What does it mean to be immunocompromised?
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Our immune systems help us fight off disease, but certain health conditions and medications can weaken our immune systems. People whose immune systems don’t work as well as they should are considered immunocompromised.
Read on to learn more about how the immune system works, what causes people to be immunocompromised, and how we can protect ourselves and the immunocompromised people around us from illness.
What is the immune system?
The immune system is a network of cells, organs, and chemicals that helps our bodies fight off infections caused by invaders, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.
Some important parts of the immune system include:
- White blood cells, which attack and kill germs that don’t belong inside our bodies.
- Lymph nodes, which help our bodies filter out germs.
- Antibodies, which help our bodies recognize invaders.
- Cytokines, which tell our immune cells what to do.
What causes people to be immunocompromised?
Some health conditions and medications can prevent our immune systems from functioning optimally, which makes us more vulnerable to infection. Health conditions that compromise the immune system fall into two categories: primary immunodeficiency and secondary immunodeficiency.
Primary immunodeficiency
People with primary immunodeficiency are born with genetic mutations that prevent their immune systems from functioning as they should. There are hundreds of types of primary immunodeficiencies. Since these mutations affect the immune system to varying degrees, some people may experience symptoms and get diagnosed early in life, while others may not know they’re immunocompromised until adulthood.
Secondary immunodeficiency
Secondary immunodeficiency happens later in life due to an infection like HIV, which weakens the immune system over time, or certain types of cancer, which prevent the body from producing enough white blood cells to adequately fight off infection. Studies have also shown that getting infected with COVID-19 may cause immunodeficiency by reducing our production of “killer T-cells,” which help fight off infections.
Sometimes necessary treatments for certain medical conditions can also cause secondary immunodeficiency. For example, people with autoimmune disorders—which cause the immune system to become overactive and attack healthy cells—may need to take immunosuppressant drugs to manage their symptoms. However, the drugs can make them more vulnerable to infection.
People who receive organ transplants may also need to take immunosuppressant medications for life to prevent their body from rejecting the new organ. (Given the risk of infection, scientists continue to research alternative ways for the immune system to tolerate transplantation.)
Chemotherapy for cancer patients can also cause secondary immunodeficiency because it kills the immune system’s white blood cells as it’s trying to kill cancer cells.
What are the symptoms of a compromised immune system?
People who are immunocompromised may become sick more frequently than others or may experience more severe or longer-term symptoms than others who contract the same disease.
Other symptoms of a compromised immune system may include fatigue; digestive problems like cramping, nausea, and diarrhea; and slow wound healing.
How can I find out if I’m immunocompromised?
If you think you may be immunocompromised, talk to your health care provider about your medical history, your symptoms, and any medications you take. Blood tests can determine whether your immune system is producing adequate proteins and cells to fight off infection.
I’m immunocompromised—how can I protect myself from infection?
If you’re immunocompromised, take precautions to protect yourself from illness.
Wash your hands regularly, wear a well-fitting mask around others to protect against respiratory viruses, and ensure that you’re up to date on recommended vaccines.
Immunocompromised people may need more doses of vaccines than people who are not immunocompromised—including COVID-19 vaccines. Talk to your health care provider about which vaccines you need.
How can I protect the immunocompromised people around me?
You never know who may be immunocompromised. The best way to protect immunocompromised people around you is to avoid spreading illnesses.
If you know you’re sick, isolate whenever possible. Wear a well-fitting mask around others—especially if you know that you’re sick or that you’ve been exposed to germs. Make sure you’re up to date on recommended vaccines, and practice regular hand-washing.
If you’re planning to spend time with someone who is immunocompromised, ask them what steps you can take to keep them safe.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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The GLP-1 Lifestyle – by Dr. Joshua Hackett
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While GLP-1 receptor agonists (i.e. semaglutide drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy) have enjoyed the spotlight as a miracle cure (with some drawbacks), this book argues very reasonably that we should see them as a tool that we can use (or not) as part of a holistic approach to manage our metabolism.
Unusually, Dr. Hackett doesn’t argue strongly for one way or another, when it comes to using GLP-1 RAs. Rather, he makes the case that they indeed have pros and cons, and we should not only be aware of those pros and cons before making a decision either way, but also, we must understand the process of what goes on.
In contrast to the “inject it and forget it” marketing, he explains how if we actually understand what’s happening in our metabolism, we can improve things for ourselves and, at the very least, avoid sabotaging ourselves. Again, this knowledge is applicable with or without the drugs.
Much of the book is spent covering the physiological underpinnings and how things work for people of various different sizes and metabolic rates, as well as everything you’d expect about dosing, side effects, and whatnot—as well as things you might not have considered closely related, such gut health, and the question of “is there any way to retain the slimmer figure after stopping?”.
