Tartar Removal At Home & How To Prevent Tartar
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.
Three things to bear in mind:
- Tartar is hardened plaque.
- Plaque is an infected biofilm that expands the natural thin film on teeth.
- Healthy biofilm resists plaque and tartar formation.
Therefore, the recommended approach is a multistep program:
The Complete Mouth Care System
Dr. Phillips recommends to use these five products in this order twice daily:
- Zellie’s Mints & Gum: having 6–10 grams of xylitol daily will help to loosen plaque on teeth so that the following program is more effective. Xylitol protects from mouth acidity and help to remineralize teeth.
- CloSYS Prerinse: CloSYS will prepare your teeth for brushing. This pH neutral rinse ensures that brushing teeth does not occur in an acidic mouth and therefore easily damage teeth.
- Crest Cavity Protection Regular Paste: has an active ingredient of sodium fluoride at optimal concentration (not stannous fluoride). This paste has the proper abrasion and no glycerine.
- Listerine: is an effective rinse that targets the bacteria that cause plaque build up and gingivitis with three active ingredients: eucalyptus essential oil, menthol essential oil, and thymol essential oil. As such, unlike many mouthwashes, listerine does not harm the mouth’s diversity of good bacteria or the mouth’s production of nitric oxide.
- ACT Anticavity Rinse: ACT is a very dilute but extremely effective sodium fluoride solution. It helps prevent and reverse cavities, strengthen teeth, reduce sensitivity, and leaves your breath fresh.
She advises us that by doing this twice-daily over 6 months, we can expect significant tartar reduction, and indeed, that dental appointments may reveal minimal or no need for tartar removal.
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 to read our own three-part series:
- Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?
- Flossing Without Flossing?
- Less Common Oral Hygiene Options ← we recommend the miswak! Not only does it clean the teeth as well as or better than traditional brushing, but also it changes the composition of saliva to improve the oral microbiome, effectively turning your saliva into a biological mouthwash that kills unwanted microbes and is comfortable for the ones that should be there.
Take care!
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 Easiest Way To Take Up Journaling
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.
Dear Diary…
It’s well-established that journaling is generally good for mental health. It’s not a magical panacea, as evidenced by The Diaries of Franz Kafka for example (that man was not in good mental health). But for most of us, putting our thoughts and feelings down on paper (or the digital equivalent) is a good step for tidying our mind.
And as it can be said: mental health is also just health.
But…
What to write about?
It’s about self-expression (even if only you will read it), and…
❝Writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events has been found to result in improvements in both physical and psychological health, in non-clinical and clinical populations.
In the expressive writing paradigm, participants are asked to write about such events for 15–20 minutes on 3–5 occasions.
Those who do so generally have significantly better physical and psychological outcomes compared with those who write about neutral topics.❞
Source: Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing
In other words, write about whatever moves you.
Working from prompts
If you read the advice above and thought “but I don’t know what moves me”, then fear not. It’s perfectly respectable to work from prompts, such as:
- What last made you cry?
- What last made you laugh?
- What was a recent meaningful moment with family?
- What is a serious mistake that you made and learned from?
- If you could be remembered for just one thing, what would you want it to be?
In fact, sometimes working from prompts has extra benefits, precisely because it challenges us to examine things we might not otherwise think about.
If a prompt asks “What tends to bring you most joy recently?” and the question stumps you, then a) you now are prompted to look at what you can change to find more joy b) you probably wouldn’t have thought of this question—most depressed people don’t, and if you cannot remember recent joy, then well, we’re not here to diagnose, but let’s just say that’s a symptom.
A quick aside: if you or a loved oneare prone to depressive episodes, here’s a good resource, by the way:
The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
And in the event of the mental health worst case scenario:
The six prompts we gave earlier are just ideas that came to this writer’s mind, but they’re (ok, some bias here) very good ones. If you’d like more though, here’s a good resource:
550+ Journal Prompts: The Ultimate List
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
While it’s not good to get stuck in ruminative negative thought spirals, it is good to have a safe outlet to express one’s negative thoughts/feelings:
Remember, your journal is (or ideally, should be) a place without censure. If you fear social consequences should your journal be read, then using an app with a good security policy and encryption options can be a good idea for journaling
Finch App is a good free option if it’s not too cutesy for your taste, because in terms of security:
- It can’t leak your data because your data never leaves your phone (unless you manually back up your data and then you choose to put it somewhere unsafe)
- It has an option to require passcode/biometrics etc to open the app
As a bonus, it also has very many optional journaling prompts, and also (optional) behavioral activation prompts, amongst more other offerings that we don’t have room to list here.
Take care!
Share This Post
-
SMOL Bowl With Sautéed Greens
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.
Whole grains are good, and gluten is bad for some people. Today’s dish has four whole grains, and no gluten (assuming no cross-contamination, so look for the gluten-free label if that’s important to you). Breafast? Brunch? Lunch? Supper, even? This is good at any time of day, packed with nutrients and full of flavor!
You will need (per person)
- 1 cup mixed cooked grains of equal parts sorghum, millet, oats, lentils (SMOL)—these can be cooked in bulk in advance and frozen in portions, as it’s often good to used mixed grains, and these four are a great combination for many purposes.
