What Causes Yeast Infections, & How To Get Rid Of Them?
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.
Dr. Liesbeth Demuyser explains:
The fungus among us
The vaginal microbiome is host to countless microorganisms, with Lactobacilli being especially prevalent, which is good because they produce acid that lowers pH and prevents infections.
Candida yeasts (so, fungus) are normally present in small quantities, and/but kept in check by the immune system and competing microbes like the aforementioned Lactobacilli.
If the vaginal microbiome is disrupted, then C. albicans (the most commonly bothersome form of Candida) will shift into disease-causing forms, multiply, form hyphae, secrete enzymes that damage epithelial tissue, and trigger immune responses that cause itching, burning, swelling, redness, and thicker white discharge.
Things that can cause/promote this: antibiotics reduce protective Lactobacilli, lowered immunity allows overgrowth, hormonal changes and diet alter balance, semen raises pH, tight/wet clothing retains moisture, and soaps damage the protective mucus and physically wash out bacteria that should be there (while leaving the Candida relatively unbothered).
Avoiding problems: when it comes to hygiene down there, generally speaking “less is more”. Let the vagina do its thing without interference, and wash the vulva gently without special chemicals (including: without greenwashed chemicals that the “special cleansing crystals” or something, but in fact throw the pH way out (because they are salts, and bases) and kill a lot of bacteria that should be there (while, once again, leaving the Candida relatively unbothered).
Treating problems: most infections are mild, clear by themselves within two weeks if left alone, and/or respond well to antifungal medications; probiotics can help but are very hit-and-miss.
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Vaginal Probiotics: What Does The Science Say?
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:
-
The Paleo Diet
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.
What’s The Real Deal With The Paleo Diet?
The Paleo diet is popular, and has some compelling arguments for it.
Detractors, meanwhile, have derided Paleo’s inclusion of modern innovations, and have also claimed it’s bad for the heart.
But where does the science stand?
First: what is it?
The Paleo diet looks to recreate the diet of the Paleolithic era—in terms of nutrients, anyway. So for example, you’re perfectly welcome to use modern cooking techniques and enjoy foods that aren’t from your immediate locale. Just, not foods that weren’t a thing yet. To give a general idea:
Paleo includes:
- Meat and animal fats
- Eggs
- Fruits and vegetables
- Nuts and seeds
- Herbs and spices
Paleo excludes:
- Processed foods
- Dairy products
- Refined sugar
- Grains of any kind
- Legumes, including any beans or peas
Enjoyers of the Mediterranean Diet or the DASH heart-healthy diet, or those with a keen interest in nutritional science in general, may notice they went off a bit with those last couple of items at the end there, by excluding things that scientific consensus holds should be making up a substantial portion of our daily diet.
But let’s break it down…
First thing: is it accurate?
Well, aside from the modern cooking techniques, the global market of goods, and the fact it does include food that didn’t exist yet (most fruits and vegetables in their modern form are the result of agricultural engineering a mere few thousand years ago, especially in the Americas)…
…no, no it isn’t. Best current scientific consensus is that in the Paleolithic we ate mostly plants, with about 3% of our diet coming from animal-based foods. Much like most modern apes.
Ok, so it’s not historically accurate. No biggie, we’re pragmatists. Is it healthy, though?
Well, health involves a lot of factors, so that depends on what you have in mind. But for example, it can be good for weight loss, almost certainly because of cutting out refined sugar and, by virtue of cutting out all grains, that means having cut out refined flour products, too:
Diet Review: Paleo Diet for Weight Loss
Measured head-to-head with the Mediterranean diet for all-cause mortality and specific mortality, it performed better than the control (Standard American Diet, or “SAD”), probably for the same reasons we just mentioned. However, it was outperformed by the Mediterranean Diet:
So in lay terms: the Paleo is definitely better than just eating lots of refined foods and sugar and stuff, but it’s still not as good as the Mediterranean Diet.
What about some of the health risk claims? Are they true or false?
A common knee-jerk criticism of the paleo-diet is that it’s heart-unhealthy. So much red meat, saturated fat, and no grains and legumes.
The science agrees.
For example, a recent study on long-term adherence to the Paleo diet concluded:
❝Results indicate long-term adherence is associated with different gut microbiota and increased serum trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), a gut-derived metabolite associated with cardiovascular disease. A variety of fiber components, including whole grain sources may be required to maintain gut and cardiovascular health.❞
Bottom line:
The Paleo Diet is an interesting concept, and certainly can be good for short-term weight loss. In the long-term, however (and: especially for our heart health) we need less meat and more grains and legumes.
Share This Post
-
Carrots vs Cauliflower – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing carrots to cauliflower, we picked the cauliflower.
Why?
Cauliflower is one of the exceptions to the “white is devoid of nutrients” expectation!
In terms of macros, carrots have slightly more fiber and carbs, while cauliflower has slightly more protein. There’s a degree of balance there, and the numbers are close in any case, so we’ll call this round a tie.
In the category of vitamins, carrots have more of vitamins A, B1, B3, and E, while cauliflower has more of vitamins B5, B6, B7, B9, C, K, and choline, winning this round.
Looking at minerals, carrots have more calcium and copper, while cauliflower has more iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc, winning another round.
In other considerations, carrots have a higher polyphenol content (albeit not by much), so that’s a marginal point in carrots’ favor here.
Adding up the sections makes for an overall win for cauliflower, but by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
Make Your Vegetables Work Better Nutritionally
Enjoy!
Share This Post
-
Mediterranean Diet Book Suggestions
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? 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
❝What is Mediterranean diet which book to read?❞
We did a special edition about the Mediterranean Diet! So that’s a great starting point.
As to books, there are so many, and we review books about it from time to time, so keep an eye out for our daily “One-Minute Book Review” section. We do highly recommend “How Not To Die”, which is a science-heavy approach to diet-based longevity, and essentially describes the Mediterranean Diet, with some tweaks.
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
10 Ways To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally
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.
Increasingly many people, especially over a certain age, are taking so many medications that it precipitates a train of other medications to deal with the side effects of the previous ones. This is neither fun nor healthy. Of course, sometimes it’s a necessity, but often it’s not, so if you’d like to avoid blood pressure meds, here are some good first-line things, as recommended by Dr. Siobhan Deshauer:
No-med options
Dr. Deshauer recommends:
- Diet: follow the DASH diet by eating whole foods, lean / plant-based proteins, and reducing salt and processed foods to lower blood pressure by 5–6 points.
- Sodium reduction: limit sodium intake to 2g/day, focusing on reducing processed foods, which account for 80% of sodium consumption.
- Increase potassium intake: eat potassium-rich foods (e.g. fruit, vegetables) to lower blood pressure by 5–7 points but consult a doctor if you have kidney issues or take certain medications.
- Exercise: engage in isometric exercises like wall squats or planks, which lower systolic pressure by up to 8 points; any exercise is beneficial.
- Weight loss: lose weight (specifically: fat) if (and only if!) carrying excess fat, as each 1 kg (2.2 lbs) excess adiposity reduction can decrease blood pressure by 1 point.
- Limit alcohol: avoid consuming more than two alcoholic drinks per day, as it raises blood pressure.
- Quit smoking: stop smoking to prevent increased blood pressure and long-term vessel damage caused by nicotine.
- Improve sleep: aim for at least 6 hours of sleep per night, ideally 7–9, and seek medical advice if you suspect sleep apnea.
- Manage stress: adopt healthy stress management strategies to avoid the indirect effects of stress on blood pressure.
- Adopt a pet: pet ownership, particularly dogs, can lower blood pressure more effectively than some medications.
For more on each of these, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Ideal Blood Pressure Numbers Explained
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:
-
Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More
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.
What Doesn’t Lycopene Do?
Lycopene is an antioxidant carotenoid famously found in tomatoes; it actually appears in even higher levels in watermelon, though. If you are going to get it from tomato, know that cooking improves the lycopene content rather than removing it (watermelon, on the other hand, can be enjoyed as-is and already has the higher lycopene content).
Antioxidant properties
Let’s reiterate the obvious first, for the sake of being methodical and adding a source. Lycopene is a potent antioxidant with multiple health benefits:
Lycopene: A Potent Antioxidant with Multiple Health Benefits
…and as such, it does all the things you might reasonably expect and antioxidant to do. For example…
Anti-inflammatory properties
In particular, it regulates macrophage activity, reducing inflammation while improving immune response:
Lycopene Regulates Macrophage Immune Response through the Autophagy Pathway Mediated by RIPK1
As can be expected of most antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents, it also has…
Anticancer properties
Scientific papers tend to be “per cancer type”, so we’re just going to give one example, but there’s pretty much evidence for its utility against most if not all types of cancer. We’re picking prostate cancer though, as it’s one that’s been studied the most in the context of lycopene intake—in this study, for example, it was found that men who enjoyed at least two servings of lycopene-rich tomato sauce per week were 30% less likely to develop prostate cancer than those who didn’t:
Dietary lycopene intake and risk of prostate cancer defined by ERG protein expression
If you’d like to see something more general, however, then check out:
Potential Use of Tomato Peel, a Rich Source of Lycopene, for Cancer Treatment
It also fights Candida albicans
Ok, this is not (usually) so life-and-death as cancer, but reducing our C. albicans content (specifically: in our gut) has a lot of knock-on effects for other aspects of our health, so this isn’t one to overlook:
The title does not make this clear, but yes: this does mean it has an antifungal effect. We mention this because often cellular apoptosis is good for an overall organism, but in this case, it simply kills the Candida.
It’s good for the heart
A lot of studies focus just on triglyceride markers (which lycopene improves), but more tellingly, here’s a 10-year observational study in which diets rich in lycopene were associated to a 17–26% lower risk of heart disease:
Relationship of lycopene intake and consumption of tomato products to incident CVD
…and a 39% overall reduced mortality in, well, we’ll let the study title tell it:
…which means also:
It’s good for the brain
As a general rule of thumb, what’s good for the heart is good for the brain (because the brain needs healthy blood flow to stay healthy, and is especially vulnerable when it doesn’t get that), and in this case that rule of thumb is also borne out by the post hoc evidence, specifically yielding a 31% decreased incidence of stroke:
Dietary and circulating lycopene and stroke risk: a meta-analysis of prospective studies
Is it safe?
As a common food product, it is considered very safe.
If you drink nothing but tomato juice all day for a long time, your skin will take on a reddish hue, which will go away if you stop getting all your daily water intake in tomato juice.
In all likelihood, even if you went to extremes, you would get sick from the excess of vitamin A (generally present in the same foods) sooner than you’d get sick from the excess of lycopene.
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, and also we recommend simply enjoying tomatoes, watermelons, etc, but if you do want a supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
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:
-
Leek vs Onion – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing leek to onion, we picked the leek.
Why?
In terms of macros, leek has more fiber, carbs, and protein; not by much, but it’s a nominal win for leeks in this category.
In the category of vitamins, leek has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, E and K, while onions are not higher in any vitamins; a complete win for leeks here.
Looking at minerals, leek has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium, while onions have more zinc; another easy win for leeks.
Adding up the sections makes for a clear overall win for leeks, but by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
Enjoy!
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:
