Small Changes For A Healthier Life
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
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 am interested in what I can substitute for ham in bean soup?
Well, that depends on what the ham was like! You can certainly buy ready-made vegan lardons (i.e. small bacon/ham bits, often in tiny cubes or similar) in any reasonably-sized supermarket. Being processed, they’re not amazing for the health, but are still an improvement on pork.
Alternatively, you can make your own seitan! Again, seitan is really not a health food, but again, it’s still relatively less bad than pork (unless you are allergic to gluten, in which case, definitely skip this one).
Alternatively alternatively, in a soup that already contains beans (so the protein element is already covered), you could just skip the ham as an added ingredient, and instead bring the extra flavor by means of a little salt, a little yeast extract (if you don’t like yeast extract, don’t worry, it won’t taste like it if you just use a teaspoon in a big pot, or half a teaspoon in a smaller pot), and a little smoked paprika. If you want to go healthier, you can swap out the salt for MSG, which enhances flavor in a similar fashion while containing less sodium.
Wondering about the health aspects of MSG? Check out our main feature on this, from last month:
I thoroughly enjoy your daily delivery. I’d love to see one for teens too!
That’s great to hear! The average age of our subscribers is generally rather older, but it’s good to know there’s an interest in topics for younger people. We’ll bear that in mind, and see what we can do to cater to that without alienating our older readers!
That said: it’s never too soon to be learning about stuff that affects us when we’re older—there are lifestyle factors at 20 that affect Alzheimer’s risk at 60, for example (e.g. drinking—excessive drinking at 20* is correlated to higher Alzheimer’s risk at 60).
*This one may be less of an issue for our US readers, since the US doesn’t have nearly as much of a culture of drinking under 21 as some places. Compare for example with general European practices of drinking moderately from the mid-teens, or the (happily, diminishing—but historically notable) British practice of drinking heavily from the mid-teens.
How much turmeric should I take each day?
Dr. Michael Greger’s research (of “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen” and “How Not To Die” fame) recommends getting at least ¼ tsp turmeric per day
Remember to take it with black pepper though, for a 2000% absorption bonus!
A great way to get it, if you don’t want to take capsules and don’t want to eat spicy food every day, is to throw a teaspoon of turmeric in when making a pot of (we recommend wholegrain!) rice. Turmeric is very water-soluble, so it’ll be transferred into the rice easily during cooking. It’ll make the rice a nice golden yellow color, and/but won’t noticeably change the taste.
Again remember to throw in some black pepper, and if you really want to boost the nutritional content,some chia seeds are a great addition too (they’ll get cooked with the rice and so it won’t be like eating seeds later, but the nutrients will be there in the rice dish).
You can do the same with par-boiled potatoes or other root vegetables, but because cooking those has water to be thrown away at the end (unlike rice), you’ll lose some turmeric in the water.
Request: more people need to be aware of suicidal tendencies and what they can do to ward them off
That’s certainly a very important topic! We’ll cover that properly in one of our Psychology Sunday editions. In the meantime, we’ll mention a previous special that we did, that was mostly about handling depression (in oneself or a loved one), and obviously there’s a degree of crossover:
The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
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Do You Believe In Magic? – by Dr. Paul Offit
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Here at 10almonds, we like to examine and present the science wherever it leads, so this book was an interesting read.
Dr. Offit, himself a much-decorated vaccine research scientist, and longtime enemy of the anti-vax crowd, takes aim at alternative therapies in general, looking at what does work (and how), and what doesn’t (and what harm it can cause).
The style of the book is largely polemic in tone, but there’s lots of well-qualified information and stats in here too. And certainly, if there are alternative therapies you’ve left unquestioned, this book will probably prompt questions, at the very least.
And science, of course, is about asking questions, and shouldn’t be afraid of such! Open-minded skepticism is a key starting point, while being unafraid to actually reach a conclusion of “this is probably [not] so”, when and if that’s where the evidence brings us. Then, question again when and if new evidence comes along.
To that end, Dr. Offit does an enthusiastic job of looking for answers, and presenting what he finds.
If the book has downsides, they are primarily twofold:
- He is a little quick to dismiss the benefits of a good healthy diet, supplemented or otherwise.
- His keenness here seems to step from a desire to ensure people don’t skip life-saving medical treatments in the hope that their diet will cure their cancer (or liver disease, or be it what it may), but in doing so, he throws out a lot of actually good science.
- He—strangely—lumps menopausal HRT in with alternative therapies, and does the exact same kind of anti-science scaremongering that he rails against in the rest of the book.
- In his defence, this book was published ten years ago, and he may have been influenced by a stack of headlines at the time, and a popular celebrity endorsement of HRT, which likely put him off it.
Bottom line: there’s something here to annoy everyone—which makes for stimulating reading.