- ½ cup low sodium vegetable stock (ideally you made this yourself from vegetable offcuts you kept in the freezer until you had enough for this purpose, but failing that, low-sodium stock cubes can be bought at most large supermarkets).
- ½ cup finely chopped red onion
- 6 oz cavolo nero, finely chopped
- 1 small carrot, finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 1 tsp white miso paste
- To serve: 1 lemon wedge
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Add the stock to a sauté pan over a medium heat, and add the onion, garlic, and carrot. Stir frequently for about 7 minutes.
2) Add the cavolo nero and miso paste, stirring for another 4 minutes. If there is any liquid remaining, drain it off now.
3) Warm the SMOL mixture (microwave is fine) and spoon it into a bowl, topping with the nutritional yeast and black pepper. Finally, add the hot cavolo nero mixture.
4) Serve with the lemon wedge on the side, to add a dash of lemon at will.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
Take care!
Share This Post
-
Why You Can’t Deep Squat (And the Benefits You’re Missing)
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.
Matt Hsu fought his own battle with chronic pain from the age of 16 in his feet, knees, hips, back, shoulders, elbows, forearms, wrists, hands, and head. Seeking answers, he’s spent a career in corrective exercise, posture alignment, structural integration, orthopedic exercise, sports medicine, and has more certifications than we care to list. In short, he knows his stuff.
Yes you can (with some work)
The deep squat, also called Asian squat, Slav squat, sitting squat, resting squat, primal squat, and various other names, is an important way of sitting that has implications for a lot of aspects of health.
Why it’s so important: it preserves the mobility of our hips, ankles, and everything in between, and maintaining especially the hip mobility makes a big difference not only to general health, but also to reducing the risk of injury. It also maintains lower body strength, making falls in older age less likely in the first place, and if falls do happen, makes injury less likely, and if injury does happen, makes the injury likely less severe.
An important misconception: there is a popular, but unfounded, belief that the ability or inability to do this is decided by genes—or if not outright decided, that at the very least Asians and Slavs have a genetic advantage. However, this is simply not true. Westerners and others can learn to do it just fine, and on the flipside, Asians and Slavs who grew up in the West may often struggle with it. The truth is, the deciding factor is lifestyle: if your culture involves sitting this way more often, you’ll be able to do it more comfortably and easily than if you’re just now trying it for the first time.
Factors that you can control: you can’t change where you grew up, but you can change how you sit down now. Achieving the squat requires repeated position practice, and the more frequently you do so (even if you just start with a few seconds and work your way up to longer periods), the better you’ll get at it. And, on the contrary, sitting in chairs weakens and shortens the muscles involved, so any time you spend sitting in chairs is working against you. There are many reasons it’s advisable to avoid sitting in chairs more than necessary, and this is one of them.
10almonds tip: a limiting factor for many people initially is ankle flexibility, which may result in one’s center of gravity being a bit far back, leading to a tendency to have to change something to avoid toppling over backwards. Rather than holding onto something immobile (e.g. furniture) in front of where you are sitting, consider simply holding an object in front of you in your hands. A book is a fine example; holding that in front of you (feel free to read the book) will shift your center of gravity forwards a bit, and will thus allow you to sit there a little longer, thus improving your strength and flexibility while you do, until you can do it without holding something in front of you. If you try with a book and you’re still prone to toppling backwards, try with something heavier, but do use the minimum weight necessary, because ultimately the counterbalance is just a crutch to get you to where you need to be.
For more visual advice on how to do it, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Take care!
Share This Post
-
How Stress Affects Your 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.
Dr. Sharon Bergquist gives us a tour:
Stress, from the inside out
Stress is a natural physical and emotional response to challenges or being overwhelmed. It can be beneficial in short-term situations (e.g. escape from a tiger) but is harmful when prolonged or frequent (e.g. escape the rat-race).
Immediate physiological response: cortisol, adrenaline (epinephrine), and norepinephrine are released by the adrenal glands.
The effects this has (non-exhaustive list; we’re just citing what’s in the video here):
- Cortisol impairs blood vessel function, promoting atherosclerosis.
- Adrenaline increases heart rate and blood pressure, leading to hypertension.
- Stress disrupts the brain-gut connection, causing:
- Digestive issues like irritable bowel syndrome and heartburn.
- Changes in gut bacteria composition, potentially affecting overall health.
- Cortisol increases appetite and cravings for energy-dense “comfort foods”.
- This in turn promotes visceral fat storage, which raises the risk of heart disease and insulin resistance.
- Immune-specific effects:
- Stress hormones initially aid in healing and immune defense.
- Chronic stress weakens immune function (by over-working it constantly), increasing susceptibility to infections and slowing recovery.
- Other systemic effects:
- Chronic stress shortens telomeres, which protect chromosomes. Shortened telomeres accelerate cellular aging.
- Chronic stress can also cause acne, hair loss, sexual dysfunction, headaches, muscle tension, fatigue, irritability, and difficulty concentrating.
So, how to manage this? The video says that viewing stressful situations as controllable challenges, rather than insurmountable threats, leads to better short-term performance and long-term health.
Which would be wonderful, except that usually things are stressful precisely because they are not entirely within the field of our control, and the usual advice is to tend to what we can control, and accept what we can’t.
However… That paradigm still leaves out the very big set of “this might be somewhat within our control or it might not; we really don’t know yet; we can probably impact it but what if we don’t do enough, or take the wrong approach and do the wrong thing? And also we have 17 competing stressors, which ones should we prioritize tending to first, and…” and so on.
To that end, we suggest checking out the “Want to learn more?” link we drop below the video today, as it is about managing stress realistically, in a world that, if we’re honest about it, can sometimes be frankly unmanageable.
Meanwhile, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Heart Health vs Systemic Stress ← this is good in and of itself, and also links to other stress-related resources of ours
Take care!
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:
-
Will there soon be a cure for HIV?
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.
Human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, is a chronic health condition that can be fatal without treatment. People with HIV can live healthy lives by taking antiretroviral therapy (ART), but this medication must be taken daily in order to work, and treatment can be costly. Fortunately, researchers believe a cure is possible.
In July, a seventh person was reportedly cured of HIV following a 2015 stem cell transplant for acute myeloid leukemia. The patient stopped taking ART in 2018 and has remained in remission from HIV.
Read on to learn more about HIV, the promise of stem cell transplants, and what other potential cures are on the horizon.
What is HIV?
HIV infects and destroys the immune system’s cells, making people more susceptible to infections. If left untreated, HIV will severely impair the immune system and progress to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). People living with untreated AIDS typically die within three years.
People with HIV can take ART to help their immune systems recover and to reduce their viral load to an undetectable level, which slows the progression of the disease and prevents them passing the virus to others.
How can stem cell transplants cure HIV?
Several people have been cured of HIV after receiving stem cell transplants to treat leukemia or lymphoma. Stem cells are produced by the spongy tissue located in the center of some bones, and they can turn into new blood cells.
A mutation on the CCR5 gene prevents HIV from infecting new cells and creates resistance to the virus, which is why some HIV-positive people have received stem cells from donors carrying this mutation. (One person was reportedly cured of HIV after receiving stem cells without the CCR5 mutation, but further research is needed to understand how this occurred.)
Despite this promising news, experts warn that stem cell transplants can be fatal, so it’s unlikely this treatment will be available to treat people with HIV unless a stem cell transplant is needed to treat cancer. People with HIV are at an increased risk for blood cancers, such as Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which stem cell transplants can treat.
Additionally, finding compatible donors with the CCR5 mutation who share genetic heritage with patients of color can be challenging, as donors with the mutation are typically white.
What are other potential cures for HIV?
In some rare cases, people who started ART shortly after infection and later stopped treatment have maintained undetectable levels of HIV in their bodies. There have also been some people whose bodies have been able to maintain low viral loads without any ART at all.
Researchers are studying these cases in their search for a cure.
Other treatment options researchers are exploring include:
- Gene therapy: In addition to stem cell transplants, gene therapy for HIV involves removing genes from HIV particles in patients’ bodies to prevent the virus from infecting other cells.
- Immunotherapy: This treatment is typically used in cancer patients to teach their immune systems how to fight off cancer. Research has shown that giving some HIV patients antibodies that target the virus helps them reach undetectable levels of HIV without ART.
- mRNA technology: mRNA, a type of genetic material that helps produce proteins, has been used in vaccines to teach cells how to fight off viruses. Researchers are seeking a way to send mRNA to immune system cells that contain HIV.
When will there be a cure for HIV?
The United Nations and several countries have pledged to end HIV and AIDS by 2030, and a 2023 UNAIDS report affirmed that reaching this goal is possible. However, strategies to meet this goal include HIV prevention and improving access to existing treatment alongside the search for a cure, so we still don’t know when a cure might be available.
How can I find out if I have HIV?
You can get tested for HIV from your primary care provider or at your local health center. You can also purchase an at-home HIV test from a drugstore or online. If your at-home test result is positive, follow up with your health care provider to confirm the diagnosis and get treatment.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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:
-
Peanuts vs Hazelnuts – 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 peanuts to hazelnuts, we picked the hazelnuts.
Why?
It was close!
In terms of macros, peanuts have more protein while hazelnuts have more fiber and fat; the fat is healthy (mostly monounsaturated, some polyunsaturated, and very little saturated; less saturated fat than peanuts), so all in all, we’ll call this category a modest, subjective win for hazelnuts (since it depends on what we consider most important).
In the category of vitamins, peanuts have more of vitamins B2, B3, B5, B9, and choline, while hazelnuts have more of vitamins A, B1, B6, C, E, and K, making this one a marginal win for hazelnuts.
When it comes to minerals, peanuts have more magnesium, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc, while hazelnuts have more calcium, copper, iron, and manganese, so we’re calling it a tie on minerals.
Adding up the sections makes for a very close win for hazelnuts, but by all means enjoy both (unless you are allergic, of course)!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
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:
