Statin and Antidepressant Side Effects

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Questions and Answers 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!

This newsletter has been growing a lot lately, and so have the questions/requests, and we love that! 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

Side effects of statins, are they worth it? Depression, are antidepressants worth it?

About statins, that depends a lot on you, your circumstances, and—as it happens—your gender. We covered this in a main feature recently, but a short answer is: for most people, they may not be the best first choice, and could even make things worse. For some people, however, they really are just what’s needed.

  • Factors that make them more likely better for you: being a man, or having atherosclerosis
  • Factors that make them more likely worse for you: being a woman in general

Check out the main feature we did: Statins: His & Hers?

As for antidepressants? That depends a lot on you, your physiology, your depression, your circumstances, and more. We’ll definitely do a main feature on that sometime soon, as there’s a lot that most people don’t know!

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  • Science of Yoga – by Ann Swanson

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    There are a lot of yoga books out there to say “bend this way, hold this that way” and so forth, but few that really explain what is going on, how, and why. And understanding those things is of course key to motivation and adherence. So that’s what this book provides!

    The book is divided into sections, and in the first part we have a tour of human anatomy and physiology. This may seem almost unrelated to yoga, but is valuable necessary-knowledge to get the most out of the next section:

    The next few parts are given over to yoga asanas (stretches, positions, poses, call them what you will in English) and now we are given a clear idea of what it is doing: we get to understand exactly what’s being stretched, what blood flow is being increased and how, what organs are being settled into their correct place, and many other such things.

    Importantly, this means we also understand why certain things are the way they are, and why they can’t be done in some other slightly different but perhaps superficially easier way.

    The style of the book is like a school textbook, really, but without patronizing the reader. The illustrations, of which there are many, are simple enough to be clear while being detailed enough to be informative.

    Bottom line: if you’re ever doing yoga at home and wondering if you should cut a certain corner, this is the book that will tell you why you shouldn’t.

    Click here to check out Science of Yoga, and optimize your practice!

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  • World Menopause Day Health News Round-Up

    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.

    In order to provide variety in this week’s round-up, not all of this is menopause-related, but it is all important:

    Menopause & CVD

    Untreated menopause is associated with higher incidence of heart disease, and higher mortality. People often forget about how much estrogen does for us (well, for those of us with a physiology running on estrogen, anyway; gentlemen, your testosterone is fine for you), and think it is “just” a sex hormone, but it’s a lot more.

    Read in full: Menopause transition linked to increased heart disease risk

    Related: What Menopause Does To The Heart

    Extraterrestrial medical technology

    The much lower gravity in Earth orbit has allowed for tissue engineering techniques that Earth’s normal gravity imposes limitations on. This is big news, because it means that rather than replacing a whole liver, tissue implants could be grafted, allowing the extant liver to repair itself (something livers are famously good at, but they need enough undamaged base material to work with).

    Read in full: How liver tissue from the International Space Station may transform tissue engineering

    Related: How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver

    One thing and then another

    As if endometriosis weren’t unpleasant enough in and of itself, the endothelial dysfunction inherent to it also raises cardiovascular disease risk. This is important, because while endometriosis has (like many maladies predominantly affecting women) generally been shrugged off by the medical world as an unhappy inconvenience but not life-threatening, now we know it comes with extra existential risks too:

    Read in full: Understanding cardiovascular risks in endometriosis patients

    Related: What You Need To Know About Endometriosis

    Push-button meditation

    Unlike mindfulness meditation, listening to music is a very passive experience, and thus requires less effort from the user. And yet, it has been associated with lower perceived pain levels, lower self-reported anxiety levels, less opioid use, and measurably lower heart-rate.

    Read in full: Listening to music may speed up recovery from surgery, research suggests

    Related: Nobody Likes Surgery, But Here’s How To Make It Much Less Bad

    Cholesterol in menopause: quality over quantity

    Much like previous research has shown that the quantity of LDL is not nearly so predictive of health outcomes in women as it is in men, this study into HDL and menopausal women shows that quantity of HDL does not matter nearly so much as the quality of it.

    Read in full: HDL quality, not quantity, contribute to the first sign of Alzheimer’s disease in women

    Related: Statins: His & Hers? ← consistent with the above, statins (to lower LDL cholesterol) generally help more for men and produce more adverse side effects for women. So again, a case of “the actual amount of cholesterol isn’t so important for women as for men”.