Click here to check out Do You Believe In Magic, and expand your knowledge!
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- He is a little quick to dismiss the benefits of a good healthy diet, supplemented or otherwise.
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What’s the difference between miscarriage and stillbirth?
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’s the difference? is a new editorial product that explains the similarities and differences between commonly confused health and medical terms, and why they matter.
Former US First Lady Michelle Obama revealed in her memoir she had a miscarriage. UK singer-songwriter and actor Lily Allen has gone on the record about her stillbirth.
Both miscarriage and stillbirth are sadly familiar terms for pregnancy loss. They can be traumatic life events for the prospective parents and family, and their impacts can be long-lasting. But the terms can be confused.
Here are some similarities and differences between miscarriage and stillbirth, and why they matter.
christinarosepix/Shutterstock Let’s start with some definitions
In broad terms, a miscarriage is when a pregnancy ends while the fetus is not yet viable (before it could survive outside the womb).
This is the loss of an “intra-uterine” pregnancy, when an embryo is implanted in the womb to then develop into a fetus. The term miscarriage excludes ectopic pregnancies, where the embryo is implanted outside the womb.
However, stillbirth refers to the end of a pregnancy when the fetus is normally viable. There may have been sufficient time into the pregnancy. Alternatively, the fetus may have grown large enough to be normally expected to survive, but it dies in the womb or during delivery.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare defines stillbirth as a fetal death of at least 20 completed weeks of gestation or with a birthweight of at least 400 grams.
Internationally, definitions of stillbirth vary depending on the jurisdiction.
How common are they?
It is difficult to know how common miscarriages are as they can happen when a woman doesn’t know she is pregnant. There may be no obvious symptoms or something that looks like a heavier-than-normal period. So miscarriages are likely to be more common than reported.
Studies from Europe and North America suggest a miscarriage occurs in about one in seven pregnancies (15%). More than one in eight women (13%) will have a miscarriage at some time in her life.
Around 1–2% of women have recurrent miscarriages. In Australia this is when someone has three or more miscarriages with no pregnancy in between.
Australia has one of the lowest rates of stillbirth in the world. The rate has been relatively steady over the past 20 years at 0.7% or around seven per 1,000 pregnancies.
Who’s at risk?
Someone who has already had a miscarriage or stillbirth has an increased risk of that outcome again in a subsequent pregnancy.
Compared with women who have had a live birth, those who have had a stillbirth have double the risk of another. For those who have had recurrent miscarriages, the risk of another miscarriage is four-fold higher.
Some factors have a u-shaped relationship, with the risk of miscarriage and stillbirth lowest in the middle.
For instance, maternal age is a risk factor for both miscarriage and stillbirth, especially if under 20 years old or older than 35. Increasing age of the male is only a risk factor for stillbirth, especially for fathers over 40.
An older dad can be a risk factor for stillbirth, but not miscarriage. Elizaveta Galitckaia/Shutterstock Similarly for maternal bodyweight, women with a body mass index or BMI in the normal range have the lowest risk of miscarriage and stillbirth compared with those in the obese or underweight categories.
Lifestyle factors such as smoking and heavy alcohol drinking while pregnant are also risk factors for both miscarriage and stillbirth.
So it’s important to not only avoid smoking and alcohol while pregnant, but before getting pregnant. This is because early in the pregnancy, women may not know they have conceived and could unwittingly expose the developing fetus.
Why do they happen?
Miscarriage often results from chromosomal problems in the developing fetus. However, genetic conditions or birth defects account for only 7-14% of stillbirths.
Instead, stillbirths often relate directly to pregnancy complications, such as a prolonged pregnancy or problems with the umbilical cord.
Maternal health at the time of pregnancy is another contributing factor in the risk of both miscarriage and stillbirths.
Chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid), polycystic ovary syndrome, problems with the immune system (such as an autoimmune disorder), and some bacterial and viral infections are among factors that can increase the risk of miscarriage.
Similarly mothers with diabetes, high blood pressure, and untreated infections, such as malaria or syphilis, face an increased risk of stillbirth.
In many cases, however, the specific cause of pregnancy loss is not known.
How about the long-term health risks?
Miscarriage and stillbirth can be early indicators of health issues later in life.
For instance, women who have had recurrent miscarriages or recurrent stillbirths are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease (such as heart disease or stroke).
Our research has also looked at the increased risk of stroke. Compared with women who had never miscarried, we found women with a history of three or more miscarriages had a 35% higher risk of non-fatal stroke and 82% higher risk of fatal stroke.
Women who had a stillbirth had a 31% higher risk of a non-fatal stroke, and those who had had two or more stillbirths were at a 26% higher risk of a fatal stroke.
