The Whole-Body Approach to Osteoporosis – by Keith McCormick

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You probably already know to get enough calcium and vitamin D, and do some resistance training. What does this book offer beyond that advice?

It’s pretty comprehensive, as it turns out. It covers the above, plus the wide range of medications available, what supplements help or harm or just don’t have enough evidence either way yet, things like that.

Amongst the most important offerings are the signs and symptoms that can help monitor your bone health (things you can do at home! Like examinations of your fingernails, hair, skin, tongue, and so forth, that will reveal information about your internal biochemical make-up), as well as what lab tests to ask for. Which is important, as osteoporosis is one of those things whereby we often don’t learn something is wrong until it’s too late.

The author is a chiropractor, which doesn’t always have a reputation as the most robustly science-based of physical therapy options, but he…

  • doesn’t talk about chiropractic
  • did confer with a flock of experts (osteopaths, nutritionists, etc) to inform/check his work
  • does refer consistently to good science, and explains it well
  • includes 16 pages of academic references, and yes, they are very reputable publications

Bottom line: this one really does give what the subtitle promises: a whole body approach to avoiding (or reversing) osteoporosis.

Click here to check out The Whole Body Approach To Osteoporosis; sooner is better than later!

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Recommended

  • The Mind-Gut Connection – by Dr. Emeran Mayer
  • The Healing of America – by Thomas Reid
    Dive into the U.S. healthcare dilemma through an expert’s lens, comparing global systems and suggesting real solutions to end medical bankruptcy.

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  • Longevity for the Lazy – by Dr. Richard Malish

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    There are some people who devote all their resources to longevity, which can become a full-time occupation, not to mention a very expensive endeavor. This book’s for those who want to get the best possible “bang for buck” by doing the things that have the most favorable cost:worth ratio.

    Dr. Malish covers what can be done easily for personal longevity, as well as what technological advances can be enjoyed that those before us didn’t have as options. He also discusses the diseases that are most likely to kill us, and how to avoid those.

    He preaches a proactive approach, but one that is simple and consistent and based in good science, and good statistics. Indeed, while he’s served 20 years as an army doctor and a cardiologist, he now works as a healthcare policy consultant, so he is well-placed to advise.

    The style of the book is halfway between regular pop-science and a textbook; you can either read it cover-to-cover, or skim first though the key points, highlight boxes, summaries, and the like. He also provides a time-phased task list, for those who like things to be laid out like that.

    Bottom line: this is a very good, methodical guide to living longer without making it a full-time occupation.

    Click here to check out Longevity For The Lazy, and enjoy healthy longevity that gives you time free to enjoy it!

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  • Watch Out For Lipedema

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    Lipedema occurs mostly in women, mostly in times of hormonal change, with increasing risk as time goes by (so for example, puberty yields a lower risk than pregnancy, which yields a lower risk than menopause).

    Its name literally means “fat swelling”, and can easily be mistaken for obesity or, in its earlier stages, just pain old cellulite.

    Cellulite, by the way, is completely harmless and is also not, per se, an indicator of bad health. But if you have it and don’t like it, you can reduce it:

    Keep Cellulite At Bay

    Obesity is more of a complex matter, and one that we’ve covered here:

    Shedding Some Obesity Myths

    Lipedema is actively harmful

    Lipedema can become a big problem, because lifestyle change does not reduce lipedema fat, the fat is painful, can lead to obesity if one was not already obese, causes gait and joint abnormalities, causes fatigue, can lead to lymphedema (beyond the scope of today’s article—perhaps another time!) and very much psychosocial distress.

    Like many conditions that mostly affect women, the science is… Well, here’s a recent example review that was conducted and published:

    Lipedema: What we don’t know

    Fun fact: in Romanian there is an expression “one eye is laughing; the other is crying”, and it seems appropriate here.

