The Seven Sins Of Memory – by Dr. Daniel Schacter

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As we get older, we often become more forgetful—despite remembering many things clearly from decades past. Why?

Dr. Daniel Shacter takes us on a tour of the brain, and also through evolution, to show how memory is not just one thing, but many. And furthermore, it’s not just our vast memory that’s an evolutionary adaptation, but also, our capacity to forget.

He does also discusses disease that affect memory, including Alzheimer’s, and explores the biological aspects of memory too.

The “seven sins” of the title are seven ways our (undiseased, regular) memory “lets us down”, and why, and how that actually benefits us as individuals and as a species, and/but also how we can modify that if we so choose.

The book’s main strength is in how it separates—or bids us separate for ourselves—what is important to us and our lives and what is not. How and why memory and information processing are often at odds with each other (and what that means for us). And, on a practical note, how we can tip the scales for or against certain kinds of memory.

Bottom line: if you’d like to better understand human memory in all its glorious paradoxes, and put into place practical measures to make it work for you the way you want, this is a fine book for you.

Click here to check out The Seven Sins of Memory, and get managing yours!

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Recommended

  • Real Self-Care – by Pooja Lakshmin MD
  • When can my baby drink cow’s milk? It’s sooner than you think
    WHO now advises cow’s milk is safe for formula-fed babies at six months, coupled with iron-rich solids for healthy growth.

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  • Fermenting Everything – by Andy Hamilton

    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.

    This is not justanother pickling book! This is, instead, what it says on the front cover, “fermenting everything”.

    Ok, maybe not literally everything, but every kind of thing that can reasonably be fermented, and it’s probably a lot more things than you might think.

    From habanero chutney to lacto-lemonade, aioli to kombucha, Ukrainian fermented tomatoes to kvass. We could go on, but we’d soon run out of space. You get the idea. If it’s a fermented product (food, drink, condiment) and you’ve heard of it, there’s probably a recipe in here.

    All in all, this is a great way to get in your gut-healthy daily dose of fermented products!

    He does also talk safety, and troubleshooting too. And so long as you have a collection of big jars and a fairly normally-furnished kitchen, you shouldn’t need any more special equipment than that, unless you decide to you your fermentation skills for making beer (which does need some extra equipment, and he offers advice on that—our advice as a health science publication is “don’t drink beer”, though).

    Bottom line: with this in hand, you can create a lot of amazing foods/drinks/condiments that are not only delicious, but also great for gut health.

    Click here to check out Fermenting Everything, and widen your culinary horizons!

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  • Healing Back Pain – by Dr. John Sarno

    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.

    Often when we review books with titles like this one, we preface it with a “what it’s not: a think-yourself-better book”.

    In this case… It is, in fact, a think-yourself-better book. However, its many essay-length rave reviews caught our attention, and upon reading, we can report: its ideas are worth reading.

    The focus of this book is on TMS, or “Tension Myoneural Syndrome”, to give it its full name. The author asserts (we cannot comment on the accuracy) that many cases of TMS are misdiagnosed as other things, from sciatica to lupus. When other treatments fail, or are simply not available (no cure for lupus yet, for example) or are unenticing (risky surgeries, for example), he offers an alternative approach.

    Dr. Sarno lays out the case for TMS being internally fixable, since our muscles and nerves are all at the command of our brain. Rather than taking a physical-first approach, he takes a psychological-first approach, before building into a more holistic model.

    The writing style is… A little dated and salesey and unnecessarily padded, to be honest, but the content makes it worthwhile.

    Bottom line: if you have back pain, then the advice of this book, priced not much more than a box of top brand painkillers, seems a very reasonable thing to try.

    Click here to check out Healing Back Pain, and see if it works for you!

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  • Avoid Knee Surgery With This Proven Strategy (Over-50s Specialist Physio)

    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.

    A diagnosis of knee arthritis can be very worrying, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a knee replacement surgery is inevitable. Here’s how to keep your knee better, for longer (and potentially, for life):

    Flexing your good health

    You know we wouldn’t let that “proven” go by unchallenged if it weren’t, so what’s the evidence for it? Research (papers linked in the video description) showed 70% of patients (so, not 100%, but 70% is good odds and a lot better than the alternative) with mild to moderate knee arthritis avoided surgery after following a specific protocol—the one we’re about to describe.

    The key strategy is to focus on strengthening the quadriceps muscles for joint protection, as strong quads correlate with reduced pain. However, a full range of motion in the knee is essential for optimal quad function, so that needs attention too, and in fact is foundational (can’t strengthen a quadriceps that doesn’t have a range of motion available to it):

    Steps to follow:

    1. Improve knee extension:
      • Passive knee extension exercise: gently press your knee down while lying flat, to increase straightening.
      • Weighted heel props: use light weights to encourage gradual knee straightening.
    2. Enhance knee flexion:
      • Use a towel to gently pull the knee towards the body to improve bending range.

    Regular practice (multiple times daily) leads to improved knee function and pain relief. Exercises should be performed gently and without pain, aiming for consistent, gradual progress.And of course, if you do experience pain, it is recommend to consult with a local physiotherapist for more personalized guidance.

    For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Treat Your Own Knee – by Robin McKenzie

    Take care!

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Related Posts

  • Real Self-Care – by Pooja Lakshmin MD
  • How To Recover Quickly From A Stomach Bug

    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.

    How To Recover Quickly From A Stomach Bug

    Is it norovirus, or did you just eat something questionable? We’re not doctors, let alone your doctors, and certainly will not try to diagnose from afar. And as ever, if unsure and/or symptoms don’t go away or do get worse, seek professional medical advice.

    That out of the way, we can give some very good general-purpose tips for this one…

    Help your immune system to help you

    So far as you can, you want a happy healthy immune system. For the most part, we’d recommend the following things:

    Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!

    …but you probably don’t want to be exercising with a stomach bug, so perhaps sit that one out. Exercise is the preventative; what you need right now is rest.

    Hydrate—but watch out

    Hydration is critical for recovery especially if you have diarrhea, but drinking too much water too quickly will just make things worse. Great options for getting good hydration more slowly are:

    • Peppermint tea
      • (peppermint also has digestion-settling properties)
    • Ginger tea
    • Broths
      • These will also help replenish your sodium and other nutrients, gently. Chicken soup for your stomach, and all that. A great plant-based option is sweetcorn soup.
      • By broths, we mean clear(ish) water-based soups. This is definitely not the time for creamier soups.

    ❝Milk and dairy products should be avoided for 24 to 48 hours as they can make diarrhea worse.

    Initial dietary choices when refeeding should begin with soups and broth.❞

    Source: American College of Gastroenterology

    Other things to avoid

    Caffeine stimulates the digestion in a way that can make things worse.

    Fat is more difficult to digest, and should also be avoided until feeling better.

    To medicate or not to medicate?

    Loperamide (also known by the brand name Imodium) is generally safe when used as directed.

    Click here to see its uses, dosage, side effects, and contraindications

    Antibiotics may be necessary for certain microbial infections, but should not be anyone’s first-choice treatment unless advised otherwise by your doctor/pharmacist.

    Note that if your stomach bug is not something that requires antibiotics, then taking antibiotics can actually make it worse as the antibiotics wipe out your gut bacteria that were busy helping fight whatever’s going wrong in there:

    A gentler helper

    If you want to give your “good bacteria” a hand while giving pathogens a harder time of it, then a much safer home remedy is a little (seriously, do not over do it; we are talking 1–2 tablespoons, or around 20ml) apple cider vinegar, taken diluted in a glass of water.

    ❝Several studies indicate apple cider vinegar (ACV)’s usefulness in lowering postprandial glycemic response, specifically by slowing of gastric motility❞

    (Slowing gastric motility is usually exactly what you want in the case of a stomach bug, and apple cider vinegar)

    Source: Effectiveness of Nutritional Ingredients on Upper Gastrointestinal Conditions and Symptoms: A Narrative Review

    See also:

    Take care!

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  • The Growing Inequality in Life Expectancy Among Americans

    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.

    The life expectancy among Native Americans in the western United States has dropped below 64 years, close to life expectancies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti. For many Asian Americans, it’s around 84 — on par with life expectancies in Japan and Switzerland.

    Americans’ health has long been unequal, but a new study shows that the disparity between the life expectancies of different populations has nearly doubled since 2000. “This is like comparing very different countries,” said Tom Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations and an author of the study.

    Called “Ten Americas,” the analysis published late last year in The Lancet found that “one’s life expectancy varies dramatically depending on where one lives, the economic conditions in that location, and one’s racial and ethnic identity.” The worsening health of specific populations is a key reason the country’s overall life expectancy — at 75 years for men and 80 for women — is the shortest among wealthy nations.

    To deliver on pledges from the new Trump administration to make America healthy again, policymakers will need to fix problems undermining life expectancy across all populations.

    “As long as we have these really severe disparities, we’re going to have this very low life expectancy,” said Kathleen Harris, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina. “It should not be that way for a country as rich as the U.S.”

    Since 2000, the average life expectancy of many American Indians and Alaska Natives has been steadily shrinking. The same has been true since 2014 for Black people in low-income counties in the southeastern U.S.

    “Some groups in the United States are facing a health crisis,” Bollyky said, “and we need to respond to that because it’s worsening.”

    Heart disease, car fatalities, diabetes, covid-19, and other common causes of death are directly to blame. But research shows that the conditions of people’s lives, their behaviors, and their environments heavily influence why some populations are at higher risk than others.

    Native Americans in the West — defined in the “Ten Americas” study as more than a dozen states excluding California, Washington, and Oregon — were among the poorest in the analysis, living in counties where a person’s annual income averages below about $20,000. Economists have shown that people with low incomes generally live shorter lives.

    Studies have also linked the stress of poverty, trauma, and discrimination to detrimental coping behaviors like smoking and substance use disorders. And reservations often lack grocery stores and clean, piped water, which makes it hard to buy and cook healthy food.

    About 1 in 5 Native Americans in the Southwest don’t have health insurance, according to a KFF report. Although the Indian Health Service provides coverage, the report says the program is weak due to chronic underfunding. This means people may delay or skip treatments for chronic illnesses. Postponed medical care contributed to the outsize toll of covid among Native Americans: About 1 of every 188 Navajo people died of the disease at the peak of the pandemic.

    “The combination of limited access to health care and higher health risks has been devastating,” Bollyky said.

    At the other end of the spectrum, the study’s category of Asian Americans maintained the longest life expectancies since 2000. As of 2021, it was 84 years.

    Education may partly underlie the reasons certain groups live longer. “People with more education are more likely to seek out and adhere to health advice,” said Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, and an author of the paper. Education also offers more opportunities for full-time jobs with health benefits. “Money allows you to take steps to take care of yourself,” Mokdad said.

    The group with the highest incomes in most years of the analysis was predominantly composed of white people, followed by the mainly Asian group. The latter, however, maintained the highest rates of college graduation, by far. About half finished college, compared with fewer than a third of other populations.

    The study suggests that education partly accounts for differences among white people living in low-income counties, where the individual income averaged less than $32,363. Since 2000, white people in low-income counties in southeastern states — defined as those in Appalachia and the Lower Mississippi Valley — had far lower life expectancies than those in upper midwestern states including Montana, Nebraska, and Iowa. (The authors provide details on how the groups were defined and delineated in their report.)

    Opioid use and HIV rates didn’t account for the disparity between these white, low-income groups, Bollyky said. But since 2010, more than 90% of white people in the northern group were high school graduates, compared with around 80% in the southeastern U.S.

    The education effect didn’t hold true for Latino groups compared with others. Latinos saw lower rates of high school graduation than white people but lived longer on average. This long-standing trend recently changed among Latinos in the Southwest because of covid. Hispanic or Latino and Black people were nearly twice as likely to die from the disease.

    On average, Black people in the U.S. have long experienced worse health than other races and ethnicities in the United States, except for Native Americans. But this analysis reveals a steady improvement in Black people’s life expectancy from 2000 to about 2012. During this period, the gap between Black and white life expectancies shrank.

    This is true for all three groups of Black people in the analysis: Those in low-income counties in southeastern states like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama; those in highly segregated and metropolitan counties, such as Queens, New York, and Wayne, Michigan, where many neighborhoods are almost entirely Black or entirely white; and Black people everywhere else.

    Better drugs to treat high blood pressure and HIV help account for the improvements for many Americans between 2000 to 2010. And Black people, in particular, saw steep rises in high school graduation and gains in college education in that period.

    However, progress stagnated for Black populations by 2016. Disparities in wealth grew. By 2021, Asian and many white Americans had the highest incomes in the study, living in counties with per capita incomes around $50,000. All three groups of Black people in the analysis remained below $30,000.

    A wealth gap between Black and white people has historical roots, stretching back to the days of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and policies that prevented Black people from owning property in neighborhoods that are better served by public schools and other services. For Native Americans, a historical wealth gap can be traced to a near annihilation of the population and mass displacement in the 19th and 20th centuries.

    Inequality has continued to rise for several reasons, such as a widening pay gap between predominantly white corporate leaders and low-wage workers, who are disproportionately people of color. And reporting from KFF Health News shows that decisions not to expand Medicaid have jeopardized the health of hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty.

    Researchers have studied the potential health benefits of reparation payments to address historical injustices that led to racial wealth gaps. One new study estimates that such payments could reduce premature death among Black Americans by 29%.

    Less controversial are interventions tailored to communities. Obesity often begins in childhood, for example, so policymakers could invest in after-school programs that give children a place to socialize, be active, and eat healthy food, Harris said. Such programs would need to be free for children whose parents can’t afford them and provide transportation.

    But without policy changes that boost low wages, decrease medical costs, put safe housing and strong public education within reach, and ensure access to reproductive health care including abortion, Harris said, the country’s overall life expectancy may grow worse.

    “If the federal government is really interested in America’s health,” she said, “they could grade states on their health metrics and give them incentives to improve.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

    This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • The Brain Alarm Signs That Warn Of Dementia

    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.

    When it comes to predicting age-related cognitive impairment:

    First there are genetic factors to take into account (such as the APOE4 gene for Alzheimer’s), as well as things such as age and sex.

    When it comes to sex, by the way, what matters here is hormones, which is why [it seems; this as technically as yet unproven with full rigor, but the hypothesis is sound and there is a body of evidence gradually being accumulated to support it] postmenopausal women with untreated menopause get Alzheimer’s at a higher rate and deteriorate more quickly:

    Alzheimer’s Sex Differences May Not Be What They Appear

    Next, there are obviously modifiable lifestyle factors to take into account, things that will reduce your risk such as getting good sleep, good diet, good exercise, and abstaining from alcohol and smoking, as well as oft-forgotten things such as keeping cognitively active and, equally importantly, socially active:

    How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

    (the article outlines what matters the most in each of the above areas, by the way, so that you can get the most bang-for-buck in terms of lifestyle adjustments)

    Lastly (in the category of risk factors), there are things to watch out for in the blood such as hypertension and high cholesterol.

    Nipping it in the blood

    In new research (so new it is still ongoing, but being at year 2 of a 4-year prospective study, they have published a paper with their results so far), researchers have:

    1. started with the premise “dementia is preceded by mild cognitive impairment”
    2. then, asked the question “what are the biometric signs of mild cognitive impairment?”

    Using such tools as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) while the participants performed cognitive tasks, they were able to record changes in plasma levels of extracellular vesicles, assessing them with small-particle flow cytometry.

    Translating from sciencese: they gave the participants mental tasks, and while they completed them, the researchers scanned their brains and monitored blood flow and the brain’s ability to compensate for any lack of it.

    What they found:

    • in young adults, blood flow increased, facilitating neurovascular coupling (this is good)
    • in older adults, blood flow did not increase as much, but they engaged other areas of the brain to compensate, by what’s called functional connectivity (this is next best)
    • in those with mild cognitive impairment, blood flow was reduced, and they did not have the ability to compensate by functional connectivity (this is not good)

    They also performed a liquid biopsy, which sounds alarming but it just means they took some blood, and tested this for density of cerebrovascular endothelial extracellular vesicles (CEEVs), which—in more prosaic words—are bits from the cells lining the blood vessels in the brain.

    People with mild cognitive impairment had more of these brain bits in their blood than those without.

    You can read the paper itself here:

    Neurovascular coupling, functional connectivity, and cerebrovascular endothelial extracellular vesicles as biomarkers of mild cognitive impairment

    What this means

    The science here is obviously still young (being as it is still in progress), but this will likely contribute greatly to early warning signs of dementia, by catching mild cognitive impairment in its early stages, by means of a simple blood test, instead of years of wondering before getting a dementia diagnosis.

    And of course, forewarned is forearmed, so if this is something that could be done as a matter of routine upon hitting the age of, say, 65 and then periodically thereafter, it would catch a lot of cases while there’s still more time to turn things around.

    As for how to turn things around, well, we imagine you have now read our “How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk” article linked up top (if not, we recommend checking it out), and there is also…

    Do Try This At Home: The 12-Week Brain Fitness Program To Measurably Boost Your Brain

    Take care!

    When it comes to predicting age-related cognitive impairment:

    First there are genetic factors to take into account (such as the APOE4 gene for Alzheimer’s), as well as things such as age and sex.

    When it comes to sex, by the way, what matters here is hormones, which is why [it seems; this as technically as yet unproven with full rigor, but the hypothesis is sound and there is a body of evidence gradually being accumulated to support it] postmenopausal women with untreated menopause get Alzheimer’s at a higher rate and deteriorate more quickly:

    Alzheimer’s Sex Differences May Not Be What They Appear

    Next, there are obviously modifiable lifestyle factors to take into account, things that will reduce your risk such as getting good sleep, good diet, good exercise, and abstaining from alcohol and smoking, as well as oft-forgotten things such as keeping cognitively active and, equally importantly, socially active:

    How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

    (the article outlines what matters the most in each of the above areas, by the way, so that you can get the most bang-for-buck in terms of lifestyle adjustments)

    Lastly (in the category of risk factors), there are things to watch out for in the blood such as hypertension and high cholesterol.

    Nipping it in the blood

    In new research (so new it is still ongoing, but being at year 2 of a 4-year prospective study, they have published a paper with their results so far), researchers have:

    1. started with the premise “dementia is preceded by mild cognitive impairment”
    2. then, asked the question “what are the biometric signs of mild cognitive impairment?”

    Using such tools as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) while the participants performed cognitive tasks, they were able to record changes in plasma levels of extracellular vesicles, assessing them with small-particle flow cytometry.

    Translating from sciencese: they gave the participants mental tasks, and while they completed them, the researchers scanned their brains and monitored blood flow and the brain’s ability to compensate for any lack of it.

    What they found:

    • in young adults, blood flow increased, facilitating neurovascular coupling (this is good)
    • in older adults, blood flow did not increase as much, but they engaged other areas of the brain to compensate, by what’s called functional connectivity (this is next best)
    • in those with mild cognitive impairment, blood flow was reduced, and they did not have the ability to compensate by functional connectivity (this is not good)

    They also performed a liquid biopsy, which sounds alarming but it just means they took some blood, and tested this for density of cerebrovascular endothelial extracellular vesicles (CEEVs), which—in more prosaic words—are bits from the cells lining the blood vessels in the brain.

    People with mild cognitive impairment had more of these brain bits in their blood than those without.

    You can read the paper itself here:

    Neurovascular coupling, functional connectivity, and cerebrovascular endothelial extracellular vesicles as biomarkers of mild cognitive impairment

    What this means

    The science here is obviously still young (being as it is still in progress), but this will likely contribute greatly to early warning signs of dementia, by catching mild cognitive impairment in its early stages, by means of a simple blood test, instead of years of wondering before getting a dementia diagnosis.

    And of course, forewarned is forearmed, so if this is something that could be done as a matter of routine upon hitting the age of, say, 65 and then periodically thereafter, it would catch a lot of cases while there’s still more time to turn things around.

    As for how to turn things around, well, we imagine you have now read our “How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk” article linked up top (if not, we recommend checking it out), and there is also…

    Do Try This At Home: The 12-Week Brain Fitness Program To Measurably Boost Your Brain

    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: