This Book May Save Your Life – by Dr. Karan Rajan
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The title is a bold sell, but the book does include a lot of information about what can go wrong in your body, and how those things can be avoided.
What it’s not: a reiteration of Dr. Michael Greger’s “How Not To Die“. It’s not dense medical information, and it doesn’t cite papers at a rate of ten per page.
What it is: an easy-reading tour guide of the human body and its many quirks and foibles, and how we can leverage those to our benefit. On which note…
Hopefully, your insides will never see the light of day, but this author is a general surgeon and as such, is an experienced and well-qualified tour guide. Here, we learn about everything from the long and interesting journey through our gut, to the unique anatomical features and liabilities of the brain. From the bizarre oddities of the genitals, to things most people don’t know about the process of death.
The style of the book is very casual, with lots of short sections (almost mini chapters-within-chapters, really) making for very light reading—and certainly enjoyable reading too, unless you are inclined to squeamishness.
Bottom line: in honesty, the book is more informative than it is instructional, though it does contain the promised health tips too. With that in mind, it’s a very enjoyable and educational read, and we do recommend it.
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Nutrition To Combat Lymphedema & Lipedema
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Dr. Kelly Sturm is a rehab specialist (Doctor of Physical Therapy), and also a certified lymphedema therapist. Here’s what helps her patients with lymphedema and lipedema:
Don’t fan the flames
Lymphedema and lipedema are inflammatory lymphatic diseases affecting mostly women. As such, an anti-inflammatory diet will be important, but there are other factors too:
- Anti-inflammatory diet: this is to reduce the chronic inflammation associated with lymphatic diseases. This means eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, especially berries and leafy greens, and avoiding things like sugar, alcohol, caffeine, and processed foods. And of course, don’t smoke.
- Intermittent fasting: this also helps by giving the body a chance to correct itself; when the body isn’t digesting food, it has a lot more resources to devote to its favorite activity: maintenance. This results in lower inflammation, and better fat redistribution.
- Weight loss: not a bandwagon we often get on at 10almonds as it’s rarely the most important thing, but in this case it is of high importance (second only to dealing with the inflammation), as excess weight around the lymph nodes and vessels can lead to dysfunction and swelling. Thus, reducing the weight can ease that and allow the body to heal.
For more details on all of the above, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Eat To Beat Inflammation ← also some non-dietary advice in there too
- Ask Not What Your Lymphatic System Can Do For You…
- Lose Weight, But Healthily ← more useful than just trying to run a calorie deficit
Take care!
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Three Critical Kitchen Prescriptions
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Three Critical Kitchen Prescriptions
This is Dr. Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed. She’s a medical doctor—specifically, a gastroenterologist. She’s also a chef, and winner of the BBC’s MasterChef competition. So, from her gastroenterology day-job and her culinary calling, she has some expert insights to share on eating well!
❝Food and medicine are inextricably linked to one another, and it is an honour to be a doctor who specialises in digestive health and can both cook, and teach others to cook❞
~ Dr. Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed, after winning MasterChef and being asked if she’d quit medicine to be a full-time chef
Dr. Mahmood-Ahmed’s 3 “Kitchen Prescriptions”
They are:
- Cook, cook, cook
- Feed your gut bugs
- Do not diet
Let’s take a look at each of those…
Cook, cook, cook
We’re the only species on Earth that cooks food. An easy knee-jerk response might be to think maybe we shouldn’t, then, but… We’ve been doing it for at least 30,000 years, which is about 1,500 generations, while a mere 100 generations is generally sufficient for small evolutionary changes. So, we’ve evolved this way now.
More importantly in this context: we, ourselves, should cook our own food, at least per household.
Not ready meals; we haven’t evolved for those (yet! Give it another few hundred generations maybe)
Feed your gut bugs
The friendly ones. Enjoy prebiotics, probiotics, and plenty of fiber—and then be mindful of what else you do or don’t eat. Feeding the friendly bacteria while starving the unfriendly ones may seem like a tricky task, but it actually can be quite easily understood and implemented. We did a main feature about this a few weeks ago:
Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
Do not diet
Dr. Mahmood-Ahmed is a strong critic of calorie-counting as a weight-loss strategy:
Rather than focusing on the number of calories consumed, try focusing on introducing enough variety of food into your daily diet, and on fostering good microbial diversity within your gut.
