The Conquest of Happiness – by Bertrand Russell
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When we have all our physical needs taken care of, why are we often still not happy, and what can we do about that?
Mathematician, philosopher, and Nobel prizewinner Bertrand Russell has answers. And, unlike many of “the great philosophers”, his writing style is very clear and accessible.
His ideas are simple and practical, yet practised by few. Rather than taking a “be happy with whatever you have” approach, he does argue that we should strive to find more happiness in some areas and ways—and lays out guidelines for doing so.
Areas to expand, areas to pull back on, areas to walk a “virtuous mean”. Things to be optimistic about; things to not get our hopes up about.
Applying Russell’s model, there’s no more “should I…?” moments of wondering which way to jump.
Bottom line: if you’ve heard enough about “how to be happy” from wishy-washier sources, you might find the work of this famous logician refreshing.
Click here to check out The Conquest of Happiness, and see how much happier you might become!
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Coconut Milk vs Soy Milk – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing coconut milk to soy milk, we picked the soy.
Why?
First, because there are many kinds of both, let’s be clear which ones we’re comparing. For both, we picked the healthiest options commonly available, which were:
- Soy milk, unsweetened, fortified
- Coconut milk, raw (liquid expressed from grated meat and water)
Macronutrients are our first consideration; coconut milk has about 3x the carbs and about 14x the fat. Now, the fats are famously healthy medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), but still, one cup of coconut milk contains about 2.5x the recommended daily amount of saturated fat, so it’s wise to go easy on that. Coconut milk also has about 4x the fiber, but still, because the saturated fat difference, we’re calling this one a win for soy milk.
In the category of vitamins, the fortified soy milk wins. In case you’re curious: milk in general (animal or plant) is generally fortified with vitamin D (in N. America, anyway; other places may vary), and vitamin B12. In this case, the soy milk has those, plus some natural vitamins, meaning it has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, and D, while coconut milk has more of vitamins B3, B5, and C. A fair win for soy milk.
When it comes to minerals, the only fortification for the soy milk is calcium, of which it has more than 7x what coconut milk has. The coconut milk, however, has more copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. An easy win for coconut milk.
Adding up the sections gives us a win for soy milk—but if consumed in moderation as part of a diet otherwise low in saturated fat, a case could be made for the coconut.
The real take-away here today is not this specific head-to-head but rather: milks (animal or plant) vary a lot, have a lot of different fortifications and/or additives, and yes that goes even for brands (cow milk brands do this a lot) who don’t advertise their additives because their branding is going for a “natural” look. So, read labels, and make informed decisions about which additives you do or don’t want.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Take care!
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HBD: The Human Being Diet – by Petronella Ravenshear
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We don’t often review diet books, so why did this one catch our attention? The answer lies in its comprehensive nature without being excessively long and complex.
Ravenshear (a nutritionist) brings a focus on metabolic balance, and what will and won’t work for keeping it healthy.
The first part of the book is mostly informational; covering such things as blood sugar balance, gut health, hormones, and circadian rhythm considerations, amongst others.
The second, larger part of the book is mostly instructional; do this and that, don’t do the other, guidelines on quantities and timings, and what things may be different for some people, and what to do about those.
The style is conversational and light, but well-grounded in good science.
Bottom line: if you’d like a “one-stop shop” for giving your diet an overhaul, this book is a fine choice.
Click here to check out the Human Being Diet, and enjoy the best of health!
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Cardiac Failure Explained – by Dr. Warrick Bishop
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The cover of this book makes it look like it’ll be a flashy semi-celebrity doctor keen to sell his personalized protocol, along with eleventy-three other books, but actually, what’s inside this one is very different:
We (hopefully) all know the basics of heart health, but this book takes it a lot further. Starting with the basics, then the things that it’s easy to feel like you should know but actually most people don’t, then into much more depth.
The format is much more like a university textbook than most pop-science books, and everything about the way it’s written is geared for maximum learning. The one thing it does keep in common with pop-science books as a genre is heavy use of anecdotes to illustrate points—but he’s just as likely to use tables, diagrams, callout boxes, emboldening of key points, recap sections, and so forth. And for the most part, this book is very information-dense.
Dr. Bishop also doesn’t just stick to what’s average, and talks a lot about aberrations from the norm, what they mean and what they do and yes, what to do about them.
On the one hand, it’s more information dense than the average reader can reasonably expect to need… On the other hand, isn’t it great to finish reading a book feeling like you just did a semester at medical school? No longer will you be baffled by what is going on in your (or perhaps a loved one’s) cardiac health.
Bottom line: if you’d like to know cardiac health inside out, this book is an excellent place to start.
Click here to check out Cardiac Failure Explained, and get to the heart of things!
