Skin Care Down There (Incl. Butt Acne, Hyperpigmentation, & More)
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Dr. Sam Ellis, dermatologist, gives us the low-down:
Where the sun don’t shine
Common complaints and remedies that Dr. Ellis covers in this video include:
- Butt acne/folliculitis: most butt breakouts are actually folliculitis, not traditional acne. Folliculitis is caused by friction, sitting for long periods, or wearing tight clothes. Solutions include antimicrobial washes like benzoyl peroxide and changing sitting habits (i.e. to sit less)
- Keratosis pilaris: rough bumps around hair follicles can appear on the butt, often confused with acne.
- Boils and abscesses: painful, large lumps; these need medical attention for drainage.
- Hidradenitis suppurativa: recurrent painful cysts and boils in skin creases, often in the groin and buttocks. These require medical intervention and treatment.
- Ingrown hairs: are common in people who shave or wax. Treat with warm compresses and gentle exfoliants.
- Hyperpigmentation: is often caused by hormonal changes, friction, or other irritation. Laser hair removal and gentle chemical exfoliants can help.
In the event that the sun does, in fact, shine on your genitals (for example you sunbathe nude and have little or no pubic hair), then sun protection is essential to prevent further darkening (and also, incidentally, reduce the risk of cancer).
For more on all of this, plus a general introduction to skincare in the bikini zone (i.e. if everything’s fine there right now and you’d like to keep it that way), enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
The Evidence-Based Skincare That Beats Product-Specific Hype
Take care!
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High-Protein Paneer
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Paneer (a kind of Desi cheese used in many recipes from that region) is traditionally very high in fat, mostly saturated. Which is delicious, but not exactly the most healthy.
Today we’ll be making a plant-based paneer that does exactly the same jobs (has a similar texture and gentle flavor, takes on the flavors of dishes in the same way, etc) but with a fraction of the fat (of which only a trace amount is saturated, in this plant-based version), and even more protein. We’ll use this paneer in some recipes in the future, but it can be enjoyed by itself already, so let’s get going…
You will need
- ½ cup gram flour (unwhitened chickpea flour)
- Optional: 1 tsp low-sodium salt
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Whisk the flour (and salt, if using) with 2 cups water in a big bowl, whisking until the texture is smooth.
2) Transfer to a large saucepan on a low-to-medium heat; you want it hot, but not quite a simmer. Keep whisking until the mixture becomes thick like polenta. This should take 10–15 minutes, so consider having someone else to take shifts if the idea of whisking continually for that long isn’t reasonable to you.
3) Transfer to a non-stick baking tin that will allow you to pour it about ½” deep. If the tin’s too large, you can always use a spatula to push it up against two or three sides, so that it’s the right depth
3) Refrigerate for at least 10 minutes, but longer is better if you have the time.
4) When ready to serve/use, cut it into ½” cubes. These can be served/used now, or kept for about a week in the fridge.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
Take care!
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What Does “Balance Your Hormones” Even Mean?
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Hormonal Health: Is It Really A Balancing Act?
Have you ever wondered what “balancing your hormones” actually means?
The popular view is that men’s hormones look like this:
Testosterone (less) ⟷ Testosterone (more)
…And that women’s hormones look more like this:
♀︎ Estrogen ↭ Progesterone ⤵︎
⇣⤷ FSH ⤦ ↴ ☾ ⤹⤷ Luteinizing Hormone ⤦
DHEA ↪︎ Gonadotrophin ⤾
↪︎ Testosterone? ⥅⛢
Clear as mud, right?
But, don’t worry, Supplements McHerbal Inc will sell you something guaranteed to balance your hormones!
How can a supplement (or dietary adjustment) “balance” all that hotly dynamic chaos, and make everything “balanced”?
The truth is, “balanced” in such a nebulous term, and this is why you will not hear endocrinologists using it. It’s used in advertising to mean “in good order”, and “not causing problems”, and “healthy”.
