The Modern Art and Science of Mobility – by Aurélien Broussal-Derval
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We’ve reviewed mobility books before, so what makes this one stand out?
We’ll be honest: the illustrations are lovely.
The science, the information, the exercises, the routines, the programs… All these things are excellent too, but these can be found in many a book.
What can’t usually be found is very beautiful (yet no less clear) watercolor paintings and charcoal sketches as anatomical illustrations.
There are photos too (also of high quality), but the artistry of the paintings and sketches is what makes the reader want to spend time perusing the books.
At least, that’s what this reviewer found! Because it’s all very well having access to a lot of information (and indeed, I read so much), but making it enjoyable increases the chances of rereading it much more often.
As for the rest of the content, the book’s information is divided in categories:
- Pain (what causes it, what it means, and how to manage it)
- Breathing (yes, a whole section devoted to this, and it is aligned heavily to posture also, as well as psychological state and the effect of stress on tension, inflammation, and more)
- Movement (this is mostly about kinds of movement and ranges of movement)
- Mobility (this is about aggregating movements as a fully mobile human)
So, each builds on from the previous because any pain needs addressing before anything else, breathing (and with it, posture) comes next, then we learn about movement, then we bring it all together for mobility.
Bottom line: this is a beautiful and comprehensive book that will make learning a joy
Click here to check out The Modern Art and Science of Mobility, and learn and thrive!
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Policosanol: A Rival To Statins, Without The Side Effects?
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Policosanol (which can be extracted from various sources, but is mostly made from sugar cane extract) is marketed as lipid-lowering agent for improving cholesterol levels, but its research history has not been without controversy:
2001: it works!
After a lot of research in the 1990s, it came out of the gate strong in 2001, with:
❝Policosanol (5 and 10 mg/day) significantly decreased LDL-cholesterol (17.3% and 26.7%, respectively), total cholesterol (12.9% and 19.5%), as well as the ratios of LDL-cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol (17.2% and 26.5%) and total cholesterol to HDL-cholesterol (16.3% and 21.0%) compared with baseline and placebo❞
This, by the way, is comparable in efficacy to the most powerful statins, but without the adverse side effects.
Source: Efficacy and tolerability of policosanol in hypercholesterolemic postmenopausal women
Furthermore, its effects were not limited to postmenopausal women, and additionally, it was found that 20mg/day was sufficient for optimal effects; 40mg worked exactly the same as 20mg:
2006–2010: we do not trust the Cubans!
After it had been marketed and used in much of the world for some years, extra scrutiny was brought upon it, because the initial studies had been performed by the same lab in Cuba, a commercial lab that had tested them for a private interest (i.e., a company selling the supplement):
Heart Beat: Policosanol: A sweet nothing for high cholesterol
And furthermore, US-based labs were unable to replicate the results:
Policosanols as Nutraceuticals: Fact or Fiction
The Cuban researchers countered that the composition of policosanol as produced in their lab was different than the composition of the policosanol as produced in the US labs, because of the purity of the ingredients used in the Cuban lab.
Which, on the face of it, could be true or could just be the claim of a commercial lab with an association with a company selling a product.
Of course, importing Cuban ingredients to test them in the US was not a reasonably accessible option for the US-based labs, because of the US’s embargo of Cuba. In principle it could be done, but unless there is already a huge clear profit incentive, research scientists are usually on their hands and knees begging for grants already, so getting extra funding for specially-important Cuban ingredients was not going to be likely.
2012: never mind, it does work after all!
An American meta-analysis of 4596 patients from 52 eligible studies (from around the world, so many of them not affected by the US’s embargo; some were from within the US using non-Cuban ingredients, though), found:
❝policosanol is more effective than plant sterols and stanols for LDL level reduction and more favorably alters the lipid profile, approaching antilipemic drug efficacy❞
Those last words there, to be clear, mean “yes, the original claim of being on a par with statins is at least more or less true”.