We saw similar patterns in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD, a progressive lung disease with respiratory symptoms such as breathlessness and coughing.
Our data showed women with a history of recurrent miscarriages or stillbirths were at a 36% or 67% higher risk of COPD, respectively, even after accounting for a history of asthma.
Long-term health risks of recurrent miscarriages or stillbirths include developing lung disease later in life. PRPicturesProduction/Shutterstock Why is all this important?
Being well-informed about the similarities and differences between these two traumatic life events may help explain what has happened to you or a loved one.
Where risk factors can be modified, such as smoking and obesity, this information can be empowering for individuals who wish to reduce their risk of miscarriage and stillbirth and make lifestyle changes before they become pregnant.
More information and support about miscarriage and stillbirth is available from SANDS and Pink Elephants.
Gita Mishra, Professor of Life Course Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland; Chen Liang, PhD student, reproductive history and non-communicable diseases in women, The University of Queensland, and Jenny Doust, Clinical Professorial Research Fellow, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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How To Rest More Efficiently (Yes, Really)
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How To Rest More Efficiently (Yes, Really)
We’ve talked before about how to recover more quickly after a workout, especially if you overdid it. There are a lot of tips in that article, so by all means check it out if you didn’t catch it at the time!
That was very specific to recovering from exercise, though. Today we’re looking at something a little different, a little more holistic.
You’re busier than you think
Maybe your life is an obvious blur of busy-ness. Maybe it’s not. But either way, you’re almost certainly busier than you think. Especially on a cellular level.
Your resting metabolic rate (RMR), or how many calories you burn while at rest (i.e., calories used just to keep you alive) will depend on various factors including age, sex, weight, body composition, and other things.
That said, it’ll probably be between 1000 and 2000 calories per day. You can get a rough idea of what it might be for you, using this calculator:
How Many Calories Do You Burn a Day at Rest (Doing Nothing)?
So if ever you wonder why you feel so exhausted, despite having done nothing, it could be that your body was busy:
- Metabolizing, generally (did you have a big meal?)
- Fighting an illness (bacterial or viral infection, for example)
- Fighting an imaginary illness and creating a real one in the process (stress, inflammation, etc)
- Recovering/rebuilding from something you did yesterday or even before that
- Thinking (your brain is your largest organ by mass, and consumes the most calories by far)
Your brain does not get a free pass on being part of your body! Just like if a certain muscle group were working out constantly for 16 hours you’d be feeling pretty tired, the same goes for the organ that is your brain, if it’s been working out constantly.
Your body is a composite organism—take advantage of that
Dolphins can shut down half of their brain at once, to let each hemisphere of the brain sleep independently in shifts. We (except in the case of split brain patients, where the corpus callosum has been severed) can’t do that, but we can let different parts of the organism that is our body work in shifts.
This is the real meaning of “a change is as a good as a rest”:
If you’ve been doing cognitive work (at your desk perhaps, maybe managing a spreadsheet, say), then taking a break to do crosswords will not, actually, give you break. Because you’re still sitting manipulating letters and numbers. As far as your brain (still having to do work!) is concerned, it’s basically the same. Nor will checking out social media; you’re still sitting examining a screen.
Instead, time to get physically active. Literally just doing the washing up would be a better break! Some yoga or Pilates would be perfect.
In contrast, if you’ve been doing a vigorous bit of gardening, then for example taking a break to lift weights isn’t going to be a break, because again you just switched to a similar task.
Better to pick up that book you’ve been meaning to read, or the crosswords we mentioned earlier. Or just lounge in your nicely-gardened garden.
The important thing is: to not require the same resources from the body (including the brain, it’s still part of the body) that you have been.
For more specific tips than we have room for here today, check out:
How to Take Better Breaks at Work, According to Research
Give your metabolism a break too
Not completely—you don’t need to be put into cryostasis or anything.
But, give your metabolism a rest, in relative terms. Intermittent fasting is great for precisely this; it lets your body rest and reset.
See: Intermittent Fasting: we sort the science from the hype!
So does the practice of meditation, by the way. You don’t have to get fancy with it, either:
Check out: No Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
Enjoy, and rest well!
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I Contain Multitudes – by Ed Yong
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A little while back we reviewed a book (Planet of Viruses) about the role of viruses in our lives, beyond the obvious. Today’s book gives the same treatment to microbes in general—mostly bacteria.
We all know about pathogens, and we all know about gut microbiota and that some (hopefully the majority) there are good for our health. This book covers those things too, but also much more.
Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Ed Yong takes a big picture view (albeit, of some very small things) and looks at the many ways microbes keep us alive, directly or indirectly. From the microbes that convert certain proteins in breast milk into a form that babies can digest (yes, this means we produce nutrients in breast milk that have been evolved solely to feed that bacterium), to those without which agriculture would simply not work, we’re brought to realize how much our continued existence is contingent on our trillions of tiny friends.