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The Well Plated Cookbook – by Erin Clarke
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Clarke’s focus here is on what she calls “stealthy healthy”, with the idea of dishes that feel indulgent while being great for the health.
The recipes, of which there are well over 100, are indeed delicious and easy to make without being oversimplified, and since she encourages the use of in-season ingredients, many recipes come with a “market swaps” substitution guide, to make each recipe seasonal.
The book is largely not vegetarian, let alone vegan, but the required substitutions will be second-nature to any seasoned vegetarian or vegan. Indeed, “skip the meat sometimes” is one of the advices she offers near the beginning of the book, in the category of tips to make things even healthier.
Bottom line: if you want to add dishes to your repertoire that are great for entertaining and still super-healthy, this book will be a fine addition to your collection.
Click here to check out The Well Plated Cookbook, and get cooking!
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Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)
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Resistance Is Useful!
At 10almonds we talk a lot about the importance of regular moderate exercise (e.g. walking, gardening, housework, etc), and with good reason: getting in those minutes (at least 150 minutes per week, so, a little over 20 minutes per day, or 25 minutes per day with one day off) is the exericise most consistently linked to better general health outcomes and reduced mortality risk.
We also often come back to mobility, because at the end of the day, being able to reach for something from a kitchen cabinet without doing oneself an injury is generally more important in life than being able to leg-press a car.
Today though, we’re going to talk about resistance training.
What is resistance training?
It can be weight-lifting, or it can be bodyweight exercises. In those cases, what you’re resisting is gravity. It can also be exercises with resistance bands or machines. In all cases, it’s about building and/or maintaining strength.
Why does it matter?
Let’s say you’re not an athlete, soldier, or laborer, and the heaviest thing you have to pick up is a bag of groceries. Strength still matters, for two main reasons:
- Muscle strength correlates to bone strength. You can’t build (or maintain) strong muscles on weak bones, so if you take care of your muscles, then your body will keep your bones strong too.
- That’s assuming you have a good diet as well—but today’s not about that. If you’d like to know more about eating for bone health though, do check out this previous article about that!
- Muscle strength correlates to balance and stability. You can’t keep yourself from falling over if you are physically frail.
Both of those things matter, because falls and fractures often have terrible health outcomes (e.g., slower recovery and more complications) the older we get. So, we want to:
- Ideally, not fall in the first place
- If we do fall, have robust bones
See also: Effects of Resistance Exercise on Bone Health
How much should we do?
Let’s go to the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research on this one:
❝There is strong evidence to support the benefits of resistance exercise for countering many age-related processes of sarcopenia, muscle weakness, mobility loss, chronic disease, disability, and even premature mortality.
In addition, this Position Statement provides specific evidence-based practice recommendations to aid in the implementation of resistance exercise programs for healthy older adults and those with special considerations.
While there are instances where low-intensity, low-volume programs are appropriate (i.e., beginning programs for individuals with frailty or CVDs), the greatest benefits are possible with progression to moderate to higher intensity programs.❞
~ Fragala et al
Read the statement in full:
There’s a lot of science there and it’s well worth reading if you have the time. It’s particularly good at delineating how much is not enough vs how much is too much, and the extent to which we should (or shouldn’t) train to exhaustion.
If you don’t fancy that, though, and/or just want to start with something accessible and work your way up, the below is a very good (and also evidence-based) start-up plan:
Healthline’s Exercise Plan For Seniors—For Strength, Balance, & Flexibility
(it has a weekly planner, step-by-step guides to the exercises, and very clear illustrative animations of each)
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- Muscle strength correlates to bone strength. You can’t build (or maintain) strong muscles on weak bones, so if you take care of your muscles, then your body will keep your bones strong too.
What Most People Don’t Know About HIV
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What To Know About HIV This World AIDS Day
Yesterday, we asked you to engage in a hypothetical thought experiment with us, and putting aside for a moment any reason you might feel the scenario wouldn’t apply for you, asked:
❝You have unprotected sex with someone who, afterwards, conversationally mentions their HIV+ status. Do you…❞
…and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses. Of those who responded…
- Just over 60% said “rush to hospital; maybe a treatment is available”
- Just under 20% said “ask them what meds they’re taking (and perhaps whether they’d like a snack)”
- Just over 10% said “despair; life is over”
- Two people said “do the most rigorous washing down there you’ve ever done in your life”
So, what does science say about it?
First, a quick note on terms
- HIV is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. It does what it says on the tin; it gives humans immunodeficiency. Like many viruses that have become epidemic in humans, it started off in animals (called SIV, because there was no “H” involved yet), which were then eaten by humans, passing the virus to us when it one day mutated to allow that.
