What Doctors Feel – by Dr. Danielle Ofri
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This book discusses how feelings such as shame, fear, anger, empathy, and even love influence patient care. Dr. Ofri notes early on:
❝One might reasonably say, I don’t give a damn how my doctor feels as long as she gets me better. In straightforward medical cases, this line of thinking is probably valid. Doctors who are angry, nervous, jealous, burned out, terrified, or ashamed can usually still treat bronchitis or ankle sprains competently.
The problems arise when clinical situations are convoluted, unyielding, or overlaid with unexpected complications, medical errors, or psychological components. This is where factors other than clinical competency come into play.❞
~ Dr. Danielle Ofri
What then follows is very much a no-holds-barred account of the emotional side of medicine.
Not portraying doctors as heroes or martyrs, just as people. Indeed, she even talks about an early, abject failure of hers as a medical student, literally hiding from a patient who badly needed attention and to whom she had been assigned.
We learn not just about the mistakes of doctors, but also the mistakes of patients that lead to mistakes by doctors. For example, emphasizing the severity of your symptom(s) can sometimes be useful to ensure they get attention, but if your regular doctor has heard you rating every symptom always as a 10 every appointment for the past many years, then the end result is that they don’t have information to work from, and will—at best—become frustrated, which will not work out well for you.
Mostly, though, it’s about what goes on behind that calm collected professional exterior that most doctors show most of the time.
The style is a fascinating blend of well-researched science (there’s an extensive bibliography) and very human tales of suffering, compassion, hope, loss, isolation, connection, and more.
Bottom line: if you want to understand your doctor(s), then you want to read this book.
Click here to check out What Doctors Feel, and learn how emotions affect the practice of medicine!
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The Rise Of The Machines
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In this week’s health science news, several pieces of technology caught our eye. Let’s hope these things roll out widely!
When it comes to UTIs, antimicrobial resistance is taking the p—
This has implications far beyond UTIs—though UTIs can be a bit of a “canary in the coal mine” for antimicrobial resistance. The more people are using antibiotics (intentionally, or because they are in the food chain), the more killer bugs are proliferating instead of dying when we give them something to kill them. And yes: they do proliferate sometimes when given antibiotics, not because the antibiotics did anything directly good for them, but because they killed their (often friendly bacteria) competition. Thus making for a double-whammy of woe.
This development tackles that, by using AI modelling to crunch the numbers of a real-time data-driven personalized approach to give much more accurate treatment options, in a way that a human couldn’t (or at least, couldn’t at anything like the same speed, and most family physicians don’t have a mathematician locked in the back room to spend the night working on a patient’s data).
Read in full: AI can help tackle urinary tract infections and antimicrobial resistance
Related: AI: The Doctor That Never Tires?
When it comes to CPR and women, people are feint of heart
When CPR is needed, time is very much of the essence. And yet, bystanders are much less likely to give CPR to a woman than to a man. Not only that, but CPR-training is part of what leads to this reluctance when it comes to women: the mannequins used are very homogenous, being male (94%) and lean (99%). They’re also usually white (88%) even in countries where the populations are not, but that is less critical. After all, a racist person is less likely to give CPR to a person of color regardless of what color the training mannequin was.
However, the mannequins being male and lean is an issue, because it means people suddenly lack confidence when faced with breasts and/or abundant body fat. Both can prompt the bystander to wonder if some different technique is needed (it isn’t), and breasts can also prompt the bystander to fear doing something potentially “improper” (the proper course of action is: save a person’s life; do not get distracted by breasts).
Read in full: Women are less likely to receive CPR than men. Training on manikins with breasts could help ← there are also CPR instructions (and a video demonstration) there, for anyone who wants a refresher, if perhaps your last first-aid course was a while ago!
Related: Heart Attack: His & Hers (Be Prepared!)
When technology is a breath of fresh air
A woman with COPD and COVID has had her very damaged lungs replaced using a da Vinci X robot to perform a minimally-invasive surgery (which is quite a statement, when it comes to replacing someone’s lungs).
Not without human oversight though—surgeon Dr. Stephanie Chang was directing the transplant. Surgery is rarely fun for the person being operated on, but advances like this make things go a lot more smoothly, so this kind of progress is good to see.
Read in full: Woman receives world’s first robotic double-lung transplant
Related: Why Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Is More Likely Than You Think
Take care!
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Aging Well: Exercise, Diet, Relationships
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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
I am interested in the following: Aging, Exercise, Diet, Relationships, Purpose, Lowering Stress
You’re going to love our Psychology Sunday editions of 10almonds!
You may particularly like some of these:
- Seriously Useful Communication Skills! ← this is about relationship stuff
- Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How) ← about “the stress hormone”
- How To Set Your Anxiety Aside ← these methods work for stress too
(This coming Psychology Sunday will have a feature specifically on stress, so do make sure to read that when it comes out!)
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How We Age: The Science of Longevity – by Dr. Coleen Murphy
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The author is not a glossy “name brand” and has nothing to sell (besides her book). This shows, because it’s clearly not a book that was rushed out as a marketing ploy. Indeed, she begins with the words:
❝This book took me several years to write and is largely based on information I gathered while teaching my class, “Molecular Mechanisms of Longevity: The Genetics, Genomics, and Cell Biology of Aging,” at Princeton University.❞
~ Dr. Coleen Murphy
Thus, as you may imagine, it’s a thorough book, thoughtful, with conscientious attention to detail. As a reader, you are essentially getting the knowledge of a Princeton genomics class.
She covers what’s going on in our genes, in our cells, and in our bodies, when we age; why some animals don’t, and what things affect that. She talks biomarkers of aging and the industry gold standard “Health-Related Quality of Life” metrics. We learn about insulin signalling and FOXO targets; the role of caloric restriction or intermittent fasting, topics such as molecular homeostasis in the regulation of longevity (hello senolytics and chaperone-mediated autophagy), the microbiome and epigenetics, as well as mitochondrial management, cell replacement (including induced pluripotent stem cells), and even DNA repair. And yes, a lot about cognitive aging and how to slow it too.
The style is academic and/but perfectly readable; she explains everything as we go. We’ll note, though, that it’s not dry academic—her personality comes through throughout, in a good way that makes it a pleasant read as well as an informative one.
Bottom line: if you’d like a much deeper understanding of the mechanics of aging than we have room to get into in our articles at 10almonds, this book is a highly recommendable perfect opportunity.
Click here to check out How We Age, and learn about the science of longevity!
PS: we’ve reviewed a few books about the science of aging/longevity recently, and they’ve each been good, but if you’re going to get only one, we recommend this one, as in this reviewer’s opinion, it’s the best 😎
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Oranges vs Lemons – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing oranges to lemons, we picked the oranges.
Why?
In the battle of these popular citrus fruits, there is a clear winner on the nutritional front.
Things were initially promising for lemons when looking at the macros—lemons have a little more fiber while oranges are slightly higher in carbs, but the differences are small and both are very healthy in this regard.
However, alas for this writer who prefers sour fruits to sweet ones (I’m sweet enough already), the micronutrient profiles tell a different story:
In terms of vitamins, oranges have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B9, E, and choline. In contrast, lemons have a (very) little more vitamin B6. You might be wondering about vitamin C, since both fruits are famous for that—they’re equal on vitamin C. But, with that stack we listed above, oranges clearly win the vitamin category easily.
As for minerals, oranges boast more calcium, copper, magnesium, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while lemons have more iron, manganese, and phosphorus.
Technically lemons also have more sodium, but the numbers are truly miniscule (by coincidence, we discover upon grabbing a calculator, you’d need to eat approximately your own bodyweight in whole lemons to get to the RDA of sodium—and that’s to reach the RDA, not the upper healthy limit) so we’ll overlook the tiny sodium difference as irrelevant. Which means, while closer than the vitamins category, oranges win on minerals with a 6:3 lead over lemons.
Both fruits offer generous helpings of flavonoids and other polyphenols such as naringenin and hesperidin, which have anti-inflammatory properties and more specifically can also reduce allergy symptoms (unless, of course, you are allergic to citrus fruits, which is a relatively rare but extant allergy).
In short: as ever, enjoy both; diversity is great for the health. But if you want to maximize the nutrients you get, it’s oranges.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Lemons vs Limes – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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The Exercise That Protects Your Brain
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The Neuroscientist In The Gym
This is Dr. Wendy Suzuki. She’s a neuroscientist, and an expert in the neurobiology of memory, as well as neuroplasticity, and the role of exercise in neuroprotection.
We’ve sneakily semi-featured her before when we shared her Big Think talk:
Brain Benefits In Three Months… Through Walking?
Today we’re going to expand on that a little!
A Quick Recap
To share the absolute key points of that already fairly streamlined rundown:
- Exercise boosts levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin (and, which wasn’t mentioned there, noradrenaline)
- These are responsible for motivation, happiness, and focus (amongst other things)
- Persistent exercise boosts certain regions of the brain in particular, most notably the pre-frontal cortex and the hippocampi*
- These are responsible for planning and memory (amongst other things)
Dr. Suzuki advocates for stepping up your exercise routine if you can, with more exercise generally being better than less (unless you have some special medical reason why that’s not the case for you).
*often referred to in the singular as the hippocampus, but you have one on each side of your brain (unless a serious accident/incident destroyed one, but you’ll know if that applies to you, unless you lost both, in which case you will not remember about it).
What kind(s) of workout?
While a varied workout is best for overall health, for these brain benefits specifically, what’s most important is that it raises your heart rate.
This is why in her Big Think talk we shared before, she talks about the benefits of taking a brisk walk daily. See also:
If that’s not your thing, though (and/or is for whatever reason an inaccessible form of exercise for you), there is almost certainly some kind of High Intensity Interval Training that is a possibility for you. That might sound intimidating, but if you have a bit of floor and can exercise for one minute at a time, then HIIT is an option for you:
How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
Dr. Suzuki herself is an ardent fan of “intenSati” which blends cardio workouts with yoga for holistic mind-and-body fitness. In fact, she loves it so much that she became a certified exercise instructor:
How much is enough?
It’s natural to want to know the minimum we can do to get results, but Dr. Suzuki would like us to bear in mind that when it comes to our time spent exercising, it’s not so much an expense of time as an investment in time:
❝Exercise is something that when you spend time on it, it will buy you time when you start to work❞
Read more: A Neuroscientist Experimented on Her Students and Found a Powerful Way to Improve Brain Function
Ok, but we really want to know how much!
Dr. Suzuki recommends at least three to four 30-minute exercise sessions per week.
Note: this adds up to less than the recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, but high-intensity exercise counts for twice the minutes for these purposes, e.g. 1 minute of high-intensity exercise is worth 2 minutes of moderate exercise.
How soon will we see benefits?
Benefits start immediately, but stack up cumulatively with continued long-term exercise:
❝My lab showed that a single workout can improve your ability to shift and focus attention, and that focus improvement will last for at least two hours. ❞
…which is a great start, but what’s more exciting is…
❝The more you’re working out, the bigger and stronger your hippocampus and prefrontal cortex gets. Why is that important?
Because the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus are the two areas that are most susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases and normal cognitive decline in aging. ❞
In other words, while improving your heart rate through regular exercise will help prevent neurodegeneration by the usual mechanism of reducing neuroinflammation… It’ll also build the parts of your brain most susceptible to decline, meaning that when/if decline sets in, it’ll take a lot longer to get to a critical level of degradation, because it had more to start with.
Read more:
Inspir Modern Senior Living | Dr. Wendy Suzuki Boosts Brain Health with Exercise
Want more from Dr. Suzuki?
You might enjoy her TED talk:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically
Prefer text? TED.com has a transcript for you
Prefer lots of text? You might like her book, which we haven’t reviewed yet but will soon:
Enjoy!
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- Exercise boosts levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin (and, which wasn’t mentioned there, noradrenaline)
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Self-Care That’s Not Just Self-Indulgence
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Self-Care That’s Not Just Self-Indulgence
Self-care is often seen as an excuse for self-indulgence. Worse, it’s often used as an excuse for self-indulgence—in ways that can end up making us feel worse.
It’s a bit like dietary “cheat days”. If your diet needs cheat days, your diet probably isn’t right for you!
How to recognize the difference between self-care and self-indulgence?
Statistically, the majority of our subscribers are parents (whose children are now mostly grown up, but still, the point is that parenting experience has been gleaned), and/or are or have been caregivers of some form or other.
When a small child is ill, we (hopefully!) look after them carefully:
- We don’t expect too much of them, but…
- …we do expect them to adhere to things consistent with their recovery.
Critically: an important part of self-care is that it actually should be care.
Let’s spell something out: neglect is not care!
How this works for physical and mental health
If you overdo it in physical exercise, it’s right and correct to take a break to recover, and during that time, do things that will hasten one’s recovery. For example:
Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise
But it’s well-known that if you just do nothing, your condition will likely deteriorate. Also, “a break to recover” is going to be as short as is necessary to recover. Then you’ll ease back into exercise, but you will get back to it.
For mental health it’s just the same. If we for whatever reason need to take a step back, it’s right and correct to do take a break to recover, and during that time, do things that will hasten one’s recovery.
Sometimes, if for example it’s just a case of burnout, rest is the best medicine, and even rest can be an active process. See for example:
How To Rest More Efficiently (Yes, Really)
So the question to ask, when it comes to self-care vs self-indulgence, is:
“Is this activity helping me to get better?”
Some examples:
Probably not great self-care activities:
- Oversleeping (unless you were sleep-deprived, in which case, it’s better to get an earlier night than a later morning, if possible)
- Overeating (comfort-eating is a thing, but your actual problems will still be there)
- Mindless activities (mindless scrolling, TV-watching, game-playing, etc)
Probably better self-care activities:
- Enjoyable physical activity (whatever that may be for you)
- Preparing your favorite food, and then enjoying it mindfully
- Engaging in a personal project that might not be that important, but it’s fulfilling to you (hobbies etc can fall into this category)
- Scheduling some time, and committing some resources, to tackling whatever problem(s) you are facing that’s prompting you to need this self-care.
- Doing the tasks you want to hide away from, but making them fun.
What’s your go-to self-care? We love to hear from you, so feel free to hit “reply” to this email, or use the handy feedback form at the bottom!
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