In reality, our hormone levels depend on everything from our diet to our age to our anatomy to our mood to the time of the day to the phase of the moon.
Not that the moon has an influence on our physiology at all—that’s a myth—but you know, 28 day cycle and all. And, yes, half the hormones affect the levels of the others, either directly or indirectly.
Trying to “balance” them would be quite a game of whack-a-mole, and not something that a “cure-all” single “hormone-balancing” supplement could do.
So why aren’t we running this piece on Friday, for our “mythbusting” section? Well, we could have, but the more useful information is yet to come and will take up more of today’s newsletter than the myth-busting!
What, then, can we do to untangle the confusion of these hormones?
Well first, let’s understand what they do, in the most simple terms possible:
- Estrogen—the most general feminizing hormone from puberty onwards, busiest in the beginning of the menstrual cycle, and starts getting things ready for ovulation.
- Progesterone—secondary feminizing hormone, fluffs the pillows for the oncoming fertilized egg to be implanted, increases sex drive, and adjusts metabolism accordingly. Busiest in the second half of the menstrual cycle.
- Testosterone—is also present, contributes to sex drive, is often higher in individuals with PCOS. If menopause is untreated, testosterone will also rise, because there will be less estrogen
- (testosterone and estrogen “antagonize” each other, which is the colorfully scientific way of saying they work against each other)
- DHEA—Dehydroepiandrosterone, supports production of testosterone (and estrogen!). Sounds self-balancing, but in practice, too much DHEA can thus cause elevated testosterone levels, and thus hirsutism.
- Gonadotrophin—or more specifically human chorionic gonadotrophin, HcG, is “the pregnancy hormone“, present only during pregnancy, and has specific duties relating to such. This is what’s detected in (most) pregnancy test kits.
- FSH—follicle stimulating hormone, is critical to ovulation, and is thus essential to female fertility. On the other hand, when the ovaries stop working, FSH levels will rise in a vain attempt to encourage the ovulation that isn’t going to happen anymore.
- Luteinizing hormone—says “go” to the new egg and sends it on its merry way to go get fertilized. This is what’s detected by ovulation prediction kits.
Sooooooo…
What, for most women, most often is meant by a “hormonal imbalance” is:
- Low levels of E and/or P
- High levels of DHEA and/or T
- Low or High levels of FSH
In the case of low levels of E and/or P, the most reliable way to increase these is, drumroll please… To take E and/or P. That’s it, that’s the magic bullet.
Bonus Tip: take your E in the morning (this is when your body will normally make more and use more) take your P in the evening (it won’t make you sleepy, but it will improve your sleep quality when you do sleep)
In the case of high levels of DHEA and/or T, then that’s a bit more complex:
- Taking E will antagonize (counteract) the unwanted T.
- Taking T-blockers (such as spironolactone or bicalutamide) will do what it says on the tin, and block T from doing the jobs it’s trying to do, but the side-effects are considered sufficient to not prescribe them to most people.
- Taking spearmint or saw palmetto will lower testosterone’s effects
- Scientists aren’t sure how or why spearmint works for this
- Saw palmetto blocks testosterone’s conversion into a more potent form, DHT, and so “detoothes” it a bit. It works similarly to drugs such as finasteride, often prescribed for androgenic alopecia, called “male pattern baldness”, but it affects plenty of women too.
In the case of low levels of FSH, eating leafy greens will help.
In the case of high levels of FSH, see a doctor. HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) may help. If you’re not of menopausal age, it could be a sign something else is amiss, so it could be worth getting that checked out too.
What can I eat to boost my estrogen levels naturally?
A common question. The simple answer is:
- Flaxseeds and soy contain plant estrogens that the body can’t actually use as such (too incompatible). They’ve lots of high-quality nutrients though, and the polyphenols and isoflavones can help with some of the same jobs when it comes to sexual health.
- Fruit, especially peaches, apricots, blueberries, and strawberries, contain a lot of lignans and also won’t increase your E levels as such, but will support the same functions and reduce your breast cancer risk.
- Nuts, especially almonds (yay!), cashews, and pistachios, contain plant estrogens that again can’t be used as bioidentical estrogen (like you’d get from your ovaries or the pharmacy) but do support heart health.
- Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables support a lot of bodily functions including good hormonal health generally, in ways that are beyond the scope of this article, but in short: do eat your greens!
Note: because none of these plant-estrogens or otherwise estrogenic nutrients can actually do the job of estradiol (the main form of estrogen in your body), this is why they’re still perfectly healthy for men to eat too, and—contrary to popular “soy boy” social myths—won’t have any feminizing effects whatsoever.
On the contrary, most of the same foods support good testosterone-related health in men.
The bottom line:
- Our hormones are very special, and cannot be replaced with any amount of herbs or foods.
- We can support our body’s natural hormonal functions with good diet, though.
- Our hormones naturally fluctuate, and are broadly self-correcting.
- If something gets seriously out of whack, you need an endocrinologist, not a homeopath or even a dietician.
In case you missed it…
We gave a more general overview of supporting hormonal health (including some hormones that aren’t sex hormones but are really important too), back in February.
Check it out here: Healthy Hormones And How To Hack Them
Want to read more?
Anthea Levi, RD, takes much the same view:
❝For some ‘hormone-balancing’ products, the greatest risk might simply be lost dollars. Others could come at a higher cost.❞
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Blue Cheese vs Brunost – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing blue cheese to brunost, we picked the brunost.
Why?
First, for the unfamiliar, as brunost isn’t necessarily as popular as blue cheese in N. America where most of our readers are:
Brunost, literally “brown cheese” is a traditional Norwegian affair made from aggressively boiling milk, cream, and whey in an iron cauldron. Whereas the blue in blue cheese comes from mold, the brown in brown cheese comes from caramelizing the milk sugars in the cauldron. When we say “cauldron”, yes, there is nowadays mass-produced brunost that is no longer made in something that could be mistaken for a witch’s brew, but the use of cast iron is actually important to the process, and has been the subject of regulatory controversy in Norway; first the cast iron was abandoned, then because that changed the cheese they fortified the product with added iron supplementation, then that was banned, then they reversed it because it affected iron levels in the general population. Nowadays, it is usually made with iron, one way or another.
Ok, so let’s see how they stack up against each other:
In terms of macronutrients, the two cheeses are comparable in fat, but brunost has more carbs—because whereas bacteria (and to a lesser extent, the mold) ate nearly all the carbs in the blue cheese, the caramelization of the milk sugars in brunost meant the result stayed higher in carbs. Both are considered “low GI” foods, but this category is still at least a moderate win for blue cheese.
When it comes to vitamins, brunost is higher in vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B12, while blue cheese is higher in vitamin B9. In other words, a clear and easy win for brunost.
In the category of minerals, brunost has more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium. Meanwhile, blue cheese contains more zinc, although we can also mention that blue cheese has about 2x the sodium, which is generally not considered a benefit. The two cheeses are about equal in calcium and selenium. Adding these up makes for another clear and easy win for brunost.
In short, unless you are strongly avoiding [even low-GI foods’] carbs for some reason, brunost wins the day by virtue of its overwhelmingly better vitamin and mineral content.
Still, like most fermented dairy products, both cheeses can be enjoyed in moderation as part of a healthy diet (assuming you don’t have an allergy/intolerance).
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Take care!
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Related Posts
Boost Your Digestive Enzymes
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We’ll Try To Make This Easy To Digest
Do you have a digestion-related problem?
If so, you’re far from alone; around 40% of Americans have digestive problems serious enough to disrupt everyday life:
New survey finds forty percent of Americans’ daily lives are disrupted by digestive troubles
…which puts Americans just a little over the global average of 35%:
Mostly likely on account of the Standard American Diet, or “SAD” as it often gets abbreviated in scientific literature.
There’s plenty we can do to improve gut health, for example:
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
- How Much Difference Do Probiotic Supplements Make?
Today we’re going to be examining digestive enzyme supplements!
What are digestive enzymes?
Digestive enzymes are enzymes that break down food into stuff we can use. Important amongst them are:
- Protease: breaks down proteins (into amino acids)
- Amylase: breaks down starches (into sugars)
- Lipase: breaks down fats (into fatty acids)
All three are available as popular supplements to aid digestion. How does the science stack up for them?
Protease
For this, we only found animal studies like this one, but the results have been promising:
Amylase
Again, the studies for this alone (not combined with other enzymes) have been solely from animal agriculture; here’s an example:
The Effect of Exogenous Amylase Supplementation on the Nutritional Value of Peas
Lipase
Unlike for protease and amylase, now we have human studies as well, and here’s what they had to say:
❝Lipase supplementation significantly reduced stomach fullness without change of EGG.
Furthermore, lipase supplementation may be helpful in control of FD symptom such as postprandial symptoms❞
~ Dr. Seon-Young Park & Dr. Jong-Sun Rew
Read more: Is Lipase Supplementation before a High Fat Meal Helpful to Patients with Functional Dyspepsia?
(short answer: yes, it is)
More studies found the same, such as:
Lipase Supplementation before a High-Fat Meal Reduces Perceptions of Fullness in Healthy Subjects
All together now!
When we look at studies for combination supplementation of digestive enzymes, more has been done, and/but it’s (as you might expect) less specific.
The following paper gives a good rundown:
Pancrelipase Therapy: A Combination Of Protease, Amylase, & Lipase
Is it safe?
For most people it is quite safe, but if taking high doses for a long time it can cause problems, and also there may be complications if you have diabetes, are otherwise immunocompromised, or have some other conditions (listed towards the end of the above-linked paper, along with further information that we can’t fit in here).
As ever, check with your doctor/pharmacist if you’re not completely sure!
Want some?
We don’t sell them, but for your convenience, here’s an example product on Amazon that contains all three
Enjoy!
We’ll Try To Make This Easy To Digest
Do you have a digestion-related problem?
If so, you’re far from alone; around 40% of Americans have digestive problems serious enough to disrupt everyday life:
New survey finds forty percent of Americans’ daily lives are disrupted by digestive troubles
…which puts Americans just a little over the global average of 35%:
Mostly likely on account of the Standard American Diet, or “SAD” as it often gets abbreviated in scientific literature.
There’s plenty we can do to improve gut health, for example:
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
- How Much Difference Do Probiotic Supplements Make?
Today we’re going to be examining digestive enzyme supplements!
What are digestive enzymes?
Digestive enzymes are enzymes that break down food into stuff we can use. Important amongst them are:
- Protease: breaks down proteins (into amino acids)
- Amylase: breaks down starches (into sugars)
- Lipase: breaks down fats (into fatty acids)
All three are available as popular supplements to aid digestion. How does the science stack up for them?
Protease
For this, we only found animal studies like this one, but the results have been promising:
Amylase
Again, the studies for this alone (not combined with other enzymes) have been solely from animal agriculture; here’s an example:
The Effect of Exogenous Amylase Supplementation on the Nutritional Value of Peas
Lipase
Unlike for protease and amylase, now we have human studies as well, and here’s what they had to say:
❝Lipase supplementation significantly reduced stomach fullness without change of EGG.
Furthermore, lipase supplementation may be helpful in control of FD symptom such as postprandial symptoms❞
~ Dr. Seon-Young Park & Dr. Jong-Sun Rew
Read more: Is Lipase Supplementation before a High Fat Meal Helpful to Patients with Functional Dyspepsia?
(short answer: yes, it is)
More studies found the same, such as:
Lipase Supplementation before a High-Fat Meal Reduces Perceptions of Fullness in Healthy Subjects
All together now!
When we look at studies for combination supplementation of digestive enzymes, more has been done, and/but it’s (as you might expect) less specific.
The following paper gives a good rundown:
Pancrelipase Therapy: A Combination Of Protease, Amylase, & Lipase
Is it safe?
For most people it is quite safe, but if taking high doses for a long time it can cause problems, and also there may be complications if you have diabetes, are otherwise immunocompromised, or have some other conditions (listed towards the end of the above-linked paper, along with further information that we can’t fit in here).
As ever, check with your doctor/pharmacist if you’re not completely sure!
Want some?
We don’t sell them, but for your convenience, here’s an example product on Amazon that contains all three
Enjoy!
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:
The Telomere Effect – by Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn and Dr. Elissa Epel
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.
Telomeres can be pretty mystifying to the person with a lay interest in longevity. Beyond “they’re the little caps that sit on the end of your DNA, and longer is better, and when they get short, damage occurs, and aging”, how do they fit into the big picture?
Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn and Dr. Elissa Epel excel at explaining the marvelous world of telomeres…
- how they work
- what affects them
- and how and why
…and the extent to which changes are or aren’t reversible.
For some of us, the ship has sailed on avoiding a lot of early-life damage to our telomeres, and now we have a damage-mitigation task ahead. That’s where the authors get practical.
Indeed, the whole third part of the book is titled “Help Your Body Protect Its Cells“, and indeed covers not just “from now on” protection, but undoing some of the damage already done (yes, telomeres can be lengthened—it gets harder as we get older, but absolutely can be done).
In short: if you’d like to avoid further damage to your telomeres where possible, and reverse some of the damage done already, this book will set you on the right track.
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:
Healthy Mind In A Healthy Body
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.
The 8-minute piece of music “Weightless” by Marconi was created scientifically to lower the heart rate and relax the listener. How did they do it? You can read the British Academy of Sound Therapy’s explanation of the methodology here, but important results of the study were:
- “Weightless” was able to induce greater relaxation levels than a massage (increase of 6%).
- “Weightless” also induced an 11% increase in relaxation over all other relaxing music tracks in the study.
- “Weightless” was also subjectively rated as more relaxing than any other music by all the participants.
Try it for yourself!
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Isn’t that better? Whenever you’re ready, read on…
Today we’re going to share a technique for dealing with difficult emotions. The technique is used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and it’s called RAIN:
- Recognizing: ask yourself “what is it that I’m feeling?”, and put a name to it. It could be anger, despair, fear, frustration, anxiety, overwhelm etc.
- Accepting: “OK, so, I’m feeling ________”. There’s no point in denying it, or being defensive about it, these things won’t help you. For now, just accept it.
- Investigating: “Why am I feeling ________?” Maybe there is an obvious reason, maybe you need to dig for a reason—or dig deeper for the real reason. Most bad feelings are driven by some sort of fear or insecurity, so that can be a good avenue for examination. Important: your feelings may be rational or irrational. That’s fine. This is a time for investigating, not judging.
- Non-Identification: not making whatever it is you’re feeling into a part of you. Once you get too attached to “I am jealous”, “I am angry”, “I am sad” etc, it can be difficult to manage something that has become a part of your personality; you’ll defend your jealousy, anger, sadness etc rather than tackle it.
As a CBT tool, this is something you can do for yourself at any time. It won’t magically solve your problems, but it can stop you from spiralling into a state of crisis, and get you back on a more useful track.
As a DBT tool, to give this its full strength, ideally now you will communicate what you’re feeling, to somebody you trust, perhaps a partner or friend, for instance.
Humans are fundamentally social creatures, and we achieve our greatest strengths when we support each other—and that also means sometimes seeking and accepting support!
Do you have a good technique you’d like to share? Reply to this email and let us know!
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:
