The Meds That Impair Decision-Making
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Impairment to cognitive function is often comorbid with Parkinson’s disease. That is to say: it’s not a symptom of Parkinson’s, but it often occurs in the same people. This may seem natural: after all, both are strongly associated with aging.
However, recent (last month, at time of writing) research has brought to light a very specific way in which medication for Parkinson’s may impair the ability to make sound decisions.
Obviously, this is a big deal, because it can affect healthcare decisions, financial decisions, and more—greatly impacting quality of life.
See also: Age-related differences in financial decision-making and social influence
(in which older people were found more likely to be influenced by the impulsive financial preferences of others than their younger counterparts, when other factors are controlled for)
As for how this pans out when it comes to Parkinson’s meds…
Pramipexole (PPX)
This drug can, due to an overlap in molecular shape, mimic dopamine in the brains of people who don’t have enough—such as those with Parkinson’s disease. This (as you might expect) helps alleviate Parkinson’s symptoms.
However, researchers found that mice treated with PPX and given a touch-screen based gambling game picked the high-risk, high reward option much more often. In the hopes of winning strawberry milkshake (the reward), they got themselves subjected to a lot of blindingly-bright flashing lights (the risk, to which untreated mice were much more averse, as this is very stressful for a mouse).
You may be wondering: did the mice have Parkinson’s?
The answer: kind of; they had been subjected to injections with 6-hydroxydopamine, which damages dopamine-producing neurons similarly to Parkinson’s.
This result was somewhat surprising, because one would expect that a mouse whose depleted dopamine was being mimicked by a stand-in (thus, doing much of the job of dopamine) would be less swayed by the allure of gambling (a high-dopamine activity), since gambling is typically most attractive to those who are desperate to find a crumb of dopamine somewhere.
They did find out why this happened, by the way, the PPX hyperactivated the external globus pallidus (also called GPe, and notwithstanding the name, this is located deep inside the brain). Chemically inhibiting this area of the brain reduced the risk-taking activity of the mice.
This has important implications for Parkinson’s patients, because:
- on an individual level, it means this is a side effect of PPX to be aware of
- on a research-and-development level, it means drugs need to be developed that specifically target the GPe, to avoid/mitigate this side effect.
You can read the study in full here:
Don’t want to get Parkinson’s in the first place?
While nothing is a magic bullet, there are things that can greatly increase or decrease Parkinson’s risk. Here’s a big one, as found recently (last week, at the time of writing):
Air Pollution and Parkinson’s Disease in a Population-Based Study
Also: knowing about its onset sooner rather than later is scary, but beneficial. So, with that in mind…
Recognize The Early Symptoms Of Parkinson’s Disease
Finally, because Parkinson’s disease is theorized to be caused by a dysfunction of alpha-synuclein clearance (much like the dysfunction of beta-amyloid clearance, in the case of Alzheimer’s disease), this means that having a healthy glymphatic system (glial cells doing the same clean-up job as the lymphatic system, but in the brain) is critical:
How To Clean Your Brain (Glymphatic Health Primer)
Take care!
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How Fish Oil Can Harm Your Brain
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Omega-3 fatty acids have many benefits for the health, including for the brain!
We wrote about some of them, here: What Omega-3 Fatty Acids Really Do For Us
There are even some less well-known benefits, such as: Why Healthy Teeth May Depend On Omega-3 & Exercise
Now, the press has not been all positive, for example: Fish Oil Can Backfire Without This Enzyme
But what’s this about omega-3s harming the brain?
Brain recovery impediment
Researchers (Dr. Eda Karakaya et al.) examined how omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil affect brain recovery, and the results were not happy ones.
In few words: the fish-derived omega-3 fatty acid EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) accumulated in the brain and was linked to reduced recovery capacity after injury.
Further, EPA altered cortical gene programs by suppressing pathways involved in vascular repair* and extracellular matrix organization while increasing lipid metabolism activity.