- It’s technically two viruses, but that’s beyond the scope of today’s article; for our purposes they are the same. HIV-1 is more virulent and infectious than HIV-2, and is the kind more commonly found in most of the world.
- AIDS is Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, and again, is what it sounds like. When a person is infected with HIV, then without treatment, they will often develop AIDS.
- Technically AIDS itself doesn’t kill people; it just renders people near-defenseless to opportunistic infections (and immune-related diseases such as cancer), since one no longer has a properly working immune system. Common causes of death in AIDS patients include cancer, influenza, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.
People who contract HIV will usually develop AIDS if untreated. Untreated life expectancy is about 11 years.
HIV/AIDS are only a problem for gay people: True or False?
False, unequivocally. Anyone can get HIV and develop AIDS.
The reason it’s more associated with gay men, aside from homophobia, is that since penetrative sex is more likely to pass it on…
- If a man penetrates a woman and passes on HIV, that woman will probably not go on to penetrate someone else
- If a man penetrates a man and passes on HIV, that man could go on to penetrate someone else—and so on
- This means that without any difference in safety practices or promiscuity, it’s going to spread more between men on average, by simple mathematics.
- This is why “men who have sex with men” is the generally-designated higher-risk category.
There is medication to cure HIV/AIDS: True or False?
False (though there have been individual case studies of gene treatments that may have cured people—time will tell).
But! There are medications that can prevent HIV from being a life-threatening problem:
- PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) is a medication that one can take in advance of potential exposure to HIV, to guard against it.
- This is a common choice for people aren’t sure about their partners’ statuses, or people working in risky environments.
- PEP (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis) is a medication that one can take after potential exposure to HIV, to “nip it in the bud”.
- Those of you who were rushing to hospital in our poll, this is what you’re rushing there for.
- ARVs (Anti-RetroVirals) are a class of medications (there are different options; we don’t have room to distinguish them) that reduce an HIV+ person’s viral load to undetectable levels.
- Those of you who were asking what meds your partner was taking, these will be those meds. Also, most of them are to be taken in the morning with food, so that’s what the snack was for.
If someone is HIV+, the risk of transmission in unprotected sex is high: True or False?
True or False, with false being the far more likely. It depends on their medications, and this is why you were asking. If someone is on ARVs and their viral load is undetectable (as is usual once someone has been on ARVs for 6 months), they cannot transmit HIV to you.
U=U is not a fancy new emoticon, it means “undetectable = untransmittable”, which is a mathematically true statement in the case of HIV viral loads.
See: NIH | HIV Undetectable=Untransmittable (U=U)
If you’re thinking “still sounds risky to me”, then consider this:
You are safer having unprotected sex with someone who is HIV+ and on ARVs with an undetectable viral load, than you are with someone you are merely assuming is HIV- (perhaps you assume it because “surely this polite blushing young virgin of a straight man won’t give me cooties” etc)
Note that even your monogamous partner of many decades could accidentally contract HIV due to blood contamination in a hospital or an accident at work etc, so it’s good practice to also get tested after things that involve getting stabbed with needles, cut in a risky environment, etc.
If you’re concerned about potential stigma associated with HIV testing, you can get kits online:
CDC | How do I find an HIV self-test?
(these are usually fingerprick blood tests, and you can either see the results yourself at home immediately, or send it in for analysis, depending on the kit)
If I get HIV, I will get AIDS and die: True or False?
False, assuming you get treatment promptly and keep taking it. So those of you who were at “despair; life is over” can breathe a sigh of relief now.
However, if you get HIV, it does mean you will have to take those meds every day for the rest of your (no reason it shouldn’t be long and happy) life.
So, HIV is definitely still something to avoid, because it’s not great to have to take a life-saving medication every day. For a little insight as to what that might be like:
HIV.gov | Taking HIV Medication Every Day: Tips & Challenges
(as you’ll see there, there are also longer-lasting injections available instead of daily pulls, but those are much less widely available)
Summary
Some quick take-away notes-in-a-nutshell:
- Getting HIV may have been a death sentence in the 1980s, but nowadays it’s been relegated to the level of “serious inconvenience”.
- Happily, it is very preventable, with PrEP, PEP, and viral loads so low that they can’t transmit HIV, thanks to ARVs.
- Washing will not help, by the way. Safe sex will, though!
- As will celibacy and/or monogamy in seroconcordant relationships, e.g. you both have the same (known! That means actually tested recently! Not just assumed!) HIV status.
- If you do get it, it is very manageable with ARVs, but prevention is better than treatment
- There is no certain cure—yet. Some people (small number of case studies) may have been cured already with gene therapy, but we can’t know for sure yet.
Want to know more? Check out:
Take care!
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