouth’s New Best Friend
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.
There is a problem with most oral hygiene options, and the problem is, as Dr. Fernanda Brighenti explains:
❝We have a constant flow of saliva. We produce, on average, 1 milliliter of saliva per minute.
Anything we put in our mouths is quickly removed by saliva, especially because it has a smell and taste, which stimulates salivary flow.❞
“Anything we put in our mouths” includes oral hygiene products.
So, what to do about that?
The oral hygiene helper that sticks around
Dr. Brighenti and her team were investigating morin, a flavonoid found in guava leaves, apple peel, fig peel, teas, and almonds, for its antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties.
See also: Are You Getting The Right Kinds Of Flavonoids?
This is relevant, as gum disease is caused by bacterial biofilm buildup, and (inconveniently) current rinses to try to deduce that often have side effects (taste changes, tartar buildup, stains), and antibiotics are definitely not an option you want unless absolutely truly necessary.
See also: Antibiotics: Useful Even Less Often Than Previously Believed (And Still Just As Dangerous) ← includes, halfway down the article, the four ways that antibiotics can kill you!
What they discovered: dried morin powder can be added to oral hygiene products—and it works. Tests on multispecies bacterial biofilm showed strong antimicrobial action, and treated biofilms appeared less stained too.
See also: Make Your Saliva Better For Your Teeth
In the study, more things were tried too: encapsulation with sodium alginate and gellan gum improved solubility, stability, and adherence in the mouth despite saliva washout, but that’s certainly not something most of us can do at home unless we happen to live in a lab—is more something we can expect to see added to commercial products in the future.
What this means: per the researchers’ conclusions, morin provides a safe, natural, inexpensive alternative to antibiotics, and can reduce the side effects of existing treatments.
While this is great news for anyone who has teeth and would like to keep them*, it’s expected to be particularly useful for people with reduced motor skills (older adults, patients with special needs), and people who are sensitive to current oral hygiene products.
*That’s not the only reason, of course; the impact goes far beyond the teeth. Remember, for example, that periodontal disease is the sixth most common chronic condition worldwide; nearly half of the global population has oral disease, and none of us are immune (and it has big implications in turn for cardiovascular disease risk).
To read the paper in full, see: Anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antimicrobial evaluation of morin
Want to learn more?
We did a three-part series on oral hygiene:
- Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?
- Flossing, Better (And Easier!)
- Less Common Oral Hygiene Options ← this writer is personally a big fan of the miswak stick! While she wouldn’t want to replace the other options entirely, it’s a great quick-and-easy on-the-go way to give one’s teeth a quick clean after a coffee or snack or such, without having to go to a bathroom and use a toothbrush and toothpaste etc.
Take care!
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The Exercise That Protects Older Adults From Cancer
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The relationship between exercise and cancer has sometimes been laden with confusion, and in particular, it was long popularly believed that exercise accelerates cancer once it occurs, but now it seems that’s not the case.
You might have read about that, and specifically about how a research team (Dr. Alice Avancini et al.) analysed data from 22 randomized controlled trials (total n=968 participants) that investigated the effects of exercise on various pro-inflammatory biomarkers (mostly interleukin variants, but also c-reactive proteins) that are known to increase breast cancer reoccurrence risk.
What they found was:
❝Exercise induced small to large significant reductions in IL-6 (SMD = -0.85; 95% CI = -1.68 to -0.02; p = .05) and TNF-α (SMD = -0.40; 95% CI = -0.81 to 0.01; p = .05) and a trend for a decrease in CRP.
When stratifying by exercise mode, trends toward reduction in IL-6 and TNF-α were observed for combined exercise, whilst changes were not generally affected by exercise program duration❞
The “combined exercise” mentioned?
Aerobic exercise and resistance training.
This is important, because as regular 10almonds readers may remember…
What Your Metabolism Says About How Aggressive Cancer Is Likely To Be For You ← this makes a huge difference to survival chances
So, this study’s findings are very consistent with that, because:
- Aerobic training increases cardiovascular fitness, improving metabolism
- Resistance training increases muscle mass, improving metabolism*
*because muscle “costs” calories to maintain, prompting an increase in metabolism, whereas fat prompts our metabolism to slow, to conserve energy to face the obvious food shortage that must be coming
See also: Stop Cancer 20 Years Ago
Exercise & aging muscle
Yes, we said “older adults” specifically in the title, and now we’re getting to that part!
Most recently, another team of scientists (Dr. Jun Nishiyama et al.) that healthy skeletal* muscle acts as an anti-tumor organ, releasing tiny particles called extracellular vesicles (EVs) that help suppress the development of tumors.
*This means the muscles that move your skeleton, as opposed to different kinds of muscle such as, for example, the smooth muscle that operates the peristaltic motion of your intestines, or that forms the main part of the walls of your uterus (if you have one), or that wiggle your ears, and so forth.
As muscles age and lose mass (per sarcopenia), they produce fewer of these vesicles. The vesicles that are released also contain lower levels of a molecule (known as miR-7a-5p to its friends) that normally helps restrain tumor growth. As a result, aging muscle can lose a lot of its natural cancer-fighting ability.
The good news is that exercise appears to reverse part of this process. The researchers found that physical activity reactivates a biological pathway involved in EV production, restoring the release of protective signals from muscle.
In other words: exercise more (be it with aerobic activity or resistance training, though ideally both), and greatly reduce your risk of cancer.
You can find this paper in full, here: Sarcopenia promotes tumorigenesis by disrupting NOTCH-SDC2-regulated biogenesis of muscle-derived extracellular vesicles
Want to learn more?
You might like this excellent book we reviewed:
Moving Through Cancer – by Dr. Kathryn Schmitz
Take care!
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Tricks For Daily Life: The Art of Being Unflappable
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From Stoicism to CBT, thinkers through the ages have sought the unflappable life.
Today, in true 10almonds fashion, we’re going to distil it down to some concentrated essentials that we can all apply in our daily lives:
The Trickiest & Most Common/Impactful Cognitive Distortions To Catch (And Thus Avoid)
These are like the rhetorical fallacies with which you might be familiar (ad hominem, no true Scotsman, begging the question, tu quoque, straw man, etc), but are about what goes on between your own ears, pertaining to your own life.
If we learn about them and how to recognize them, however, we can catch them before they sabotage us, and remain “unflappable” in situations that could otherwise turn disastrous.
Let’s take a look at a few:
Catastrophizing / Crystal Ball
- Distortion: not just blowing something out of proportion, but taking an idea and running with it to its worst possible conclusion. For example, we cook one meal that’s a “miss” and conclude we are a terrible cook, and in fact for this reason a terrible housewife/mother/friend/etc, and for this reason everyone will probably abandon us and would be right to do so
- Reality: by tomorrow, you’ll probably be the only one who even remembers it happened
Mind Reading
- Distortion: attributing motivations that may or may not be there, and making assumptions about other people’s thoughts/feelings. An example is the joke about two partners’ diary entries; one is long and full of feelings about how the other is surely dissatisfied in their marriage, has been acting “off” with them all day, is closed and distant, probably wants to divorce, may be having an affair and is wondering which way to jump, and/or is just wondering how to break the news—the other partner’s diary entry is short, and reads “motorcycle won’t start; can’t figure out why”
- Reality: sometimes, asking open questions is better than guessing, and much better than assuming!
All-or-Nothing Thinking / Disqualifying the Positive / Magnifying the Negative
- Distortion: having a negative bias that not only finds a cloud in every silver lining, but stretches it out so that it’s all that we can see. In a relationship, this might mean that one argument makes us feel like our relationship is nothing but strife. In life in general, it may lead us to feel like we are “naturally unlucky”.
- Reality: those negative things wouldn’t even register as negative to us if there weren’t a commensurate positive we’ve experienced to hold them in contrast against. So, find and remember that positive too.
For brevity, we put a spotlight on (and in some cases, clumped together) the ones we think have the most bang-for-buck to know about, but there are many more.
So for the curious, here’s some further reading:
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How To Fix Wrist Pain
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.
A wrist injury can make so many everyday activities difficult, so it’s natural to want it back in working order as quickly as possible, and pain-free. Here’s how:
Rest *And* Exercise (But: Correctly)
The key is both resting and exercising the wrist, in the right ways.
First let’s understand what goes wrong: pain on the outer side of the wrist is often due to a Triangular Fibro-Cartilage Complex (TFCC) injury, a structure that stabilizes wrist joints during movements like pronation, supination, and displacement (i.e. normal movements in various directions). Injury usually results from compressive loading during ulnar deviation, forceful wrist extension, or impact (e.g. falls, hits, or repetitive sports motions like batting).
Now for how the problem is diagnosed: physiotherapists perform the “Piano Key Test” (pressing down the ulna styloid to check for pain) and for extra fun, the “Pain Reproduction Test” (compression and rotation of the wrist). You can see both of these in the video. As for why these tests are done, it’s because tendonitis of the wrist extensors must also be ruled out before confirming a TFCC injury.
Initial treatment (0–6 weeks): in the first week after injury, brace, protect, and ice the wrist. Healing may take 2 days to 6 weeks. During this time, keep fingers moving (e.g., finger opposition) and lightly load the wrist only with the palm facing inward (i.e. classic groceries-carrying position, or “farmer’s walk”) to prevent stiffness, while avoiding positions that could worsen the injury.
Post-acute care and mobility: once the pain and swelling subside, remove the brace and start gentle wrist stretches (flexion, extension, radial and ulnar deviation), but avoid pronation and supination initially to prevent re-injury (see video if unsure about these terms). Apply gentle heat to increase blood flow and promote recovery.
Long-term recovery and strengthening: if the pain persists, gently massage the ulnar side to reduce scar tissue buildup—stop if the pain worsens. Begin strengthening exercises using weights, resistance bands, or bottles to work on flexion, extension, and deviations (10 reps, 3 sets). Gradually reintroduce pronation and supination using a hammer, increasing resistance by adjusting your grip position (i.e. near the weight or nearer the other end, to make it easier or harder, respectively). Finish with grip strength exercises using a squishy ball (10–15 reps) to strengthen wrist muscles and tendons.
For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Yoga Wrist Strength – 5 Minute Wrist Exercise Routine ← for if your wrists are fine now and you’d like them to stay that way!
Take care!
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Chaga Mushrooms’ Immune & Anticancer Potential
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What Do Chaga Mushrooms Do?
Chaga mushrooms, which also go by other delightful names including “sterile conk trunk rot” and “black mass”, are a type of fungus that grow on birch trees in cold climates such as Alaska, Northern Canada, Northern Europe, and Siberia.
They’ve enjoyed a long use as a folk remedy in Northern Europe and Siberia, mostly to boost immunity, mostly in the form of a herbal tea.
Let’s see what the science says…
Does it boost the immune system?
It definitely does if you’re a mouse! We couldn’t find any studies on humans yet. But for example:
- Immunomodulatory Activity of the Water Extract from Medicinal Mushroom Inonotus obliquus
- Inonotus obliquus extracts suppress antigen-specific IgE production through the modulation of Th1/Th2 cytokines in ovalbumin-sensitized mice
(cytokines are special proteins that regulate the immune system, and Chaga tells them to tell the body to produce more white blood cells)
Wait, does that mean it increases inflammation?
Definitely not if you’re a mouse! We couldn’t find any studies on humans yet. But for example:
- Anti-inflammatory effects of orally administered Inonotus obliquus in ulcerative colitis
- Orally administered aqueous extract of Inonotus obliquus ameliorates acute inflammation
Anti-inflammatory things often fight cancer. Does chaga?
Definitely if you’re a mouse! We couldn’t find any studies in human cancer patients yet. But for example:
While in vivo human studies are conspicuous by their absence, there have been in vitro human studies, i.e., studies performed on cancerous human cell samples in petri dishes. They are promising:
- Anticancer activities of extracts and compounds from the mushroom Inonotus obliquus
- Extract of Innotus obliquus induces G1 cell cycle arrest in human colon cancer cells
- Anticancer activity of Inonotus obliquus extract in human cancer cells
I heard it fights diabetes; does it?
You’ll never see this coming, but: definitely if you’re a mouse! We couldn’t find any human studies yet. But for example:
- Anti-diabetic effects of Inonotus obliquus in type 2 diabetic mice
- Anti-diabetic effects of Inonotus obliquus in type 2 diabetic mice and potential mechanism
Is it safe?
Honestly, there simply have been no human safety studies to know for sure, or even to establish an appropriate dosage.
Its only-partly-understood effects on blood sugar levels and the immune system may make it more complicated for people with diabetes and/or autoimmune disorders, and such people should definitely seek medical advice before taking chaga.
Additionally, chaga contains a protein that can prevent blood clotting. That might be great by default if you are at risk of blood clots, but not so great if you are already on blood-thinning medication, or otherwise have a bleeding disorder, or are going to have surgery soon.
As with anything, we’re not doctors, let alone your doctors, so please consult yours before trying chaga.
Where can we get it?
We don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, here’s an example product on Amazon.
Enjoy!
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