The style throughout is easy-reading pop-science, very accessible. There’s also plenty in terms of practical take-away value, when it comes to adjusting our modern lives to better optimize the benefits we get from microbes—inside and out.
Bottom line: if you’d like to learn about the role of microbes in our life beyond “these ones are pathogens” and “these ones help our digestion”, this is the book for you.
Click here to check out I Contain Multitudes, and learn more about yours and those around you!
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The Whole Heart Solution – by Dr. Joel Kahn
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If there’s a single central focus here is on the evidence for including a lot of plants in our diet, and in particular, certain ones that are particularly impactful (positively) for our health. However, it’s not all about diet; Dr. Kahn also discusses (as the subtitle suggests) making the most of every safe, useful tool available for us for good heart health. Including, where appropriate, drugs and surgery, but definitely with a preference to avoid their necessity with lifestyle adjustments and regular pre-emptive testing of various kinds.
Indeed, the promised “75 low-cost things you can do right away” are mostly lifestyle adjustments, and as well as the dietary tips, they include non-dietary things such as opening your windows and walking barefoot, for example—we’ll learn tips relating to all areas of life, in fact.
An interesting note on diet, though: he also talks about how all requests for reimbursement for Medicare and Medicaid services are evaluated with regard to whether they are appropriate, and of all the programs for intensive cardiac rehabilitation that have been requested, only two have been approved (at time of going to press, at least). Both are plan-based programs, of which, one is the dietary approach described in this book. Bearing in mind that Medicare and Medicate have a mandate to save money, they will only approve a program that results in costing them less in hospital care and prescriptions. Which means that their interests are aligned with yours, in this case!
The style is enthusiastic pop science, that is to say, it is written with extreme conviction—there is plenty of science cited to back it up, of course, but certainly this is not an indifferent book.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your heart health, this book is a top-tier one-stop solution (if you implement its contents, anyway!)
Click here to check out the Whole Heart Solution, and live wholeheartedly!
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100,000 People, 30 Years, One Clear Winner vs Aging
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Generally speaking, the scientific community most highly lauds the Mediterranean diet as being best for general health:
The Mediterranean Diet: What Is It Good For? ← what isn’t it good for?!
However, even this can be tweaked with specific health considerations in mind, for example:
Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet ← these tweaks offer adjusted versions of the Mediterranean diet, optimized for anti-inflammation, gut health, heart health, or brain health
And today we present to you some very good research into…
The best diet for aging well
Let’s be clear on terms first: by “aging well”, this means reaching age 70 without chronic diseases and maintaining good cognitive, physical, and mental health.
105,015 participants (of whom, 66% women, average age 53 at the start of the study) were followed for up to 30 years. Not in the stalkery way, but in the longitudinal study way. We say “up to”, because as with any sizeable longitudinal study, some died before the end of the study.
9,771 of them were deemed, at the end of the study, to have achieved “healthy aging”.
So, how did those participants achieve that, in terms of diet?
The dietary patterns that had the strongest positive impact were:
- AHEI (Alternative Healthy Eating Index): best for mental and physical function, overall healthy aging.
- PHDI (Planetary Health Diet Index): best for cognitive health and survival to age 70.
- DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension): strongest general impact.
- MIND (Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay): best for brain health.
- rEDIH (Reversed Empirical Dietary Index for Hyperinsulinemia): most effective for chronic disease prevention.
In contrast:
- EIDP (Empirically Inflammatory Dietary Pattern): shocking nobody, performed least well in all areas
You are probably wondering what those dietary patterns actually consist of, so click here to see a chart of what’s included or excluded in each dietary pattern.
As you can see, the AHEI diet that was “best for mental and physical function, overall healthy aging” is essentially the Mediterranean diet with three small tweaks:
- no seafood, but long-chain omega-3 fatty acids include to compensate
- no sugar-sweetened beverages or fruit juices
- “no” sodium (in other words, minimal sodium, since almost everything contains trace amounts)
The PHDI diet, which was “best for cognitive health and survival to age 70” is essentially a whole-foods plant-based diet. Which in turn is very consistent with the Mediterranean, except that it excludes animal products, of which the Mediterranean diet uses small amounts.
You can read the paper in its entirety here:
Optimal dietary patterns for healthy aging
Want to know more?
A panel of 69 doctors and nutritionists examined the evidence for 38 diets (including Mediterranean, MIND, DASH, Vegan, Keto, Slimfast, WeightWatchers, Nutrisystem, and more) and scored them in 21 categories (e.g. best for general health, best for weight loss, best for heart, best against diabetes, etc):
Which Diet? Top Diets Ranked By Experts
Enjoy!
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Learn to Age Gracefully
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