    Spot the signs

    Because it’s most readily mistaken for cellulite in first presentation, let’s look at the differences between them:

    • Cellulite is characterized by dimpled, bumpy, or even skin; lipedema is the same but with swelling too.
    • Cellulite is a connective tissue condition; lipedema is too (at least in part), but also involves the abnormal accumulation and deposition of fat cells, rather than just pulling some down a bit.
    • Cellulite has no additional symptoms; lipedema soon also brings swollen limbs, joint pain, and/or skin that’s “spongy” and easily bruised.

    What to do about it

    First, get it checked out by a doctor.

    If the doctor says it is just cellulite or obesity, ask them what difference(s) they are basing that on, and ask that they confirm in writing having dismissed your concerns (having this will be handy later if it turns out to be lipedema after all).

    If it is lipedema, you will want to catch it early; there is no known cure, but advanced symptoms are a lot easier to keep at bay than they are to reverse once they’ve shown up.

    Weight maintenance, skin care (including good hydration), and compression therapy have all been shown to help slow the progression.

    If it is allowed to progress unhindered, that’s when a lot more fat accumulation and joint pain is likely to occur. Liposuction and surgery are options, but even they are only a temporary solution, and are obviously not fun things to have to go through.

    Prevention is, as ever, much better than cure treatment ← because there is no known cure

    One last thing

    Lipedema’s main risk factor is genetic. The bad news is, there’s not much that can be done about that for now, but the good news is, you can at least get the heads-up about whether you are at increased risk or not, and be especially vigilant if you’re in the increased risk group. See also:

    One Test, Many Warnings: The Real Benefit Of Genetic Testing

    Take care!

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  • Measles cases are rising—here’s how to protect your family

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    The U.S. is currently experiencing a spike in measles cases across several states. Measles a highly contagious and potentially life-threatening disease caused by a virus. The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine prevents measles; unvaccinated people put themselves and everyone around them at risk, including babies who are too young to receive the vaccine.

    Read on to learn more about measles: what it is, how to stay protected, and what to do if a measles outbreak happens near you.

    What are the symptoms of measles? 

    Measles symptoms typically begin 10 to 14 days after exposure. The disease starts with a fever followed by a cough, runny nose, and red eyes and then produces a rash of tiny red spots on the face and body. Measles can affect anyone, but is most serious for children under 5, immunocompromised people, and pregnant people, who may give birth prematurely or whose babies may have low birth weight as a result of a measles infection. 

    Measles isn’t just a rash—the disease can cause serious health problems and even death. About one in five unvaccinated people in the U.S. who get measles will be hospitalized and could suffer from pneumonia, dehydration, or brain swelling.

    If you get measles, it can also damage your immune system, making you more vulnerable to other diseases.

    How do you catch measles?

    Measles spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. It’s so contagious that unvaccinated people have a 90 percent chance of becoming infected if exposed.

    An infected person can spread measles to others before they have symptoms.

    Why are measles outbreaks happening now?

    The pandemic caused many children to miss out on routine vaccinations, including the MMR vaccine. Delayed vaccination schedules coincided with declining confidence in vaccine safety and growing resistance to vaccine requirements.

    Skepticism about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines has resulted in some people questioning or opposing the MMR vaccine and other routine immunizations. 

    How do I protect myself and my family from measles? 

    Getting an MMR vaccine is the best way to prevent getting sick with measles or spreading it to others. The CDC recommends that children receive the MMR vaccine at 12 to 15 months and again at 4 to 6 years, before starting kindergarten.

    One dose of the MMR vaccine provides 93 percent protection and two doses provide 97 percent protection against all strains of measles. Because some children are too young to be immunized, it’s important that those around them are vaccinated to protect them.

    Is the MMR vaccine safe?

    The MMR vaccine has been rigorously tested and monitored over 50 years and determined to be safe. Adverse reactions to the vaccine are extremely rare.

    Receiving the MMR vaccine is much safer than contracting measles.

    What do I do if there’s a measles outbreak in my community?