Source: Meta-Analysis of Natural Therapies for Hyperlipidemia: Plant Sterols and Stanols versus Policosanol
2018: also yes, the Cuban kind does get those extra-effective results, even when tested outside of Cuba
A Korean research team verified this; it’s quite straightforward so for brevity we’ll just drop links:
- Consumption of Cuban Policosanol Improves Blood Pressure and Lipid Profile via Enhancement of HDL Functionality in Healthy Women Subjects: Randomized, Double-Blinded, and Placebo-Controlled Study
- Long-Term Consumption of Cuban Policosanol Lowers Central and Brachial Blood Pressure and Improves Lipid Profile With Enhancement of Lipoprotein Properties in Healthy Korean Participants
Mystery resolved!
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon—it’s not the Cuban kind, because the US’s trade embargo makes it difficult for the US to import even things that are theoretically now exempt from the embargo such as food and medicines. In principle they can now be imported, but in practice, the extra regulations added to Cuban imports make it nearly impossible, especially for small sellers.
Still, it’s 40mg/tablet policosanol from sugar cane extract, and 3rd party lab tested, so it’s the next best thing 😎
Enjoy!
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I want to eat healthily. So why do I crave sugar, salt and carbs?
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We all want to eat healthily, especially as we reset our health goals at the start of a new year. But sometimes these plans are sabotaged by powerful cravings for sweet, salty or carb-heavy foods.
So why do you crave these foods when you’re trying to improve your diet or lose weight? And what can you do about it?
There are many reasons for craving specific foods, but let’s focus on four common ones:
1. Blood sugar crashes
Sugar is a key energy source for all animals, and its taste is one of the most basic sensory experiences. Even without specific sweet taste receptors on the tongue, a strong preference for sugar can develop, indicating a mechanism beyond taste alone.
Neurons responding to sugar are activated when sugar is delivered to the gut. This can increase appetite and make you want to consume more. Giving into cravings also drives an appetite for more sugar.
In the long term, research suggests a high-sugar diet can affect mood, digestion and inflammation in the gut.
While there’s a lot of variation between individuals, regularly eating sugary and high-carb foods can lead to rapid spikes and crashes in blood sugar levels. When your blood sugar drops, your body can respond by craving quick sources of energy, often in the form of sugar and carbs because these deliver the fastest, most easily accessible form of energy.
2. Drops in dopamine and serotonin
Certain neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, are involved in the reward and pleasure centres of the brain. Eating sugary and carb-rich foods can trigger the release of dopamine, creating a pleasurable experience and reinforcing the craving.
Serotonin, the feel-good hormone, suppresses appetite. Natural changes in serotonin can influence daily fluctuations in mood, energy levels and attention. It’s also associated with eating more carb-rich snacks in the afternoon.
Do you get 3pm sugar cravings? Serotonin could play a role.
Marcus Aurelius/PexelsLow carb diets may reduce serotonin and lower mood. However, a recent systematic review suggests little association between these diets and risk for anxiety and depression.
Compared to men, women tend to crave more carb rich foods. Feeling irritable, tired, depressed or experiencing carb cravings are part of premenstrual symptoms and could be linked to reduced serotonin levels.
3. Loss of fluids and drops in blood sugar and salt
Sometimes our bodies crave the things they’re missing, such as hydration or even salt. A low-carb diet, for example, depletes insulin levels, decreasing sodium and water retention.
Very low-carb diets, like ketogenic diets, induce “ketosis”, a metabolic state where the body switches to using fat as its primary energy source, moving away from the usual dependence on carbohydrates.
Ketosis is often associated with increased urine production, further contributing to potential fluid loss, electrolyte imbalances and salt cravings.
4. High levels of stress or emotional turmoil
Stress, boredom and emotional turmoil can lead to cravings for comfort foods. This is because stress-related hormones can impact our appetite, satiety (feeling full) and food preferences.
The stress hormone cortisol, in particular, can drive cravings for sweet comfort foods.
A 2001 study of 59 premenopausal women subjected to stress revealed that the stress led to higher calorie consumption.
A more recent study found chronic stress, when paired with high-calorie diet, increases food intake and a preference for sweet foods. This shows the importance of a healthy diet during stress to prevent weight gain.
What can you do about cravings?
Here are four tips to curb cravings:
1) don’t cut out whole food groups. Aim for a well-balanced diet and make sure you include:
- sufficient protein in your meals to help you feel full and reduce the urge to snack on sugary and carb-rich foods. Older adults should aim for 20–40g protein per meal with a particular focus on breakfast and lunch and an overall daily protein intake of at least 0.8g per kg of body weight for muscle health
- fibre-rich foods, such as vegetables and whole grains. These make you feel full and stabilise your blood sugar levels. Examples include broccoli, quinoa, brown rice, oats, beans, lentils and bran cereals. Substitute refined carbs high in sugar like processed snack bars, soft drink or baked goods for more complex ones like whole grain bread or wholewheat muffins, or nut and seed bars or energy bites made with chia seeds and oats
2) manage your stress levels. Practise stress-reduction techniques like meditation, deep breathing, or yoga to manage emotional triggers for cravings. Practising mindful eating, by eating slowly and tuning into bodily sensations, can also reduce daily calorie intake and curb cravings and stress-driven eating
3) get enough sleep. Aim for seven to eight hours of quality sleep per night, with a minimum of seven hours. Lack of sleep can disrupt hormones that regulate hunger and cravings
4) control your portions. If you decide to indulge in a treat, control your portion size to avoid overindulging.
Overcoming cravings for sugar, salt and carbs when trying to eat healthily or lose weight is undoubtedly a formidable challenge. Remember, it’s a journey, and setbacks may occur. Be patient with yourself – your success is not defined by occasional cravings but by your ability to manage and overcome them.
Hayley O’Neill, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Salt Fix – by Dr. James DiNicolantonio
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This book has a bold premise: high salt consumption is not, as global scientific consensus holds, a serious health risk, but rather, as the title suggests, a health fix.
Dr. DiNicolantonio, a pharmacist, explains how “our ancestors crawled out of the sea millions of years ago and we still crave that salt”, giving this as a reason why we should consume salt ad libitum, aiming for 8–10g per day, and thereafter a fair portion of the book is given over to discussing how many health conditions are caused/exacerbated by sugar, and that therefore we have demonized the wrong white crystal (scientific consensus is that there are many white crystals that can cause us harm).
Indeed, sugar can be a big health problem, but reading it at such length felt a lot like when all a politician can talk about is how their political rival is worse.
A lot of the studies the author cites to support the idea of healthy higher salt consumption rates were on non-human animals, and it’s always a lottery as to whether those results translate to humans or not. Also, many of the studies he’s citing are old and have methodological flaws, while others we could not find when we looked them up.
One of the sources cited is “my friend Jose tried this and it worked for him”.
Bottom line: sodium is an essential mineral that we do need to live, but we are not convinced that this book’s ideas have scientific merit. But are they well-argued? Also no.
Click here to check out The Salt Fix for yourself! It’s a fascinating book.
(Usually, if we do not approve of a book, we simply do not review it. We like to keep things positive. However, this one came up in Q&A, so it seemed appropriate to share our review. Also, the occasional negative review may reassure you, dear readers, that when we praise a book, we mean it)
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Your Health Audit, From Head To Toe
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Health Audit Time
Here at 10almonds, we often cover quite specific things, ranging from “the effect of sodium on organs other than your heart” to “make this one small change to save your knees while driving”.
But, we’re each a whole person, and we need to take care of the whole organism that makes up the wonderful being that we each are. If we let one part of it drop in health too much, the others will soon follow suit because of the knock-on effects.
So, let’s do a quick self-check-up, and see what can be done for each! How’s your…
Mental Health
We’re doing this audit head-to-to, so let’s start it here, because mental health is also just health, and it’s difficult to tackle the others without having this one at least under control!
Are you experiencing chronic stress? Anxiety? Depression? Joy?
If you answered “no” to “joy” but also “no” to “depression”, you might want to rethink your answer to “depression”, by the way. Life should be a joyous thing!
Some resources to address your mental health:
Brain Health
Your brain is a big, powerful organ. It uses more of your daily energy (in the physiological sense of the word, we’re talking calories and mitochondria and ATP) than any other organ, by far.
And when it comes to organ failure, if your brain fails, then having the best joints in the world won’t help you, for example.
Some resources to address your brain health:
- Brain Food? The Eyes Have It
- How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk
- The 6 Dimensions Of Sleep (And Why They Matter)
Heart Health
Everything depends on your heart, head to toe. Tirelessly pumping blood with oxygen, nutrients, and agents of your immune system all around your body, all day every day for your entire life.
What’s your resting heart rate like? How about your blood pressure? And while we’re on the topic of blood… how’s your blood sugar health?
These are all important things to a) know about and b) keep on top of!
Some resources to address your heart health:
- 1-Minute Heart Health Check-Up Tips
- A Five-Point Plan For Heart Health
- High Blood Pressure? Try These!
Gut Health
By cell count, we’re about 10% human and 90% bacteria. By gene count, also. Pretty important, therefore, that we look after our trillions of tiny friends that keep our organism working.
Most people in N. America, for example, get vastly under the recommended daily amount of fiber, and that’s just the most basic courtesy we could do for these bugs that keep us alive (they need that fiber to live, and their process of consuming it is beneficial to us in a stack of ways).
Some resources to address your gut health:
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- The Surprising Link Between Gut Health And Serotonin
- The Vagus Nerve: The Brain-Gut Highway!
Hormonal Health
Hormones are weird and wonderful and affect so much more than the obvious sex-related functions (but yes, those too). A lot of people don’t realize it, but having our hormones in good order or not can make the difference between abject misery and a happy, fulfilling life.
Some resources to address your hormonal health:
- What Does “Balance Your Hormones” Even Mean?
- Healthy Hormones And How To Hack Them
- Too Much Or Too Little Testosterone?
Bone/Joint Health
Fear nothing! For you are a ghost operating a skeleton clad in flesh. But also, you know, look after that skeleton; you only get one! Being animals, we’re all about movement, and being humans, we’ve ended up with some lifestyle situations that aren’t great for that mobility. We sit too much; we walk too little; we cramp ourselves into weird positions (driving, anyone?), and we forget the range of motion we’re supposed to have. But let’s remember…
Some resources to address your bone/joint health:
- Collagen’s benefits are more than skin deep
- Cool As A Cucumber (Move Over, Glucosamine + Chondroitin)
- 5 Best Bodyweight Exercises For Incredible Mobility
Lastly…
While it’s good to do a little self-audit like this every now and again, it’s even better to get a professional check-up!
As engineers say: if you don’t schedule time for maintenance, your equipment will schedule it for you.
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100 No-Equipment Workouts – by Neila Rey
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For those of us who for whatever reason prefer to exercise at home rather than at the gym, we must make do with what exercise equipment we can reasonably install in our homes. This book deals with that from the ground upwards—literally!
If you have a few square meters of floorspace (and a ceiling that’s not too low, for exercises that involve any kind of jumping), then all 100 of these zero-equipment exercises are at-home options.
As to what kinds of exercises they are, they each marked as being one or both of “cardio” and “strength”.
They’re also marked as being of “difficulty level” 1, 2, or 3, so that someone who hasn’t exercised in a while (or hasn’t exercised like this at all), can know where best to start, and how best to progress.
The exercises come with clear explanations in the text, and clear line-drawing illustrations of how to do each exercise. Really, they could not be clearer; this is top quality pragmatism, and reads like a military manual.
Bottom line: whatever your strength and fitness goals, this book can see you well on your way to them (if not outright get you there already in many cases). It’s also an excellent “all-rounder” for full-body workouts.
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Encyclopedia Of Herbal Medicine – by Andrew Chevallier
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A common problem with a lot of herbal medicine is it’s “based on traditional use only”, while on the other hand, learning about the actual science of it can mean poring through stacks of Randomized Clinical Trials, half of which are paywalled.
This beautifully and clearly-illustrated book bridges that gap. It gives not just the history, but also the science, of the use of many medicinal herbs (spotlight on 100 key ones; details on 450 more).
It gives advice on growing, harvesting, processing, and using the herbs, as well as what not to do (with regard to safety). And in case you don’t fancy yourself a gardener, you’ll also find advice on places one can buy herbs, and what you’ll need to know to choose them well (controlling for quality etc).
You can read it cover-to-cover, or look up what you need by plant in its general index, or by ailment (200 common ailments listed). As for its bibliography, it does list many textbooks, but not individual papers—though it does cite 12 popular scientific journals too.
Bottom line: if you want a good, science-based, one-stop book for herbal medicine, this is a top-tier choice.
Click here to check out the Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine, and expand your home remedy repertoire!
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