It’s a conceptual shift from restrictive weight loss, to prescriptive adding of things to one’s diet, with fostering diversity of microbiota as a top priority.
This, too, she recommends be undertaken gently, though—making small, piecemeal, but sustainable improvements. Nobody can reasonably incorporate, say, 30 new fruits and vegetables into one’s diet in a week; it’s unrealistic, and more importantly, it’s unsustainable.
Instead, consider just adding one new fruit or vegetable per shopping trip!
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Treat Your Own Hip – by Robin McKenzie
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We previously reviewed another book by this author in this series, “Treat Your Own Knee”, and today it’s the same deal, but for the hip.
A quick note about the author first: a physiotherapist and not a doctor, but with over 40 years of practice to his name and 33 letters after his name (CNZM OBE FCSP (Hon) FNZSP (Hon) Dip MDT Dip MT), he seems to know his stuff.
He takes the reader through first diagnosing the nature of the pain (and how to rule out, for example, a back problem manifesting as hip pain, rather than a hip problem per se—and points to his own “Treat Your Own Back” manual if it turns out that that’s your problem instead), and then treating it. A bold claim, the kind that many people’s lawyers don’t let them make, but once again, this guy is pretty much the expert when it comes to this. Ask any other physiotherapist, and they probably have several of his books on their shelf.
The treatments recommend are tailored to the results of various diagnostic flowcharts; essentially troubleshooting your hip. However, they mainly consist of exercises (perhaps the greatest value of the book), and lifestyle adjustments (these ones, 10almonds readers probably know already, but a reminder never hurts).
The explanations are thorough while still being comprehensible, and there is zero sensationalization or fluff. It is straight to the point, and clearly illustrated too with diagrams and photographs.
Bottom line: if you’re looking for a “one-stop shop” for diagnosing and treating your bad hip, then this is it.
Click here to check out Treat Your Own Hip, and indeed Treat Your Own Hip!
PS: if you have musculoskeletal problems elsewhere in your body, you might want to check out the rest of his body parts series (neck, back, shoulder, wrist, knee, ankle) for the one that’s tailored to your specific problem.
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Finding Geriatric Doctors for Seniors
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
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
❝[Can you write about] the availability of geriatric doctors Sometimes I feel my primary isn’t really up on my 70 year old health issues. I would love to find a doctor that understands my issues and is able to explain them to me. Ie; my worsening arthritis in regards to food I eat; in regards to meds vs homeopathic solutions.! Thanks!❞
That’s a great topic, worthy of a main feature! Because in many cases, it’s not just about specialization of skills, but also about empathy, and the gap between studying a condition and living with a condition.
About arthritis, we’re going to do a main feature specifically on that quite soon, but meanwhile, you might like our previous article:
Keep Inflammation At Bay (arthritis being an inflammatory condition)
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Cashew Nuts vs Macadamia Nuts – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing cashews to macadamias, we picked the cashews.
Why?
In terms of macros, cashews have more than 2x the protein, while macadamias have nearly 2x the fat. The fats are mostly monounsaturated, so it’s still healthy in moderation, but still, we’re going to prize the protein over it and call this category a nominal win for cashews.
When it comes to vitamins, things are fairly even; cashews have more of vitamins B5, B6, B9, and E, while macadamias have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, and C.
In the category of minerals, cashews take the clear lead; cashews have more copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while macadamias have more calcium and manganese.
In short, enjoy both (as macadamias have their benefits too), but cashews win in total nutrient density.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts
Take care!
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Statin and Antidepressant Side Effects
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Questions and Answers at 10almonds
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
This newsletter has been growing a lot lately, and so have the questions/requests, and we love that! 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
Side effects of statins, are they worth it? Depression, are antidepressants worth it?
About statins, that depends a lot on you, your circumstances, and—as it happens—your gender. We covered this in a main feature recently, but a short answer is: for most people, they may not be the best first choice, and could even make things worse. For some people, however, they really are just what’s needed.
- Factors that make them more likely better for you: being a man, or having atherosclerosis
- Factors that make them more likely worse for you: being a woman in general
Check out the main feature we did: Statins: His & Hers?
As for antidepressants? That depends a lot on you, your physiology, your depression, your circumstances, and more. We’ll definitely do a main feature on that sometime soon, as there’s a lot that most people don’t know!
Don’t Forget…
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Learn to Age Gracefully
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