Triple Life Threat – by Donald R. Lyman
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This book takes a similar approach to “How Not To Die” (which we featured previously), but focussed specifically on three things, per the title: chronic pulmonary obstructive disease (CPOD), diabetes (type 2), and Alzheimer’s disease.
Lyman strikes a great balance of being both information-dense and accessible; there’s a lot of reference material in here, and the reader is not assumed to have a lot of medical knowledge—but we’re not patronized either, and this is an informative manual, not a sensationalized scaremongering piece.
All in all… if you have known risk factors for one or more of three diseases this book covers, the information within could well be a lifesaver.
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Psychedelics and Psychotherapy – Edited by Dr. Tim Read & Maria Papaspyrou
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A quick note on authorship, first: this book is edited by the psychiatrist and psychotherapist credited above, but after the introductory section, the rest of the chapters are written by experts on the individual topics.As such, the style will vary somewhat, from chapter to chapter.
What this book isn’t: “try drugs and feel better!”
Rather, the book explores the various ways in which assorted drugs can help people to—even if just briefly—shed things they didn’t know they were carrying, or otherwise couldn’t put down, and access parts of themselves they otherwise couldn’t.
We also get to read a lot about the different roles the facilitator can play in guiding the therapeutic process, and what can be expected out of each kind of experience. This varies a lot from one drug to another, so it makes for very worthwhile reading, if that’s something you might consider pursuing. Knowledge makes for much more informed choices!
Bottom line: if you’re curious about the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, and want a reference that’s more personal than dry clinical studies, but still more “safe and removed” than diving in by yourself, this is the book for you.
Click here to check out Psychedelics and Psychotherapy, and expand your understanding!
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The Life-Changing Manga Of Tidying Up – by Marie Kondo
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Everyone knows the slogan “does this spark joy?”, but there’s a whole method to the magic that goes far beyond that. It spans all manner of things from the over-arching strategy of taking on a house-sized tidying project, to practical little tips like “store these things this way instead; now they’re safe, tidy and accessible—and look good too!”.
You may be wondering: why are we reviewing this book instead of the much more famous “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”?
It’s simple: here at 10almonds, we like things to be super simple and easy to digest.
This book is smaller, simpler, and more digestible than her more famous book, without sacrificing content. And you know what? We held it in our hands and it sparked joy
Bottom line is: it’s useful, it’s beautiful, it will change your life (and your underwear drawer).
PS: this 10almonds team-member gifted a copy to her 12-year-old son. He implemented it the same day, unbidden. Magic indeed!
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It’s Not Fantastic To Be Plastic
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We Are Such Stuff As Bottles Are Made Of
We’ve written before about PFAS, often found in non-stick coatings and the like:
PFAS Exposure & Cancer: The Numbers Are High
Today we’re going to be talking about microplastics & nanoplastics!
What are microplastics and nanoplastics?
Firstly, they’renot just the now-banned plastic microbeads that have seen some use is toiletries (although those are classified as microplastics too).
Many are much smaller than that, and if they get smaller than a thousandth of a millimeter, then they get the additional classification of “nanoplastic”.
In other words: not something that can be filtered even if you were to use a single-micron filter. The microplastics would still get through, for example:
Scientists find about a quarter million invisible nanoplastic particles in a liter of bottled water
And unfortunately, that’s bad:
❝What’s disturbing is that small particles can appear in different organs and may cross membranes that they aren’t meant to cross, such as the blood-brain barrier❞
Note: they’re crossing the same blood-brain barrier that many of our nutrients and neurochemicals are too big to cross.
These microplastics are also being found in arterial plaque
What makes arterial plaque bad for the health is precisely its plasticity (the arterial walls themselves are elastic), so you most certainly do not want actual plastic being used as part of the cement that shouldn’t even be lining your arteries in the first place:
Microplastics found in artery plaque linked with higher risk of heart attack, stroke and death
❝In this study, patients with carotid artery plaque in which MNPs were detected had a higher risk of a composite of myocardial infarction, stroke, or death from any cause at 34 months of follow-up than those in whom MNPs were not detected❞
~ Dr. Raffaele Marfella et al.
(MNP = Micro/Nanoplastics)
Source: Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Atheromas and Cardiovascular Events
We don’t know how bad this is yet
There are various ways this might not be as bad as it looks (the results may not be repeated, the samples could have been compromised, etc), but also, perhaps cynically but nevertheless honestly, it could also be worse than we know yet—only more experiments being done will tell us which.
In the meantime, here’s a rundown of what we do and don’t know:
Study links microplastics with human health problems—but there’s still a lot we don’t know
Take care!
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Calcium Supplements & Dementia Risk
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Do you remember the famous (deeply flawed, further misreported, debunked) Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study that misrepresented data about hormone replacement therapy (HRT), understating the benefits and overstating the risks, scaring a generation off HRT for no good reason?
If not, then here’s more detail about that: Cancer & HRT: What’s Safe?
With that in mind, guess what else WHI data has been (mis)used by third-parties to warn us against? If you guessed calcium supplementation, you guessed correctly:
❝Calcium supplements with or without vitamin D modestly increase the risk of cardiovascular events, especially myocardial infarction, a finding obscured in the WHI CaD Study by the widespread use of personal calcium supplements. A reassessment of the role of calcium supplements in osteoporosis management is warranted.❞
You may be thinking: today’s title said about dementia, and this paper is about cardiovascular events, so what’s the connection?
The connection is: stroke is a cardiovascular event, and vascular dementia is a very common kind of dementia.
For much more detail on this, see: What’s Your Vascular Dementia Risk? ← includes actual numbers and a risk calculator tool and things like that
However, there’s more, for example:
❝The present study demonstrates that the use of Ca-containing dietary supplements, even low-dose supplements, by older adults may be associated with greater lesion volumes.
Evaluation of randomised controlled trials is warranted to determine whether this relationship is a causal one.❞
Can you see how the press might take the first line and run with it, without addressing the second line?
See also: How Science News Outlets Can Lie To You (Yes, Even If They Cite Studies!)
We’ve also seen things like:
❝Calcium supplementation may increase the risk of developing dementia in elderly women with cerebrovascular disease.
Because our sample was relatively small and the study was observational, these findings need to be confirmed.❞
Source: Calcium supplementation and risk of dementia in women with cerebrovascular disease
Once again, a lot of news outlets will run with the first part without mentioning the latter parts.
And sometimes, it will be a case of “the title looks damning, even if the actual conclusion isn’t”, for example:
❝There was no association between treatment assignment and incident cognitive impairment.
Further studies are needed to investigate the effects of vitamin D and calcium separately, on men, in other age and ethnic groups, and with other doses.❞
Source: Calcium and Vitamin D Supplementation and Cognitive Impairment in the Women’s Health Initiative
…which will get shared around and seen by millions of people who don’t read beyond the title and think “oh, there is an association between calcium and vitamin D supplementation and cognitive impairment, the Women’s Health Initiative says so”, when in fact none of these things are what it is saying.
And that is how rumors run around the world while the truth hasn’t even tied its shoelaces yet.
And now for the truth
A long-term analysis of 1,460 women aged 70+ has found that daily calcium supplementation did not increase dementia risk over nearly 15 years of follow-up.
Specifically,
❝Mean baseline age was 75.1 ± 2.7 years. Dementia events were recorded in 269 women (18.4%), comprising 243 hospitalisations (16.6%) or 114 deaths (7.8%). No differences in the cumulative dementia-free survival rates were observed between groups in ITT and PP analyses.
Compared to placebo, calcium supplements did not increase risk of dementia-related events (unadjusted ITT hazard ratio [HR] 0.90, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.71–1.15), hospitalisations (HR 0.89, 95% CI 0.69–1.15) or deaths (HR 0.78, 95% CI 0.54–1.13). Similar results were observed in PP analyses.❞
As you can see, the range neatly straddles “1” in each case, meaning that on average, it neither increases nor decreases the risk. And with regard to the different analyses, what that means is that both before and after adjusting for lifestyle, dietary, and genetic factors, there continued to be no association whatsoever.
In terms of p-score (a measure of how statistically significant the results are, by expressing the probability that this could have been arrived at by chance),
❝There was no significant difference (p = 0.28) in AMS scores between the calcium (n = 569) and placebo (n = 579) groups at the end of the RCT; median (IQR): 10 (9–10) in both groups.❞
You can read the paper in full, here: Calcium supplementation and the risk of dementia in the Perth Longitudinal Study of Aging Women: a post-hoc analysis of a randomised clinical trial for fracture prevention
That was, by the way, at 1200mg/day. So, a very normal amount of calcium, and generally considered slightly above what most people need.
Want to learn more?
While it appears calcium supplementation is healthful for most people at normal levels, there are still safe limits, and connected health considerations to bear in mind at the same time:
Vit D + Calcium: Too Much Of A Good Thing? ← this also talks about safe and effective doses, and what goes wrong if you take too much
There is also a common issue that a lot of people get enough calcium and vitamin D, but then a lot of that calcium doesn’t make it past the arteries.
Thus, the calcium paradox: we want to get (usually: more) calcium, but we want it building our bones, not lining our arteries. How, then, to resolve this problem, and simultaneously fight the dual threats of calcium deficiency (osteoporosis) and calcium excess (atherosclerosis)?
The answer lies in vitamin K2, which assists the calcium in getting to where you need it, rather than having it accumulating where you don’t.
Learn more: Vitamin K2 And The Calcium Paradox
Take care!
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Healthy Skin At 50… With Sensitive Eyes & No Retinol
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Dr. Ruth Machin advises:
Gently does it
As she herself has a tendency to dry skin and easily irritated eyes, she recommends:
- Use a mild, moisturizing cleanser (like Emma Hardy’s Moringa Balm) morning and night; avoid scrubbing and consider water-only washing in the morning if your skin tends towards dryness.
- Skip harsh chemicals if you have sensitive or dry eyes; use gentle physical tools (she recommends Fio Luna 4) to aid skin turnover without irritation of the kind that often occurs with retinol.
- Enjoy formulas with ceramides, squalane, or hyaluronic acid; apply daily, especially after cleansing, and use separate gentle products for the eye area.
- Apply a high-SPF sunscreen that doesn’t irritate your eyes (she recommends Arven SPF 50), even on cloudy days.
- Prioritize sleep, hydration, and a nutrient-dense diet; on the flipside, do of course avoid alcohol and smoking.
For more on all of this as well as some more brand-specific recommendations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
The Evidence-Based Skincare That Beats Product-Specific Hype
Take care!
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The Truth About Statins – by Barbara H. Roberts, M.D.
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All too often, doctors looking to dispense a “quick fix” will prescribe from their playbook of a dozen or so “this will get you out of my office” drugs. Most commonly, things that treat symptoms rather than the cause. Sometimes, this can be fine! For example, in some cases, painkillers and antidepressants can make a big improvement to people’s lives. What about statins, though?
Prescribed to lower cholesterol, they broadly do exactly that. However…
Dr. Roberts wants us to know that we could be missing the big picture of heart health, and making a potentially fatal mistake.
This is not to say that the book argues that statins are necessarily terrible, or that they don’t have their place. Just, we need to understand what they will and won’t do, and make an informed choice.
To which end, she does advise regards when statins can help the most, and when they may not help at all. She also covers the questions to ask if your doctor wants to prescribe them. And—all so frequently overlooked—the important differences between men’s and women’s heart health, and the implications these have for the efficacy (or not) of statins.
With regard to the “alternatives to cholesterol-lowering drugs” promised in the subtitle… we won’t keep any secrets here:
Dr. Roberts (uncontroversially) recommends the Mediterranean diet. She also provides two weeks’ worth of recipes for such, in the final part of the book.
All in all, an important book to read if you or a loved one are taking, or thinking of taking, statins.
Pick up your copy of The Truth About Statins on Amazon today!
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