    Take care!

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  • The Exercises That Can Fix Sinus Problems (And More)

    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.

    Who nose what benefits you will gain today?

    This is James Nestor, a science journalist and author. He’s written for many publications, including Scientific American, and written a number of books, most notably Breath: The New Science Of A Lost Art.

    Today we’ll be looking at what he has to share about what has gone wrong with our breathing, what problems this causes, and how to fix it.

    What has gone wrong?

    When it comes to breathing, we humans are the pugs of the primate world. In a way, we have the opposite problem to the squashed-faced dogs, though. But, how and why?

    When our ancestors learned first tenderize food, and later to cook it, this had two big effects:

    1. We could now get much more nutrition for much less hunting/gathering
    2. We now did not need to chew our food nearly so much

    Getting much more nutrition for much less hunting/gathering is what allowed us to grow our brains so large—as a species, we have a singularly large brain-to-body size ratio.

    Not needing to chew our food nearly so much, meanwhile, had even more effects… And these effects have become only more pronounced in recent decades with the rise of processed food making our food softer and softer.

    It changed the shape of our jaw and cheekbones, just as the size of our brains taking up more space in our skull moved our breathing apparatus around. As a result, our nasal cavities are anatomically ridiculous, our sinuses are a crime against nature (not least of all because they drain backwards and get easily clogged), and our windpipes are very easily blocked and damaged due to the unique placement of our larynx; we’re the only species that has it there. It allowed us to develop speech, but at the cost of choking much more easily.

    What problems does this cause?

    Our (normal, to us) species-wide breathing problems have resulted in behavioral adaptations such as partial (or in some people’s cases, total or near-total) mouth-breathing. This in turn exacerbates the problems with our jaws and cheekbones, which in turn exacerbates the problems with our sinuses and nasal cavities in general.

    Results include such very human-centric conditions as sleep apnea, as well as a tendency towards asthma, allergies, and autoimmune diseases. Improper breathing also brings about a rather sluggish metabolism for how many calories we consume.

    How are we supposed to fix all that?!

    First, close your mouth if you haven’t already, and breathe through your nose.

    In and out.

    Both are important, and unless you are engaging in peak exercise, both should be through your nose. If you’re not used to this, it may feel odd at first, but practice, and build up your breathing ability.

    Six seconds in and six seconds out is a very good pace.

    If you’re sitting doing a breathing exercise, also good is four seconds in, four seconds hold, four seconds out, four seconds hold, repeat.

    But those frequent holds aren’t practical in general life, so: six seconds in, six seconds out.

    Through your nose only.

    This has benefits immediately, but there are other more long-term benefits from doing not just that, but also what has been called (by Nestor, amongst many others), “Mewing”, per the orthodontist, Dr. John Mew, who pioneered it.

    How (and why) to “mew”:

    Place your tongue against the roof of your mouth. It should be flat against the palate; you’re not touching it with the tip here; you’re creating a flat seal.

    Note: if you were mouth-breathing, you will now be unable to breathe. So, important to make sure you can breathe adequately through your nose first.

    This does two things:

    1. It obliges nose-breathing rather than mouth-breathing
    2. It creates a change in how the muscles of your face interact with the bones of your face

    In a battle between muscle and bone, muscle will always win.

    Aim to keep your tongue there as much as possible; make it your new best habit. If you’re not eating, talking, or otherwise using your tongue to do something, it should be flat against the roof of your mouth.

    You don’t have to exert pressure; this isn’t an exercise regime. Think of it more as a postural exercise, just, inside your mouth.

    Quick note: read the above line again, because it’s important. Doing it too hard could cause the opposite problems, and you don’t want that. You cannot rush this by doing it harder; it takes time and gentleness.

    Why would we want to do that?

    The result, over time, will tend to be much healthier breathing, better sinus health, freer airways, reduced or eliminated sleep apnea, and, as a bonus, what is generally considered a more attractive face in terms of bone structure. We’re talking more defined cheekbones, straighter teeth, and a better mouth position.

    Want to learn more?

    This is the “Mewing” technique that Nestor encourages us to try:

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  • Rewire Your OCD Brain – by Dr. Catherine Pittman & Dr. William Youngs

    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.

    OCD is just as misrepresented in popular media as many other disorders, and in this case, it’s typically not “being a neat freak” or needing to alphabetize things, so much as having uncontrollable obsessive intrusive thoughts, and often in response to those, unwanted compulsions. This can come from unchecked spiralling anxiety, and/or PTSD, for example.

    What Drs. Pittman & Young offer is an applicable set of solutions, to literally rewire the brain (insofar as synapses can be considered neural wires). Leveraging neuroplasticity to work with us rather than against us, the authors talk us through picking apart the crossed wires, and putting them back in more helpful ways.

    This is not, by the way, a book of CBT, though it does touch on that too.

    Mostly, the book explains—clearly and simply and sometimes with illustrationswhat is going wrong for us neurologically, and how to neurologically change that.

    Bottom line: whether you have OCD or suffer from anxiety or just need help dealing with obsessive thoughts, this book can help a lot in, as the title suggests, rewiring that.

    Click here to check out Rewire Your OCD Brain, and banish obsessive thoughts!

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  • Not quite an introvert or an extrovert? Maybe you’re an ambivert

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    Our personalities are generally thought to consist of five primary factors: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism, with each of us ranking low to high for each.

    Graphic
    Extroversion is one of the Big Five personality traits. Big 5 personality traits graphic

    Those who rank high in extroversion, known as extroverts, typically focus on their external world. They tend to be more optimistic, recharge by socialising and enjoy social interaction.

    On the other end of the spectrum, introverts are more likely to be quiet, deep thinkers, who recharge by being alone and learn by observing (but aren’t necessarily shy).

    But what if you’re neither an introvert or extrovert – or you’re a bit of both? Another category might fit better: ambiverts. They’re the middle of the spectrum and are also called “social introverts”.

    What exactly is an ambivert?

    The term ambivert emerged in 1923. While it was not initially embraced as part of the introvert-extrovert spectrum, more recent research suggests ambiverts are a distinct category.

    Ambiverts exhibit traits of both extroverts and introverts, adapting their behaviour based on the situation. It may be that they socialise well but need solitude and rest to recharge, and they intuitively know when to do this.

    Ambiverts seems to have the following characteristics:

    • good communication skills, as a listener and speaker
    • ability to be a peacemaker if conflict occurs
    • leadership and negotiation skills, especially in teams
    • compassion and understanding for others.

    Some research suggests ambiverts make up a significant portion of the population, with about two-thirds of people falling into this category.

    What makes someone an ambivert?

    Personality is thought to be 50% inherited, with the remaining being influenced by environmental factors and individual experiences.

    Emerging research has found physical locations of genes on chromosomes closely aligned with extroversion-introversion traits.

    So, chances are, if you are a blend of the two styles as an ambivert, one of your parents may be too.

    What do ambiverts tend to be good at?

    Man selling book to woman
    Ambiverts are flexible with talking and also listening. Cotton Bro Studios/Pexels

    One area of research focus in recent decades has been personality type and job satisfaction. One study examined 340 introverts, extroverts and ambiverts in sales careers.

    It has always been thought extroverts were more successful with sales. However, the author found ambiverts were more influential and successful.

    They may have a sales advantage because of their ability to read the situation and modify their behaviour if they notice a customer is not interested, as they’re able to reflect and adapt.

    Ambiverts stress less than introverts

    Generally, people lower in extroversion have higher stress levels. One study found introverts experience more stress than both ambiverts and extroverts.

    It may be that highly sensitive or introverted individuals are more susceptible to worry and stress due to being more perfectionistic.

    Ambiverts are adept at knowing when to be outgoing and when to be reflective, showcasing a high degree of situational awareness. This may contribute to their overall wellbeing because of how they handle stress.

    What do ambiverts tend to struggle with?

    Ambiverts may overextend themselves attempting to conform or fit in with many social settings. This is termed “overadaptation” and may force ambiverts to feel uncomfortable and strained, ultimately resulting in stress or burnout.

    Woman talks on the phone
    Ambiverts tend to handle stress well but feel strained when overadapting. Cottonbro Studios/Pexels

    But personality traits aren’t fixed

    Regardless of where you sit on the scale of introversion through to extroversion, the reality is it may not be fixed. Different situations may be more comfortable for introverts to be social, and extroverts may be content with quieter moments.

    And there are also four other key personality traits – openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism – which we all possess in varying levels, and are expressed in different ways, alongside our levels of extroversion.

    There is also evidence our personality traits can change throughout our life spans are indeed open to change.

    Peta Stapleton, Associate Professor in Psychology, Bond University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Monosodium Glutamate: Sinless Flavor-Enhancer Or Terrible Health Risk?

    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 Deal With MSG?

    There are a lot of popular beliefs about MSG. Is there a grain of truth, or should we take them with a grain of salt? We’ll leap straight into myth-busting:

    MSG is high in salt

    True (technically) False (practically)

    • MSG is a salt (a monosodium salt of L-glutamic acid), but to call it “full of salt” in practical terms is like calling coffee “full of fruit”. (Coffee beans are botanically fruit)
    • It does contain sodium, though which is what the S stands for!
    • We talked previously about how MSG’s sodium content is much lower than that of (table) salt. Specifically, it’s about one third of that of sodium chloride (e.g. table salt).

    MSG triggers gluten sensitivity

    False!

    Or at least, because this kind of absolute negative is hard to prove in science, what we can say categorically is: it does not contain gluten. We understand that the similar name can cause that confusion. However:

    • Gluten is a protein, found in wheat (and thus wheat-based foods).
    • Glutamate is an amino acid, found in protein-rich foods.
    • If you’re thinking “but proteins are made from amino acids”, yes, they are, but the foundational amino acid of gluten is glutamine, not glutamate. Different bricks → different house!

    The body can’t process MSG correctly

    False!

    The body has glutamate receptors throughout the gut and nervous system.

    The body metabolizes glutamate from MSG just the same as from any other food that contains it naturally.

    Read: Update on food safety of monosodium l-glutamate (MSG) ← evidence-based safety review

    MSG causes “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”

    False!

    Racism causes that. It finds its origins in what was originally intended as a satirical joke, that the papers picked up and ran with, giving it that name in the 1960s. As to why it grew and persisted, that has more to do with US politics (the US has been often at odds with China for a long time) and xenophobia (people distrust immigrants, such as those who opened restaurants), including nationalistic rhetoric associating immigrants with diseases.

    Read: Xenophobia in America in the Age of Coronavirus and Beyond ← academic paper that gives quite a compact yet comprehensive overview

    Research science, meanwhile, has not found any such correlation, in more than 40 years of looking.

    PS: we realize this item in the list is very US-centric. Apologies to our non-US subscribers. We know that this belief isn’t so much of a thing outside the US—though it certainly can crop up elsewhere sometimes, too.

    Are there any health risks associated with MSG, then?

    Well, as noted, it does contain sodium, albeit much less than table salt. So… do go easy on it, all the same.

    Aside from that, the LD50 (a way of measuring toxicity) of MSG is 15.8g/kg, so if for example you weigh 150lb (68 kg), don’t eat 2.2lb (a kilogram) of MSG.

    There have been some studies on rats (or in one case, fruit flies) that found high doses of MSG could cause heart problems and/or promote obesity. However:

    • this has not been observed to be the case in humans
    • those doses were really high, ranging from 1g/kg to 8g/kg. So that’d be the equivalent of our 150lb person eating it by the cupful
    • it was injected (as a solution) into the rats, not ingested by them
    • so don’t let someone inject you with a cup of MSG!

    Read: A review of the alleged health hazards of monosodium glutamate

    Bottom line on MSG and health:

    Enjoy in moderation, but enjoy if you wish! MSG is just the salt form of the amino acid glutamate, which is found naturally in many foods, including shrimp, seaweed, and tomatoes.

    Scientists have spent more than 40 years trying to find health risks for MSG, and will probably keep trying (which is as science should be), but for now… Everything has either come up negative, or has been the result of injecting laboratory animals with megadoses.

    If you’d like to try it in your cooking as a low-sodium way to bring out the flavor of your dishes, you can order it online. Cheapest in bulk, but try it and see if you like it first!

    (I’ll be real with you… I have 5 kg in the pantry myself and use about half a teaspoon a day, cooking for two)

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