*And this is critical. Regular 10almonds readers will remember that we often say “what’s good for your heart is good for your brain”, and it’s because the former feeds the latter, with nutrients, oxygen, etc, and also ultimately takes away detritus (yes, it’s the glymphatic system that does it directly, but without good blood flow, there’s nowhere for it to usefully drain to). So all this means that if cerebrovascular repair is impaired, then ultimately, brain maintenance will be impaired too.
More than just that, in human brain microvascular endothelial cells, EPA reduced the ability to form repair networks under conditions promoting fatty acid use.
And while no ethics board would let the researchers take brain slices from living human volunteers to look at under the microscope, postmortem brain samples from humans with chronic traumatic encephalopathy showed disrupted fatty acid balance and vascular-related gene changes consistent with EPA-linked effects.
In other words: a further smoking gun that strongly suggests (albeit does not outright prove, in this case) “EPA did this”.
There is one thing that’s not completely bad news for fish oil here, which is that DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), another omega-3 fatty acid, did not show the same negative effects and remains associated with normal brain structure.
But since fish oil contains both EPA and DHA in generous amounts, there’s a limit to how helpful this is:
❝Fish oil supplements are everywhere, and people take them for a range of reasons, often without a clear understanding of their long-term effects
But in terms of neuroscience, we still don’t know whether the brain has resilience or resistance to this supplement. That’s why ours is the first such study in the field.❞
~ Dr. Onder Albaryam, a colleague of Dr. Karakaya, and part of the “et al.” in this study
You can read the paper in full, here: Eicosapentaenoic acid reprograms cerebrovascular metabolism and impairs repair after brain injury, with relevance to chronic traumatic encephalopathy
Want to do better for your brain?
You do have other options!
For example, as well as the difference between EPA and DHA that we talked about above, there are also plant-based omega-3s that just have ALA (and not EPA or DHA) which the body can convert to whatever omega-3 form it needs (just like the fish did, for we too are animals that can do that, and for this reason our liver fats would, if healthy, also be a good source of EPA/DHA if something were to predate on us).
For more on that, check out: Omega-3s: Different Sources, Different Benefits?
Enjoy!
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Getting Rid Of Warts
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.
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 to get rid of warts and stop them from coming back?❞
First we’ll mention: it does matter what kind of warts they are, and where they are. It’s easier to treat a wart on a finger than on the genitals or an eyelid, for example.
To speak in broad terms, though, warts are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV).
There is a HPV vaccine; you can read about it here: Everything you need to know about cervical cancer*
You can get the vaccine as an adult, but it’s most readily given to children, as it is most effective before first encountering HPV. Otherwise, most people contract the virus at some point, and it is highly contagious, so prevention as early as possible is good. Sometimes people will hand-wring about giving a HPV vaccine to children as HPV is mostly transmitted sexually so it “shouldn’t” be necessary yet, but 1) better to get it done and not have to worry about it later 2) it’s not only transmitted sexually, but by touch in general, and it is highly resistant to disinfectants.
*You may be wondering: why is the link about cervical cancer? And the answer is that almost all cervical cancer is caused by HPV.
However, if you have warts, this does not mean you are necessarily at high risk of cervical cancer (or oropharyngeal cancer, which is also mostly caused by HPV).
There are hundreds of known types of HPV, and the most common wart-inducing types aren’t known to increase cancer risk. Please note that this is not an exhaustive statement though; there are a lot of types where it’s not fully known what they do. Also, many people will have numerous types of HPV.
You asked us about treating warts, so that’s important knowledge, but to save space on discussing the many types of HPV (which is a fascinating topic, especially when it comes to some of the most common types like 2 and 16, and the most risky types like 16 and 18), we’ll direct you to a convenient table of HPV types on Wikipedia that tells which kinds do what.
So, can we destroy the virus once infected?
Yes!
…ish. That is to say, we can destroy them locally (at the site of the wart), but we will still remain infected by the virus, meaning they can always reappear (we can reduce the risks though; more on that later).
Destroying it mostly comes in two main forms:
- Salicylic acid or similar chemical products: needs to be used every day, for weeks, but will destroy the wart tissue (and the virus contained within it) while leaving healthy tissue mostly unaffected (it’s only mildly corrosive to our own flesh) but still, try to get it only on the wart. Here’s an example product on Amazon.
