Thinking, Fast and Slow – by Dr. Daniel Kahneman

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We all try to make the best decisions we can with the information available… Don’t we?

Yet, somehow, a survival chance of 90% seems better than a mortality rate of 10%, and as it turns out, we as fallible humans are prey to all manner of dubious heuristics.

Nobel Prize winner Dr. Daniel Kahneman lays out for us two sytems of thought process:

  • Fast, intuitive, emotional
  • Slow, deliberate, logical

He makes the case for how and why we do need both, but often end up using the wrong one. He notes how the first is required for efficiency, or we would spend all day deciding what socks to wear… The second, meanwhile, is required for high-stakes decisions, but is lazy by nature, and often we don’t engage it when we ought to.

Over the course of many diverse examples, Dr. Kahneman shows how again and again, the second system is slowly cogitating at the back of the class, while the first system is bouncing up and down with its hand in the air saying “I know! I know!”, even when, in fact, it does not know.

For a book largely founded in economics (it’s a massive takedown of the notion of the rational consumer), it is not at all dry, and is very readable in style. It’s engaging throughout, and readers far removed from Wall Street will find plenty of ways it relates to our everyday lives.

Bottom line: if you’d like to avoid making many mistakes in what you’d assumed to be rational decisions, this book is critical reading.

Click here to check out “Thinking, Fast And Slow”, and enjoy the results of better decisions!

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Recommended

  • Metabolical – by Dr. Robert Lustig
  • Prolonged Grief: A New Mental Disorder?
    Adding a new diagnosis to the DSM-5 recognizes a condition as real, but it also opens the door for pharmaceutical companies to profit from drug-based therapies.

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  • Scattered Minds – by Dr. Gabor Maté

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    This was not the first book that Dr. Maté sat down to write, by far. But it was the first that he actually completed. Guess why.

    Writing from a position of both personal and professional experience and understanding, Dr. Maté explores the inaptly-named Attention Deficit Disorder (if anything, there’s often a surplus of attention, just, to anything and everything rather than necessarily what would be most productive in the moment), its etiology, its presentation, and its management.

    This is a more enjoyable book than some others by the same author, as while this condition certainly isn’t without its share of woes (often, for example, a cycle of frustration and shame re “why can’t I just do the things; this is ruining my life and it would be so easy if I could just do the things!”), it’s not nearly so bleak as entire books about trauma, addiction, and so forth (worthy as those books also are).

    Dr. Maté frames it specifically as a development disorder, and one whereby with work, we can do the development later that (story of an ADHDer’s life) we should have done earlier but didn’t. In terms of practical advice, he includes a program for effecting this change, including as an adult.

    The style is easy-reading, in small chapters, with ADHD’d-up readers in mind, giving a strong sense of speeding pleasantly through the book.

    Bottom line: when it’s a book by Dr. Gabor Maté, you know it’s going to be good, and this is no exception. Certainly read it if you, anyone you care about, or even anyone you just spend a lot of time around, has ADHD or similar.

    Click here to check out Scattered Minds, and unscatter yours!

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  • Herring vs Sardines – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing herring to sardine, we picked the sardines.

    Why?

    In terms of macros, they are about equal in protein and fat, but herring has about 2x the saturated fat and about 2x the cholesterol. So, sardines win this category easily.

    When it comes to vitamins, herring has more of vitamins B1, B2, B6, B9, and B12, while sardines have more of vitamins B3, E, and K. That’s a 5:3 win for herring, although it’s worth mentioning that the margins of difference are mostly not huge, except for that sardines have 26x the vitamin K content. Still, by the overall numbers, this one’s a win for herring.

    In the category of minerals, herring is not richer in any minerals*, while sardines are richer in calcium, copper, iron, manganese, phosphorus, and selenium, meaning a clear win for sardines.

    *unless we want to consider mercury to be a mineral, in which case, let’s mention that on average, herring is 6x higher in mercury. However, we consider that also a win for sardines.

    All in all, sardines are better for the heart (much lower in cholesterol), bones (much higher in calcium), and brain (much lower in mercury).

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Farmed Fish vs Wild Caught: Antibiotics, Mercury, & More

    Take care!

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  • Move – by Caroline Williams

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    • Get 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, says the American Heart Association
    • There are over 10,000 minutes per week, says the pocket calculator

    Is 150/10,000 really the goal here? Really?

    For Caroline Williams, the answer is no.

    In this book that’s practically a manifesto, she outlines the case that:

    • Humans evolved to move
    • Industrialization and capitalism scuppered that
    • We now spend far too long each day without movement

    Furthermore, for Williams this isn’t just an anthropological observation, it’s a problem to be solved, because:

    • Our lack of movement is crippling us—literally
    • Our stagnation affects not just our bodies, but also our minds
      • (again literally—there’s a direct correlation with mental health)
    • We urgently need to fix this

    So, what now, do we need to move in to the gym and become full-time athletes to clock up enough hours of movement? No.

    Williams convincingly argues the case (using data from supercentenarian “blue zones” around the world) that even non-exertive movement is sufficient. In other words, you don’t have to be running; walking is great. You don’t have to be lifting weights; doing the housework or gardening will suffice.

    From that foundational axiom, she calls on us to find ways to build our life around movement… rather than production-efficiency and/or convenience. She gives plenty of tips for such too!

    Bottom line: some books are “I couldn’t put it down!” books. This one’s more of a “I got the urge to get up and get moving!” book.

    Get your get-up-and-go up and going with “Move”—order yours from Amazon today!

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Related Posts

  • Metabolical – by Dr. Robert Lustig
  • Why Adult ADHD Often Leads To Anxiety & Depression

    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.

    ADHD’s Knock-On Effects On Mental Health

    We’ve written before about ADHD in adult life, often late-diagnosed because it’s not quite what people think it is:

    ADHD… As An Adult?

    In women in particular, it can get missed and/or misdiagnosed:

    Miss Diagnosis: Anxiety, ADHD, & Women

    …but what we’re really here to talk about today is:

    It’s the comorbidities that get you

    When it comes to physical health conditions:

    • if you have one serious condition, it will (usually) be taken seriously
    • if you have two, they will still be taken seriously, but people (friends and family members, as well as yes, medical professionals) will start to back off, as it starts to get too complicated for comfort
    • if you have three, people will think you are making at least one of them up for attention now
    • if you have more than three, you are considered a hypochondriac and pathological liar

    Yet, the reality is: having one serious condition increases your chances of having others, and this chance-increasing feature compounds with each extra condition.

    Illustrative example: you have fibromyalgia (ouch) which makes it difficult for you to exercise much, shop around when grocery shopping, and do much cooking at home. You do your best, but your diet slips and it’s hard to care when you just want the pain to stop; you put on some weight, and get diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, which in time becomes diabetes with high cardiovascular risk factors. Your diabetes is immunocompromising; you get COVID and find it’s now Long COVID, which brings about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, when you barely had the spoons to function in the first place. At this point you’ve lost count of conditions and are just trying to get through the day.

    If this is you, by the way, we hope at least something in the following might ease things for you a bit:

    It’s the same for mental health

    In the case of ADHD as a common starting point (because it’s quite common, may or may not be diagnosed until later in life, and doesn’t require any external cause to appear), it is very common that it will lead to anxiety and/or depression, to the point that it’s perhaps more common to also have one or more of them than not, if you have ADHD.

    (Of course, anxiety and/or depression can both pop up for completely unrelated reasons too, and those reasons may be physiological, environmental, or a combination of the above).

    Why?

    Because all the good advice that goes for good mental health (and/or life in general), gets harder to actuate when one had ADHD.

    • “Strong habits are the core of a good life”, but good luck with that if your brain doesn’t register dopamine in the same way as most people’s do, making intentional habit-forming harder on a physiological level.
    • “Plan things carefully and stick to the plan”, but good luck with that if you are neurologically impeded from forming plans.
    • “Just do it”, but oops you have the tendency-to-overcommitment disorder and now you are seriously overwhelmed with all the things you tried to do, when each of them alone were already going to be a challenge.

    Overwhelm and breakdown are almost inevitable.

    And when they happen, chances are you will alienate people, and/or simply alienate yourself. You will hide away, you will avoid inflicting yourself on others, you will brood alone in frustration—or distract yourself with something mind-numbing.

    Before you know it, you’re too anxious to try to do things with other people or generally show your face to the world (because how will they react, and won’t you just mess things up anyway?), and/or too depressed to leave your depression-lair (because maybe if you keep playing Kingdom Vegetables 2, you can find a crumb of dopamine somewhere).

    What to do about it

    How to tackle the many-headed beast? By the heads! With your eyes open. Recognize and acknowledge each of the heads; you can’t beat those heads by sticking your own in the sand.

    Also, get help. Those words are often used to mean therapy, but in this case we mean, any help. Enlist your partner or close friend as your support in your mental health journey. Enlist a cleaner as your support in taking that one thing off your plate, if that’s an option and a relevant thing for you. Set low but meaningful goals for deciding what constitutes “good enough” for each life area. Decide in advance what you can safely half-ass, and what things in life truly require your whole ass.

    Here’s a good starting point for that kind of thing:

    When You Know What You “Should” Do (But Knowing Isn’t The Problem)

    And this is an excellent way to “get the ball rolling” if you’re already in a bit of a prison of your own making:

    Behavioral Activation Against Depression & Anxiety

    If things are already bad, then you might also consider:

    And if things are truly at the worst they can possibly be, then:

    How To Stay Alive (When You Really Don’t Want To)

    Take care!

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  • Oral retinoids can harm unborn babies. But many women taking them for acne may not be using contraception

    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.

    Oral retinoids are a type of medicine used to treat severe acne. They’re sold under the brand name Roaccutane, among others.

    While oral retinoids are very effective, they can have harmful effects if taken during pregnancy. These medicines can cause miscarriages and major congenital abnormalities (harm to unborn babies) including in the brain, heart and face. At least 30% of children exposed to oral retinoids in pregnancy have severe congenital abnormalities.

    Neurodevelopmental problems (in learning, reading, social skills, memory and attention) are also common.

    Because of these risks, the Australasian College of Dermatologists advises oral retinoids should not be prescribed a month before or during pregnancy under any circumstances. Dermatologists are instructed to make sure a woman isn’t pregnant before starting this treatment, and discuss the risks with women of childbearing age.

    But despite this, and warnings on the medicines’ packaging, pregnancies exposed to oral retinoids continue to be reported in Australia and around the world.

    In a study published this month, we wanted to find out what proportion of Australian women of reproductive age were taking oral retinoids, and how many of these women were using contraception.

    Our results suggest a high proportion of women are not using effective contraception while on these drugs, indicating Australia needs a strategy to reduce the risk oral retinoids pose to unborn babies.

    Contraception options

    Using birth control to avoid pregnancy during oral retinoid treatment is essential for women who are sexually active. Some contraception methods, however, are more reliable than others.

    Long-acting-reversible contraceptives include intrauterine devices (IUDs) inserted into the womb (such as Mirena, Kyleena, or copper devices) and implants under the skin (such as Implanon). These “set and forget” methods are more than 99% effective.

    A newborn baby in a clear crib in hospital.
    Oral retinoids taken during pregnancy can cause complications in babies. Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

    The effectiveness of oral contraceptive pills among “perfect” users (following the directions, with no missed or late pills) is similarly more than 99%. But in typical users, this can fall as low as 91%.

    Condoms, when used as the sole method of contraception, have higher failure rates. Their effectiveness can be as low as 82% in typical users.

    Oral retinoid use over time

    For our study, we analysed medicine dispensing data among women aged 15–44 from Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS) between 2013 and 2021.

    We found the dispensing rate for oral retinoids doubled from one in every 71 women in 2013, to one in every 36 in 2021. The increase occurred across all ages but was most notable in young women.

    Most women were not dispensed contraception at the same time they were using the oral retinoids. To be sure we weren’t missing any contraception that was supplied before the oral retinoids, we looked back in the data. For example, for an IUD that lasts five years, we looked back five years before the oral retinoid prescription.