    Anyone who is not fully vaccinated for measles should be immunized with a measles vaccine as soon as possible. Measles vaccines given within 72 hours after exposure may prevent or reduce the severity of disease.

    Children as young as 6 months old can receive the MMR vaccine if they are at risk during an outbreak. If your child isn’t fully vaccinated with two doses of the MMR vaccine—or three doses, if your child received the first dose before their first birthday—talk to your pediatrician.

    Unvaccinated people who have been exposed to the virus should stay home from work, school, day care, and other activities for 21 days to avoid spreading the disease.

    For more information, talk to your health care provider.

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

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Related Posts

  • The Mind-Gut Connection – by Dr. Emeran Mayer
  • What Macronutrient Balance Is Right For You?

    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 😎

    ❝I want to learn more about macros. Can you cover that topic?❞

    That’s a little broader than we usually go for, given the amount of space we have, but let’s give it a go!

    Macronutrients, or “macros”, are the nutrients that we typically measure in grams rather than milligrams or micrograms, and are:

    In terms of how much we need of each, you can read more in the above-linked articles, but:

    • General scientific consensus is we need plenty of fiber (30 or 40g per day is good) and water (highly dependent on climate and activity), and there’s a clear minimum requisite for protein (usually put at around 1g of protein per day per 1kg of body weight).
    • There is vigorous debate in the general health community about what the best ratio of carbs to fat is.

    The reality is that humans are quite an adaptable species, and while we absolutely do need at least some of both (carbohydrates and fats), we can play around with the ratios quite a bit, provided we don’t get too extreme about it.

    While some influence is social and often centered around weight loss (see for example keto which seeks to minimize carbs, and volumetrics, which seeks maximise volume-to-calorie ratio, which de facto tends to minimize fats), some of what drives us to lean one way or the other will be genetics, too—dependent on what our ancestors ate more or less of.

    Writer’s example: my ancestors could not grow much grain (or crops in general) where they were, so they got more energy from such foods as whale and seal fat (with protein coming more from reindeer). Now, biology is not destiny, and I personally enjoy a vegan diet, but my genes are probably why I am driven to get most of my daily calories from fat (of which, a lot of fatty nuts (don’t tell almonds, but I prefer walnuts and cashews) and healthy oils such as olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil).

    However! About that adaptability. Provided we make changes slowly, we can usually adjust our diet to whatever we want it to be, including whether we get our energy more from carbs or fats. The reason we need to make changes slowly is because our gut needs time to adjust. For example, if your vegan writer here were to eat her ancestrally-favored foods now, I’d be very ill, because my gut microbiome has no idea what to do with animal products anymore, no matter what genes I have. In contrast, if an enthusiastic enjoyer of a meat-heavy diet were to switch to my fiber-rich diet overnight, they’d be very ill.

    So: follow your natural inclinations, make any desired changes slowly, and if in doubt, it’s hard to go wrong with enjoying carbs and fats in moderation.

    Learn more: Intuitive Eating Might Not Be What You Think

    Take care!

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  • Do We Simply Not Care About Old People?

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    The covid-19 pandemic would be a wake-up call for America, advocates for the elderly predicted: incontrovertible proof that the nation wasn’t doing enough to care for vulnerable older adults.

    The death toll was shocking, as were reports of chaos in nursing homes and seniors suffering from isolation, depression, untreated illness, and neglect. Around 900,000 older adults have died of covid-19 to date, accounting for 3 of every 4 Americans who have perished in the pandemic.

    But decisive actions that advocates had hoped for haven’t materialized. Today, most people — and government officials — appear to accept covid as a part of ordinary life. Many seniors at high risk aren’t getting antiviral therapies for covid, and most older adults in nursing homes aren’t getting updated vaccines. Efforts to strengthen care quality in nursing homes and assisted living centers have stalled amid debate over costs and the availability of staff. And only a small percentage of people are masking or taking other precautions in public despite a new wave of covid, flu, and respiratory syncytial virus infections hospitalizing and killing seniors.

    In the last week of 2023 and the first two weeks of 2024 alone, 4,810 people 65 and older lost their lives to covid — a group that would fill more than 10 large airliners — according to data provided by the CDC. But the alarm that would attend plane crashes is notably absent. (During the same period, the flu killed an additional 1,201 seniors, and RSV killed 126.)

    “It boggles my mind that there isn’t more outrage,” said Alice Bonner, 66, senior adviser for aging at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “I’m at the point where I want to say, ‘What the heck? Why aren’t people responding and doing more for older adults?’”

    It’s a good question. Do we simply not care?

    I put this big-picture question, which rarely gets asked amid debates over budgets and policies, to health care professionals, researchers, and policymakers who are older themselves and have spent many years working in the aging field. Here are some of their responses.

    The pandemic made things worse. Prejudice against older adults is nothing new, but “it feels more intense, more hostile” now than previously, said Karl Pillemer, 69, a professor of psychology and gerontology at Cornell University.

    “I think the pandemic helped reinforce images of older people as sick, frail, and isolated — as people who aren’t like the rest of us,” he said. “And human nature being what it is, we tend to like people who are similar to us and be less well disposed to ‘the others.’”

    “A lot of us felt isolated and threatened during the pandemic. It made us sit there and think, ‘What I really care about is protecting myself, my wife, my brother, my kids, and screw everybody else,’” said W. Andrew Achenbaum, 76, the author of nine books on aging and a professor emeritus at Texas Medical Center in Houston.

    In an environment of “us against them,” where everybody wants to blame somebody, Achenbaum continued, “who’s expendable? Older people who aren’t seen as productive, who consume resources believed to be in short supply. It’s really hard to give old people their due when you’re terrified about your own existence.”

    Although covid continues to circulate, disproportionately affecting older adults, “people now think the crisis is over, and we have a deep desire to return to normal,” said Edwin Walker, 67, who leads the Administration on Aging at the Department of Health and Human Services. He spoke as an individual, not a government representative.

    The upshot is “we didn’t learn the lessons we should have,” and the ageism that surfaced during the pandemic hasn’t abated, he observed.

    Ageism is pervasive. “Everyone loves their own parents. But as a society, we don’t value older adults or the people who care for them,” said Robert Kramer, 74, co-founder and strategic adviser at the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care.

    Kramer thinks boomers are reaping what they have sown. “We have chased youth and glorified youth. When you spend billions of dollars trying to stay young, look young, act young, you build in an automatic fear and prejudice of the opposite.”

    Combine the fear of diminishment, decline, and death that can accompany growing older with the trauma and fear that arose during the pandemic, and “I think covid has pushed us back in whatever progress we were making in addressing the needs of our rapidly aging society. It has further stigmatized aging,” said John Rowe, 79, professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

    “The message to older adults is: ‘Your time has passed, give up your seat at the table, stop consuming resources, fall in line,’” said Anne Montgomery, 65, a health policy expert at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. She believes, however, that baby boomers can “rewrite and flip that script if we want to and if we work to change systems that embody the values of a deeply ageist society.”

    Integration, not separation, is needed. The best way to overcome stigma is “to get to know the people you are stigmatizing,” said G. Allen Power, 70, a geriatrician and the chair in aging and dementia innovation at the Schlegel-University of Waterloo Research Institute for Aging in Canada. “But we separate ourselves from older people so we don’t have to think about our own aging and our own mortality.”

    The solution: “We have to find ways to better integrate older adults in the community as opposed to moving them to campuses where they are apart from the rest of us,” Power said. “We need to stop seeing older people only through the lens of what services they might need and think instead of all they have to offer society.”

    That point is a core precept of the National Academy of Medicine’s 2022 report Global Roadmap for Healthy Longevity. Older people are a “natural resource” who “make substantial contributions to their families and communities,” the report’s authors write in introducing their findings.

    Those contributions include financial support to families, caregiving assistance, volunteering, and ongoing participation in the workforce, among other things.

    “When older people thrive, all people thrive,” the report concludes.

    Future generations will get their turn. That’s a message Kramer conveys in classes he teaches at the University of Southern California, Cornell, and other institutions. “You have far more at stake in changing the way we approach aging than I do,” he tells his students. “You are far more likely, statistically, to live past 100 than I am. If you don’t change society’s attitudes about aging, you will be condemned to lead the last third of your life in social, economic, and cultural irrelevance.”

    As for himself and the baby boom generation, Kramer thinks it’s “too late” to effect the meaningful changes he hopes the future will bring.

    “I suspect things for people in my generation could get a lot worse in the years ahead,” Pillemer said. “People are greatly underestimating what the cost of caring for the older population is going to be over the next 10 to 20 years, and I think that’s going to cause increased conflict.”

    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.

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    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • Cold Weather Health Risks

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    Many Are Cold; Few Are Frozen

    Many of those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are getting hit with a cold spell around now. How severe that may be depends on more precisely where we are, but it’s affecting a lot of people. So, with apologies to our readers in Australia, we’re going to do a special on that today.

    Acute cold is, for most people, good for the health:

    A Cold Shower A Day Keeps The Doctor Away?

    Persistent cold, not so much. Let’s look at the risks, and what can be done about them…

    Hypothermia

    It kills. Don’t let it kill you or your loved ones.

    And, this is really important: it doesn’t care whether you’re on a mountain or not.

    In other words: a lot of people understand (correctly!) that hypothermia is a big risk to hikers, climbers, and the like. But if the heating goes out in your house and the temperature drops for long enough before the heating is fixed, you can get hypothermia there too just the same if you’re not careful.

    How cold is too cold? It doesn’t even have to be sub-zero. According to the CDC, temperatures of 4℃ (40℉) can be low enough to cause hypothermia if other factors combine:

    CDC | Prevent Hypothermia & Frostbite you can also see the list of symptoms to watch out for, there!

    Skin health

    Not generally an existential risk, but we may as well stay healthy as not!

    Cold air often means dry air, so use a moisturizer with an oil base (if you don’t care for fancy beauty products, ordinary coconut oil is top-tier).

    Bonus if you do it after a warming bath/shower!

    Heart health

    Cold has a vasconstricting effect; that is to say, it causes the body’s vasculature to shrink, increasing localized blood pressure. If it’s a cold shower as above, that can be very invigorating. If it’s a week of sub-zero temperatures, it can become a problem.

    ❝Shoveling a little snow off your sidewalk may not seem like hard work. However, […] combined with the fact that the exposure to cold air can constrict blood vessels throughout the body, you’re asking your heart to do a lot more work in conditions that are diminishing the heart’s ability to function at its best.❞

    Source: Snow shoveling, cold temperatures combine for perfect storm of heart health hazards

    If you have a heart condition, please do not shovel snow. Let someone else do it, or stay put.

    And if you are normally able to exercise safely? Unless you’re sure your heart is in good order, exercising in the warmth, not the cold, seems to be the best bet.

    See also: Heart Attack: His & Hers (Be Prepared!)can you remember which symptoms are for which sex? If not, now’s a good time to refresh that knowledge.

    Immune health

    We recently discussed how cold weather indirectly increases the risk of respiratory viral infection:

    The Cold Truth About Respiratory Infections

    So, now’s the time to be extra on-guard about that.

    See also: Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!

    Balance

    Icy weather increases the risk of falling. If you think “having a fall” is something that happens to other/older people, please remember that there’s a first time for everything. Some tips:

    • Walk across icy patches with small steps in a flat-footed fashion like a penguin.
      • It may not be glamorous, but neither is going A-over-T and breaking (or even just spraining) things.
    • Use a handrail if available, even if you don’t think you need to.

    You can also check out our previous article about falling (avoiding falling, minimizing the damage of falling, etc):

    Fall Special: Some Fall-Themed Advice

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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