The style is methodical and clear, and not at all sensationalized. It’s very much a “read it cover to cover” book rather than a “dip in” book, so be ready for that, though.
Bottom line: if you and/or a loved one are on GLP1-RAs—or on the fence about them—this is a very even-minded and helpfully explanatory book.
Click here to check out The GLP-1 Lifestyle, and transform your metabolism!
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Scheduling Tips for Overrunning Tasks
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Your Questions, Our Answers!
Q: Often I schedule time for things, but the task takes longer than I think, or multiplies while I’m doing it, and then my schedule gets thrown out. Any ideas?
A: A relatable struggle! Happily, there are remedies:
- Does the task really absolutely need to be finished today? If not, just continue it in scheduled timeslots until it’s completed.
- Some tasks do indeed need to be finished today (hi, writer of a daily newsletter here!), so it can be useful to have an idea of how long things really take, in advance. While new tasks can catch us unawares, recurring or similar-to-previous tasks can be estimated based on how long they took previously. For this reason, we recommend doing a time audit every now and again, to see how you really use your time.
- A great resource that you should include in your schedule is a “spare” timeslot, ideally at least one per day. Call it a “buffer” or a “backup” or whatever (in my schedule it’s labelled “discretionary”), but the basic idea is that it’s a scheduled timeslot with nothing scheduled in it, and it works as an “overflow” catch-all.
Additionally:
- You can usually cut down the time it takes you to do tasks by setting “Deep Work” rules for yourself. For example: cut out distractions, single-task, work in for example 25-minute bursts with 5-minute breaks, etc
- You can also usually cut down the time it takes you to do tasks by making sure you’re prepared for them. Not just task-specific preparation, either! A clear head on, plenty of energy, the resources you’ll need (including refreshments!) to hand, etc can make a huge difference to efficiency.
See Also: Time Optimism and the Planning Fallacy
Do you have a question you’d like to see answered here? Hit reply or use the feedback widget at the bottom; we’d love to hear from you!
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Mimosa For Healing Your Body & Mind
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Today we’re looking at mimosa (no relation to the cocktail!), which is a name given to several related plant species that belong to the same genus or general clade, look similar, and have similar properties and behavior.
As a point of interest that’s not useful: mimosa is one of those plants whereby if you touch it, it’ll retract its leaves and shrink away from you. The leaves also droop at nighttime (perfectly healthily; they’re not wilting or anything; this too is just plant movement), and spring back up in the daytime.
So that’s what we mean when we say “and behavior” 😉
Antidepressant & anxiolytic
Mimosa bark and leaves have long been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as (albeit different species) in the North-East of Brazil, and (again, sometimes different species) in Mexico.
Animal studies, in vivo studies, and clinical practice in humans, have found this to be effective, for example:
❝[Mimosa pudica extract] has anti-anxiety, anti-depressant and memory enhancing activities that are mediated through multiple mechanisms❞
Source: Effects of Mimosa pudica L. leaves extract on anxiety, depression and memory
Research is ongoing with regard to how, exactly, mimosa does what it does. Here’s a paper about another species mimosa:
(notwithstanding the genus name, it’s still part of the mimosa clade)
Anti-inflammatory & analgesic
In this case, mimosa has traditionally been used as a topical tincture (for skin damage of many kinds, ranging from cuts and abrasions to burns to autoimmune conditions and more), so what does the science say about that?
❝In summary, the present study provided evidence that the [mimosa extract], its fractions and the isolated compound sakuranetin showed significant anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive activities❞
Wound healing
About those various skin damages, here’s another application, and a study showing that it doesn’t just make it feel better, it actually helps it to heal, too:
❝Therapeutic effectiveness occurred in all patients of the extract group; after the 8th treatment week, ulcer size was reduced by 92% as mean value in this group, whereas therapeutic effectiveness was observed only in one patient of the control group (chi(2), p=0.0001). No side effects were observed in any patient in either group.❞
Very compelling stats!
Read more: Therapeutic effectiveness of a Mimosa tenuiflora cortex extract in venous leg ulceration treatment
Is it safe?
Yes, for most people, with some caveats:
- this one comes with a clear “don’t take if pregnant or breastfeeding” warning, as for unknown reasons it has caused a high incidence of fetal abnormalities or fetal death in animal studies.
- while the stem bark (the kind used in most mimosa supplements and most readily found online) has negligible psychoactivity, as do many species of mimosa in general, the root of M. tenuiflora has psychedelic effects similar to ayahuasca if taken orally, for example as a decoction, if in the presence of a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), as otherwise MAO would metabolize the psychoactive component in the gut before it can enter the bloodstream.
That’s several “ifs”, meaning that the chances of unwanted psychedelic effects are slim if you’re paying attention, but as ever, do check with your doctor/pharmacist to be sure.
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎
Enjoy!
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What’s Your Personal Life Expectancy?
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.
Tick Tock… Goes the Death Clock?
This fun little test will ask a few questions about you and your lifestyle, and then make a prediction of your personal life expectancy, based on global statistics from the World Health Organisation.
And then the countdown starts… Literally, it generates a clock for you to see your life-seconds ticking away—this may or may not delight you, but it sure is a curiosity.
Their “Letters” page has a lot of reactions from people who just got their results (spoiler: people’s perspectives on life vary a lot)
Who mostly uses this service? According to their stats page, it’s mostly curious under-45s, with gradually less interest in knowing about it from 45 onwards… until the age of 70, when suddenly everyone wants to know about it again!
So Is It Possible To Pause The Clock On Aging? – Q&A Spotlight Interview
Life extension is sometimes viewed as the domain of the super-rich, and with less than half of Millennials (and almost none of Gen-Z) having retirement plans, often those of us who aren’t super-rich have more mundane (and immediate!) goals than living to 120.
And yet…
Middle class and working class life-extensionists do exist, even if not garnering the same media attention. We think that’s strange—after all, while the whimsies of the super-rich may be entertaining to read about, it’s not nearly as applicable to most people as more relatable stories:
- The twenty-something who gives up smoking and adds (healthier!) years to their life
- The thirty-something who adopts a plant-based diet and is less likely to die of heart disease
- The forty-something who stops drinking, and avoids health conditions and mishaps alike
- The fifty-something who reconsiders their health plan in light of their changing body
- The sixty-something who takes up yoga, or chess, or salsa dancing
- The seventy-something who gets asked what their secret is
- …and so on
But these are ideas, textbook examples. What if we make it more personal?
We interviewed 10 Almonds subscriber and longevity enthusiast Anastasia S., and here’s what she had to say:
Q: What does life extension mean to you, in your life?
A: To me, the key is healthy life extension. People often joke “I don’t want to live longer; the last years are the worst!” but they’re missing the point that after a certain age, those difficulties are coming whether they come at 50 or 70 or 90. Personally, I’d rather keep them at bay if I can.
Q: How do you do that?
A: Firstly, which won’t be a shock: good diet and exercise. Those two things are possibly the biggest active influences on my longevity. I’m vegan, which I don’t think is outright necessary for good health but done right, it can certainly be good. In this house we eat a lot of whole grains, beans, lentils, vegetables in general, nuts too. As for exercise, I do 30–60 minutes of Pilates daily; it’s nothing fancy and it’s just me in my pajamas at home, but it keeps me strong and fit and supple. I also walk everywhere; I don’t even own a car. Beyond that… I don’t drink or smoke (probably the biggest passive influences on my longevity, i.e., things that aren’t there to make it shorter), and I try to take my sleep seriously, making sure to schedule enough time and prepare properly for it.
Q: Take your sleep seriously? How so?
A: Good “sleep hygiene” as some call it—I schedule a little wind-down time before sleep, with no glaring screens or main lights, making a space between my busy day and restful sleep, kicking anything requiring brainpower to the morning, and making a conscious choice not to think more about those things in the meantime. I take care to make my sleeping environment as conducive as possible to good sleep too; I have a good mattress and pillows, I make sure the temperature is cool but cosy. I have a pot of herbal tea on my bedside table—I hydrate a lot.
Q: Do you take any supplements?
A: I do! They’re mostly quite general though, just “covering my bases”, so to speak. I take a daily nootropic stack (a collection of supplements specifically for brain health), too. I buy them in bulk, so they don’t cost so much.
Q: This seems quite a healthy lifestyle! Do you have any vices at all?
A: I definitely drink more coffee than I probably should! But hey, nobody’s perfect. I do love coffee, though, and as vices go, it’s probably not too bad.
Q: How’s it all working out for you? Do you feel younger?
A: I’m 38 and sometimes I feel like a teenager; sometimes I feel like an old lady. But the latter is usually for social reasons, not health-related reasons. I do have streaks of gray in my hair though, and I love that! If people don’t notice my grays, then they often think I’m in my 20s, rather than pushing 40. A little while back, I was stopped in the street by someone wanting to sell me a change of household utilities provider, then she stopped herself mid-sentence and said “Oh but wait, you look a bit too young, never mind”. Most general metrics of health would put me in my 20s.
Q: That’s interesting that you love your gray hairs, for someone who wants to stay young; is it an exception?
A: It’s more that I want to minimize the problems that come with age, and not everything’s a problem. Gray hairs are cool; joint pain, not so much. A long life rich with experiences is cool; memory loss, not so much. So, I try to keep healthy, and wear my years as best I can.
Q: Sounds good to us; good luck with it!
A: Thank you; I do my best!
Here at 10 Almonds, we love featuring what our readers are doing to improve their health; if you’re willing to be featured in our newsletter, let us know by replying to this email (where an actual human will read it, we promise!)
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52 Small Changes – by Brett Blumenthal
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We see a lot of books that exhort us to get a six-pack in a month, change our life in 7 days, learn Japanese in 24 hours. The reality is, things take time!
Brett Blumenthal is more realistic while being just as motivational:
The idea is simple… Make one small change per week for 52 weeks, and at the end of the year, you’ll be healthier and happier.
At 10almonds, we’re big fans of small changes that add up (or rather: compound!) to make big differences, so this one’s absolutely our style!
Best of all, she offers us not just “do this” advice, but also “and here’s the information and resources you’ll need to make this change work the best it can for you”
The advices range in topic from nutrition to exercise to sleep to mental wellness to interpersonal stuff and more. The biggest focus is on personal health, though, with small changes to exercise and nutrition making up the lion’s share of the changes.
Bottom line: this is a book you’ll want to grab once a week. Consider setting a reminder on your phone to check in with it each Sunday, for example!
Take the first step and order “52 Small Changes” from Amazon today!
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L-Theanine: What’s The Tea?
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L-Theanine: What’s The Tea?
We’ve touched previously on l-theanine, when this newsletter was new, and we had only a few hundred subscribers and the carefully organized format wasn’t yet what it is today.
So now it’s time to give this potent dietary compound / nutritional supplement the “Monday Research Review” treatment…
What is it?
L-theanine is an amino acid found in tea. The human body can’t produce it, and/but it’s not essential for humans. It does have a lot of benefits, though. See for example:
L-Theanine as a Functional Food Additive: Its Role in Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
How does it work?
L-theanine works by moderating and modulating the brain’s neurotransmitters.
This sounds fancy, but basically it means: it doesn’t actually add anything in the manner of a drug, but it changes how we use what we have naturally.
What does it do? Read on…
It increases mental focus
It has been believed that l-theanine requires the presence of caffeine to achieve this (i.e., it’s a combination-only effect). For example:
But as it turns out, when a group of researchers actually checked… This isn’t true, as Foxe et al. write:
❝We asked whether either compound alone, or both in combination, would affect performance of the task in terms of reduced error rates over time, and whether changes in alpha-band activity would show a relationship to such changes in performance. When treated with placebo, participants showed a rise in error rates, a pattern that is commonly observed with increasing time-on-task, whereas after caffeine and theanine ingestion, error rates were significantly reduced. The combined treatment did not confer any additional benefits over either compound alone, suggesting that the individual compounds may confer maximal benefits at the dosages employed❞
It promotes a calmly wakeful feeling of serenity
Those are not words typically found in biopharmaceutical literature, but they’re useful here to convey:
- L-theanine promotes relaxation without causing drowsiness
- L-theanine promotes mental alertness without being a stimulant
Here is where l-theanine really stands out from caffeine. If both substances promote mental focus, but one of them does it by making us “wired” and the other does it while simultaneously promoting calm, it makes the choice between them clearer!
Read more: L-theanine, a natural constituent in tea, and its effect on mental state
It relieves stress and anxiety
Building on from the above, but there’s more: l-theanine relieves stress and anxiety in people experiencing stressful situations, without any known harmful side effects… This is something that sets it apart from a lot of anxiolytic (antianxiety) drugs!
Here’s what a big systematic review of clinical trials had to say:
Theanine consumption, stress and anxiety in human clinical trials: A systematic review
L-theanine has other benefits too
We’ve talked about some of the most popular benefits of l-theanine, and we can’t make this newsletter too long, but research also suggests that it…
- Supports healthy weight management
- Reduces inflammation
- Supports immune health
- Helps fight cancer
- May extend lifespan ← this one’s a C. elegans study, but despite being a tiny worm, they actually function very similarly to humans on a cellular level; it’s why they’re used so much for anti-aging research
If you’re interested in this topic, we recommend also reading our previous article on l-theanine—pardon that we hadn’t really nailed down our style yet—but there’s a bunch of useful information about how l-theanine makes caffeine “better” in terms of benefits. We also talk dosage, and reference some other studies we didn’t have room to include today!
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