    Our analysis showed only one in four women provided oral retinoids were dispensed contraception simultaneously. This was even lower for 15- to 19-year-olds, where only about one in eight women who filled a prescription for oral retinoids were dispensed contraception.

    A recent study found 43% of Australian year 10 and 69% of year 12 students are sexually active, so we can’t assume this younger age group largely had no need for contraception.

    One limitation of our study is that it may underestimate contraception coverage, because not all contraceptive options are listed on the PBS. Those options not listed include male and female sterilisation, contraceptive rings, condoms, copper IUDs, and certain oral contraceptive pills.

    But even if we presume some of the women in our study were using forms of contraception not listed on the PBS, we’re still left with a significant portion without evidence of contraception.

    What are the solutions?

    Other countries such as the United States and countries in Europe have pregnancy prevention programs for women taking oral retinoids. These programs include contraception requirements, risk acknowledgement forms and regular pregnancy tests. Despite these programs, unintended pregnancies among women using oral retinoids still occur in these countries.

    But Australia has no official strategy for preventing pregnancies exposed to oral retinoids. Currently oral retinoids are prescribed by dermatologists, and most contraception is prescribed by GPs. Women therefore need to see two different doctors, which adds costs and burden.

    Hands holding a contraceptive pill packet.
    Preventing pregnancy during oral retinoid treatment is essential. Krakenimages.com/Shutterstock

    Rather than a single fix, there are likely to be multiple solutions to this problem. Some dermatologists may not feel confident discussing sex or contraception with patients, so educating dermatologists about contraception is important. Education for women is equally important.

    A clinical pathway is needed for reproductive-aged women to obtain both oral retinoids and effective contraception. Options may include GPs prescribing both medications, or dermatologists only prescribing oral retinoids when there’s a contraception plan already in place.

    Some women may initially not be sexually active, but change their sexual behaviour while taking oral retinoids, so constant reminders and education are likely to be required.

    Further, contraception access needs to be improved in Australia. Teenagers and young women in particular face barriers to accessing contraception, including costs, stigma and lack of knowledge.

    Many doctors and women are doing the right thing. But every woman should have an effective contraception plan in place well before starting oral retinoids. Only if this happens can we reduce unintended pregnancies among women taking these medicines, and thereby reduce the risk of harm to unborn babies.

    Dr Laura Gerhardy from NSW Health contributed to this article.

    Antonia Shand, Research Fellow, Obstetrician, University of Sydney and Natasha Nassar, Professor of Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology and Chair in Translational Childhood Medicine, University of Sydney

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • The Sugary Food That Lowers Blood Sugars

    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

    ❝Loved the article on goji berries! I read they are good for blood sugars, is that true despite the sugar content?❞

    Most berries are! Fruits that are high in polyphenols (even if they’re high in sugar), like berries, have a considerable net positive impact on glycemic health:

    And more specifically:

    Dietary berries, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes: an overview of human feeding trials

    Read more: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    As for goji berries specifically, they’re very high indeed in polyphenols, and also have a hypoglycemic effect, i.e., they lower blood sugar levels (and as a bonus, increases HDL (“good” cholesterol) levels too, but that’s not the topic here):

    ❝The results of our study indicated a remarkable protective effect of LBP in patients with type 2 diabetes. Serum glucose was found to be significantly decreased and insulinogenic index increased during OMTT after 3 months administration of LBP. LBP also increased HDL levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. It showed more obvious hypoglycemic efficacy for those people who did not take any hypoglycemic medicine compared to patients taking hypoglycemic medicines. This study showed LBP to be a good potential treatment aided-agent for type 2 diabetes.❞

    • LBP = Lycium barbarum polysaccharide, i.e. polysaccharide in/from goji berries
    • OMTT = Oral metabolic tolerance test, a test of how well the blood sugars avoid spiking after a meal

    Read: Practical Application of Antidiabetic Efficacy of Lycium barbarum Polysaccharide in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

    For more about goji berries (and also where to get them), for reference our previous article is at:

    Goji Berries: Which Benefits Do They Really Have?

    Take care!

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