Survival of the Prettiest – by Dr. Nancy Etcoff
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? And what does it matter, in this modern world, especially if we are already in a happy stable partnership?
The science of it, as it turns out, is less poetic. Not only is evolutionary psychology still the foundation of our perception of human beauty (yes, even if we have zero possibility of further procreation personally), but also, its effects are far, far wider than partner selection.
From how nice people are to you, to how much they trust you, to how easily they will forgive a (real or perceived) misdeed, to what kind of medical care you get (or don’t), your looks shape your experiences.
In this very easy-reading work that nevertheless contains very many references, Dr. Etcoff explores the science of beauty. Not just what traits are attractive and why, but also, what they will do for (or against) us—in concrete terms, with numbers.
Bottom line: if you’d like to better understand the subconscious biases held by yourself and others, this book is a top-tier primer.
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What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Alcohol
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Immediately after we stop drinking is rarely when we feel our best. But how long is it before we can expect to see benefits, instead of just suffering?
Timeline
After stopping drinking alcohol for…
- Seconds: the liver starts making progress filtering out toxins and sugars; ethanol starts to leave the system
- 1 hour: fatigue sets in as the body uses a lot of energy to metabolize and eliminate alcohol. However, sleep quality (if one goes to sleep now) is low because alcohol disrupts the brain patterns required for restful sleep
- 6–12 hours: the immune system starts recovering from the suppression caused by alcohol
- 24 hours: immune system is back to normal; withdrawal symptoms may occur in the case of heavy drinkers
- 3–5 days: resting blood pressure begins to drop, as stress levels decrease (alcohol may seem anxiolytic, but it is actually anxiogenic; it just masks its own effect in this regard). Also, because of insulin responses improving, appetite reduces. The liver, once it has finished dealing your last drinking session (if you used to drink all the time, it probably had a backlog to clear), can now begin to make repairs on itself.
- 1 week: skin will start looking better, as antidiuretic hormone levels neutralize, leading to a healthier maintenance of hydration
- 2 weeks: cognitive abilities improve as the brain begins to make progress in repairing itself. At the same time, kidneys start to heal.
- 3–4 weeks: the liver begins to regenerate in earnest. You may wonder what took it so long given the liver’s famous regenerative abilities, but in this case, the liver was also the organ that took the most damage from drinking, so its regeneration gets off to a slow start (in contrast, if the liver had “merely” suffered physical trauma, such as being shot, stabbed,
or eaten by eagles,it’d start regenerating vigorously as soon as the immediate wound-response had been tended to). Once it is able to pick up the pace though, overall health improves, as the liver can focus on breaking down other toxins. - 1–2 months: the heart is able to repair itself, and start to become stronger again (dependent on other lifestyle factors, of course).
- 3 months and more: bodily repairs continue (for example, the damage to the liver is often so severe that it can take quite a bit longer to recover completely, and repairs in the brain are always slow, for reasons beyond the scope of this article). Looking at the big picture, at this point we also see other benefits, such as reduced cancer risks.
In short… It’s never too soon to stop, but it’s also never too late, unless you are going to die in the next few days. So long as you’ll be in the land of the living for a few days yet, there’s time to enjoy the benefits of stopping.
Most importantly: the timeline for the most important repairs is not as long as many people might think, and that itself can be very motivating.
For more detail on much of the above, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Can We Drink To Good Health?
- How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
- Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit
- How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
Take care!
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Reclaiming Body Trust – by Hilary Kinavey & Dana Sturtevant
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Authored by a therapist and a dietician, this book draws from both of their extensive professional clinical experiences, to explore how we can (often early in our lives) be led into disordered thinking when it comes to food and our bodies, and how we can “take back that which has been stolen from us”.
More prosaically: the presented goal here is for us to each figure out where we are with our own body, and how we might build our relationship with same going forwards, in the way that will work the best for us.
The style is relaxed and conversational, while taking care to cover topics that are often tricky with no less seriousness. Chapter headings such as “Your coping is rooted in wisdom”, “What does grief have to do with it?” and “Allowing for pleasure and satisfaction” give an idea of the flavors at hand here.
Bottom line: if you think your relationship with food and your body could be better, not only are you probably right, but also, this book can help.
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8 Critical Signs Of Blood Clots That You Shouldn’t Ignore
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Blood clots can form as part of deep vein thrombosis or for other reasons; wherever they form (unless they are just doing their job healing a wound) they can cause problems. But how to know what’s going on inside our body?
Telltale signs
Our usual medical/legal disclaimer applies here, and we are not doctors, let alone your doctors, and even if we were we couldn’t diagnose from afar… But for educational purposes, here are the eight signs from the video:
- Swelling: especially if only on one leg (assuming you have no injury to account for it), which may feel tight and uncomfortable
- Warmness: does the area warmer to the touch? This may be because of the body’s inflammatory response trying to deal with a blood clot
- Tenderness: again, caused by the inflammation in response to the clot
- Discolored skin: it could be reddish, or bruise-like. This could be patchy or spread over a larger area, because of a clot blocking the flow of blood
- Shortness of breath: if a clot makes it to the lungs, it can cause extra problems there (pulmonary embolism), and shortness of breath is the first sign of this
- Coughing up blood: less common than the above but a much more serious sign; get thee to a hospital
- Chest pain: a sharp or stabbing pain, in particular. The pain may worsen with deep breaths or coughing. Again, seek medical attention.
For more on recognizing these signs (including helpful visuals), and more on what to do about them and how to avoid them in the first place, enjoy:
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Further reading
You might like to read:
Dietary Changes for Artery Health
Take care!
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Watch Out For Lipedema
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Lipedema occurs mostly in women, mostly in times of hormonal change, with increasing risk as time goes by (so for example, puberty yields a lower risk than pregnancy, which yields a lower risk than menopause).
Its name literally means “fat swelling”, and can easily be mistaken for obesity or, in its earlier stages, just pain old cellulite.
Cellulite, by the way, is completely harmless and is also not, per se, an indicator of bad health. But if you have it and don’t like it, you can reduce it:
Obesity is more of a complex matter, and one that we’ve covered here:
Lipedema is actively harmful
Lipedema can become a big problem, because lifestyle change does not reduce lipedema fat, the fat is painful, can lead to obesity if one was not already obese, causes gait and joint abnormalities, causes fatigue, can lead to lymphedema (beyond the scope of today’s article—perhaps another time!) and very much psychosocial distress.
Like many conditions that mostly affect women, the science is… Well, here’s a recent example review that was conducted and published:
Fun fact: in Romanian there is an expression “one eye is laughing; the other is crying”, and it seems appropriate here.
Spot the signs
Because it’s most readily mistaken for cellulite in first presentation, let’s look at the differences between them:
- Cellulite is characterized by dimpled, bumpy, or even skin; lipedema is the same but with swelling too.
- Cellulite is a connective tissue condition; lipedema is too (at least in part), but also involves the abnormal accumulation and deposition of fat cells, rather than just pulling some down a bit.
- Cellulite has no additional symptoms; lipedema soon also brings swollen limbs, joint pain, and/or skin that’s “spongy” and easily bruised.
What to do about it
First, get it checked out by a doctor.
If the doctor says it is just cellulite or obesity, ask them what difference(s) they are basing that on, and ask that they confirm in writing having dismissed your concerns (having this will be handy later if it turns out to be lipedema after all).
If it is lipedema, you will want to catch it early; there is no known cure, but advanced symptoms are a lot easier to keep at bay than they are to reverse once they’ve shown up.
Weight maintenance, skin care (including good hydration), and compression therapy have all been shown to help slow the progression.
If it is allowed to progress unhindered, that’s when a lot more fat accumulation and joint pain is likely to occur. Liposuction and surgery are options, but even they are only a temporary solution, and are obviously not fun things to have to go through.
Prevention is, as ever, much better than
curetreatment ← because there is no known cureOne last thing
Lipedema’s main risk factor is genetic. The bad news is, there’s not much that can be done about that for now, but the good news is, you can at least get the heads-up about whether you are at increased risk or not, and be especially vigilant if you’re in the increased risk group. See also:
One Test, Many Warnings: The Real Benefit Of Genetic Testing
Take care!
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Plant-Based Alternatives for Meat Recipes
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
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
❝How about providing a plant-based alternative when you post meat-based recipes? I appreciate how much you advocate for veggie diets and think offering an alternative with your recipes would support that❞
Glad you’re enjoying! And yes, we do usually do that. But: pardon, we missed one (the Tuna Steak with Protein Salad) because it’d be more than a simple this-for-that substitution, we didn’t already have an alternative recipe up (as with the salmon recipes such as the Chili Hot-Bedded Salmon and Thai Green Curry Salmon Burgers).
Our recipes, by the way, will tend towards being vegan, vegetarian, or at least pescatarian. This is for several reasons:
- Good science suggests the best diet for general purpose good health is one that is mostly plants, with optional moderate amounts of fermented dairy products, fish, and/or eggs.
- Your writer here (it’s me, hi) has been vegan for many years, transitioning to such via pescatarianism and ovo-lacto vegetarianism, and so the skill of cooking meat is least fresh in my memory, meaning I’d not be confident writing about that, especially as cooking meat has the gravest health consequences for messing it up.
Note on biases: notwithstanding this writer being vegan, we at 10almonds are committed to reporting the science as it stands with no agenda besides good health. Hence, there will continue to be unbiased information about animal products’ health considerations, positive as well as negative.
See also: Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy?
…as well as, of course, some animal-based classics from our archives including:
We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of & Eggs: All Things In Moderation?
Finishing with one for the vegans though, you might enjoy:
Which Plant Milk? We Compare 6 Of The Most Popular
Some previous articles you might enjoy meanwhile:
- Pinpointing The Usefulness Of Acupuncture
- Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief
- Peripheral Neuropathy: How To Avoid It, Manage It, Treat It
- What Does Lion’s Mane Actually Do, Anyway?
Take care!
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Foam Rolling – by Karina Inkster
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If you’ve ever bought a foam roller only to place it under your lower back once and then put it somewhere for safekeeping and never use it again, this book will help fix that.
Karina Inkster (what a cool name) is a personal trainer, and the book also features tips and advice from physiotherapists and sports medicine specialist doctors too, so all bases are well and truly covered.
This is not, in case you’re wondering, a book that could have been a pamphlet, with photos of the exercises and one-liner explanation and that’s it. Rather, Inkster takes us through the anatomy and physiology of what’s going on, so that we can actually use this thing correctly and get actual noticeable improvements to our health from it—as promised in the subtitle’s mention of “for massage, injury prevention, and core strength”. To be clear, a lot of it is also about soft tissue mobilization, and keeping our fascia healthy (an oft-underestimated aspect of general mobility).
We would mention that since the photos are pleasantly colorful (like those on the cover) and this adds to the clarity, we’d recommend springing for the (quite inexpensive) physical copy, rather than a Kindle edition (if your e-reader is a monochrome e-ink device like this reviewer’s, anyway).
Bottom line: this book will enable your foam roller to make a difference to your life.
Click here to check out Foam Rolling, and get rolling (correctly)!
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