- Liquid nitrogen or other freezing treatments: usually only takes a few treatments to destroy it completely. Liquid nitrogen is usually available only via a doctor, unless for some reason you happen to have access to it yourself, but we recommend getting professional (medical professional!) assistance, as otherwise it can very easily destroy your flesh too. Milder, at-home freezing treatments are not as effective as liquid nitrogen, but still much more effective than corrosive chemical treatments. The at-home kits usually involve a canister containing chemicals that produce an endothermic reaction when mixed, and this mixture is then either sprayed via a nozzle placed around the wart (to avoid getting other tissue), or else isn’t sprayed anywhere, and just cools a conductive metal element the tip of which is then placed on the wart to freeze it off. Here’s an example product on Amazon.
There are a lot of home remedies that people try; most of them do not work.
Here’s a list: 16 Natural Home Remedies for Warts ← we’re not recommending these, but we link them for your interest.
About avoiding reoccurrence
There are two main things here:
- don’t reinfect yourself: so for example try to avoid touching it (spreads it about anywhere else you touch), and consider anything you used on it physically (e.g. pumice stone, nail file, etc) contaminated and now capable of spreading it to other parts of you (or indeed other people, if it’s a shared item, so don’t share it). Remember, it’s very resistant to disinfecting, so unless you have a medical grade autoclave or seriously strong industrial chemicals, you’re very unlikely to successfully disinfect such items at home.
- look after your immune system: most warts go away by themselves in about 18 months. Is it because they just got fed up of being a nuisance? No, it’s because your immune system finally beat them (on that particular battleground, at least). So, look after your immune system, and it will not only help you get rid of extant warts more quickly, but also reduce the risk of reoccurrence.
Learn more about that latter: Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!
Take care!
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Neuroaffirming care values the strengths and differences of autistic people, those with ADHD or other profiles. Here’s how
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.
We’ve come a long way in terms of understanding that everyone thinks, interacts and experiences the world differently. In the past, autistic people, people with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and other profiles were categorised by what they struggled with or couldn’t do.
The concept of neurodiversity, developed by autistic activists in the 1990s, is an emerging area. It promotes the idea that different brains (“neurotypes”) are part of the natural variation of being human – just like “biodiversity” – and they are vital for our survival.
This idea is now being applied to research and to care. At the heart of the National Autism Strategy, currently in development, is neurodiversity-affirming (neuroaffirming) care and practice. But what does this look like?
Unsplash Reframing differences
Neurodiversity challenges the traditional medical model of disability, which views neurological differences solely through a lens of deficits and disorders to be treated or cured.
Instead, it reframes it as a different, and equally valuable, way of experiencing and navigating the world. It emphasises the need for brains that are different from what society considers “neurotypical”, based on averages and expectations. The term “neurodivergent” is applied to Autistic people, those with ADHD, dyslexia and other profiles.
Neuroaffirming care can take many forms depending on each person’s needs and context. It involves accepting and valuing different ways of thinking, learning and experiencing the world. Rather than trying to “fix” or change neurodivergent people to fit into a narrow idea of what’s considered “normal” or “better”, neuroaffirming care takes a person-centered, strengths-based approach. It aims to empower and support unique needs and strengths.
Neuroaffirming care can look different in a school or clinical setting. Shutterstock/Inna Reznik Adaptation and strengths
Drawing on the social model of disability, neuroaffirming care acknowledges there is often disability associated with being different, especially in a world not designed for neurodivergent people. This shift focuses away from the person having to adapt towards improving the person-environment fit.
This can include providing accommodations and adapting environments to make them more accessible. More importantly, it promotes “thriving” through greater participation in society and meaningful activities.
At school, at work, in clinic
In educational settings, this might involve using universal design for learning that benefits all learners.
For example, using systematic synthetic phonics to teach reading and spelling for students with dyslexia can benefit all students. It also could mean incorporating augmentative and alternative communication, such as speech-generating devices, into the classroom.
Teachers might allow extra time for tasks, or allow stimming (repetitive movements or noises) for self-regulation and breaks when needed.
In therapy settings, neuroaffirming care may mean a therapist grows their understanding of autistic culture and learns about how positive social identity can impact self-esteem and wellbeing.
They may make efforts to bridge the gap in communication between different neurotypes, known as the double empathy problem. For example, the therapist may avoid relying on body language or facial expressions (often different in autistic people) to interpret how a client is feeling, instead of listening carefully to what the client says.
Affirming therapy approaches with children involve “tuning into” their preferred way of communicating, playing and engaging. This can bring meaningful connection rather than compliance to “neurotypical” ways of playing and relating.
In workplaces, it can involve flexible working arrangements (hours, patterns and locations), allowing different modes of communication (such as written rather than phone calls) and low-sensory workspaces (for example, low-lighting, low-noise office spaces).
In public spaces, it can look like providing a “sensory space”, such as at large concerts, where neurodivergent people can take a break and self-regulate if needed. And staff can be trained to recognise, better understand and assist with hidden disabilities.
Combining lived experience and good practice
Care is neuroaffirmative when it centres “lived experience” in its design and delivery, and positions people with disability as experts.
As a result of being “different”, people in the neurodivergent community experience high rates of bullying and abuse. So neuroaffirming care should be combined with a trauma-informed approach, which acknowledges the need to understand a person’s life experiences to provide effective care.
Culturally responsive care acknowledges limited access to support for culturally and racially marginalised Autistic people and higher rates of LGBTQIA+ identification in the neurodivergent community.
In the workplace, we can acknowledge how difference can fuel ideas. Unsplash/Jason Goodman Authentic selves
The draft National Autism Strategy promotes awareness that our population is neurodiverse. It hopes to foster a more inclusive and understanding society.
It emphasises the societal and public health responsibilities for supporting neurodivergent people via public education, training, policy and legislation. By providing spaces and places where neurodivergent people can be their authentic, unmasked selves, we are laying the foundations for feeling seen, valued, safe and, ultimately, happy and thriving.
The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of psychologist Victoria Gottliebsen in drafting this article. Victoria is a member of the Oversight Council for the National Autism Strategy.
Josephine Barbaro, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, Psychologist, La Trobe University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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What Loneliness Does To Your Brain And 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.
Spoiler: it’s nothing good (but it can be addressed!)
Not something to be ignored
Loneliness raises the risk of heart disease by 29% and the risk of stroke by 32%. It also brings about higher susceptibility to illness (flu, COVID, chronic pain, etc), as well as poor sleep quality and cognitive decline, possibly leading to dementia. Not only that, but it also promotes inflammation, and premature death (comparable to smoking).
This is because the lack of meaningful social connections activates the body’s stress response, which in turn increases paranoia, suspicion, and social withdrawal—which makes it harder to seek the social interaction needed to alleviate it.
On a neurological level, cortisol levels become imbalanced, and a faltering dopamine response leads to impulsive behaviors (e.g., drinking, gambling) to try to make up for it. Decreased serotonin, oxytocin, and natural opioids reduce feelings of happiness and negate pain relief.
As for combatting it, the first-line remedy is the obvious one: connecting with others improves emotional and physical wellbeing. However, it is recommended to aim for deep, meaningful connections that make you happy rather than just socializing for its own sake. It’s perfectly possible to be lonely in a crowd, after all.
A second-line remedy is to simply mitigate the harm by means of such things as art therapy and time in nature—they can’t completely replace human connection, but they can at least improve the neurophysiological situation (which in turn, might be enough of a stop-gap solution to enable a return to human connection).
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:
How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
Take care!
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Cherries’ Very Healthy Wealth Of Benefits!
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.
Cherries’ Health Benefits Simply Pop
First, be aware, there are different kinds:
Sweet & Sour
Cherries can be divided into sweet vs sour. These are mostly nutritionally similar, though sour ones do have some extra benefits.
Sweet and sour cherries are closely related but botanically different plants; it’s not simply a matter of ripeness (or preparation).
These can mostly be sorted into varieties of Prunus avium and Prunus cerasus, respectively:
Cherry Antioxidants: From Farm to Table
Sour cherry varieties include morello and montmorency, so look out for those names in particular when doing your grocery-shopping.
You may remember that it’s a good rule of thumb that foods that are more “bitter, astringent, or pungent” will tend to have a higher polyphenol content (that’s good):
Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
Juiced up
Almost certainly for reasons of budget and convenience, as much as for standardization, most studies into the benefits of cherries have been conducted using concentrated cherry juice as a supplement.
At home, we need not worry so much about standardization, and our budget and convenience are ours to manage. To this end, as a general rule of thumb, whole fruits are pretty much always better than juice:
Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
Antioxidant & anti-inflammatory!
Cherries are a very good source of antioxidants, and as such they also reduce inflammation, which in turn means ameliorating autoimmune diseases, from common things like arthritis…
…to less common things like gout:
Cherry Consumption and the Risk of Recurrent Gout Attacks
This can also be measured by monitoring uric acid metabolites:
Consumption of cherries lowers plasma urate in healthy women
Anti-diabetic effect
Most of the studies on this have been rat studies, and the human studies have been less “the effect of cherry consumption on diabetes” and more a matter of separate studies adding up to this conclusion in, the manner of “cherries have this substance, this substance has this effect, therefore cherries will have this effect”. You can see an example of this discussed over the course of 15 studies, here:
A Review of the Health Benefits of Cherries ← skip to section 2.2.1: “Cherry Intake And Diabetes”
In short, the jury is out on cherry juice, but eating cherries themselves (much like getting plenty of fruit in general) is considered good against diabetes.
Good for healthy sleep
For this one, the juice suffices (actual cherries are still recommended, but the juice gave clear significant positive results):
Pilot Study of the Tart Cherry Juice for the Treatment of Insomnia and Investigation of Mechanisms ← this was specifically in people over the age of 50
Importantly, it’s not that cherries have a sedative effect, but rather they support the body’s ability to produce melatonin adequately when the time comes:
Effect of tart cherry juice (Prunus cerasus) on melatonin levels and enhanced sleep quality
Post-exercise recovery
Cherries are well-known for boosting post-exercise recovery, though they may actually improve performance during exercise too, if eaten beforehand/
For example, these marathon-runners who averaged 13% compared to placebo control:
As for its recovery benefits, we wrote about this before:
How To Speed Up Recovery After A Workout (According To Actual Science)
Want to get some?
We recommend your local supermarket (or farmer’s market!), but if for any reason you prefer to take a supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
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Bitter Melon vs Winter Melon – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing bitter melon to winter melon, we picked the bitter.
Why?
Did you remember the “bitter is better” dictum that goes for most plant-based foods? It certainly stands in this case!
A note on nomenclature before we begin: these two fruits are also known as the bitter gourd and the wax gourd, respectively (amongst many other names for each), but we went with what seems to be their most common names.
In terms of macros, the bitter melon has more than 13x the protein (and actually adding up to a meaningful amount, at 5.3g/100g), as well as more fiber for the same carbs, making it the better choice all around.
When it comes to vitamins, the bitter melon has a lot more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B7, B9, and C, while the winter melon boasts only more vitamin B5. As in, the vitamin that’s in all foods (even its scientific name means “from everywhere”) and in which it’s pretty much impossible to be deficient unless literally starving. All in all, an easy and clear win for bitter melon.
In the category of minerals, we see a similar story: the bitter melon has very much more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium, while the winter melon has a modest double-dose of zinc—hardly comparable to, say, bitter melon having over 100x the potassium content, and indeed, in all minerals except zinc, bitter melon had 4x–100x more. Another clear and overwhelming win for the bitter melon.
Looking up polyphenols, we see that the bitter melon also wins in that regard, shocking nobody, with an impressive polyphenolic profile, especially rich in luteolins and catechins of various kinds.
In short, enjoy either or both, but there’s a clear winner here, and it’s the bitter melon.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
Enjoy!
Don’t Forget…
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