What Most People Don’t Know About Hearing Aids

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. Juliëtte Sterkens, a doctor of audiology, makes things clearer in this TEDx talk:

The sound of the future

Half of all adults experience hearing loss by the age of 75, and by 85, that goes up to two thirds. Untreated hearing loss leads to depression, social isolation, cognitive decline, and even an increased fall risk.

It’s not just about reduced volume though; Dr. Sterkens points out that for many (like this writer!) it’s more a matter of unequal pitch perception and difficulty in speech clarity. Most hearing aids just amplify sound, and don’t fully restore clarity, especially beyond a short range.

However, technology keeps marching forwards there have been improvements in the move from analog to digital, and today’s bluetooth-enabled hearing aids often do a lot better, especially in the case of things like TV transmitters and clip-on microphones.

Out and about, you might see signs sometimes saying “Hearing Loop Enabled”, and those transmit sound directly to telecoil-equipped hearing aids—venues with public address systems are legally required to provide hearing accommodations like this. Many hearing aids include telecoils, but users often aren’t informed or don’t have them activated, which is unfortunate, because telecoils improve hearing dramatically in loop-enabled venues.

Dr. Sterkens makes a plea for us to, as applicable,

  • Activate telecoils and insist on them in new hearing aids.
  • Advocate for assistive listening systems in public venues.
  • Use available resources like the Hearing Loss Association of America for tools and information.
  • Familiarize ourselves with accessibility laws and report non-compliance.
  • Aim to make the world more accessible for people with hearing loss through advocacy, technology, and awareness.

For more on all of this, enjoy:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

Dealing With Hearing Loss

Take care!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • 90% Of People Skip This Essential Exercise—Are You One Of Them?
  • Is Sugar The New Smoking?
    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds! Dive into health priorities, quitting smoking vs. sugar addiction, and get expert-backed advice on tackling bad habits. Embrace healthier choices with us.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Older Americans Say They Feel Trapped in Medicare Advantage Plans

    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.

    In 2016, Richard Timmins went to a free informational seminar to learn more about Medicare coverage.

    “I listened to the insurance agent and, basically, he really promoted Medicare Advantage,” Timmins said. The agent described less expensive and broader coverage offered by the plans, which are funded largely by the government but administered by private insurance companies.

    For Timmins, who is now 76, it made economic sense then to sign up. And his decision was great, for a while.

    Then, three years ago, he noticed a lesion on his right earlobe.

    “I have a family history of melanoma. And so, I was kind of tuned in to that and thinking about that,” Timmins said of the growth, which doctors later diagnosed as malignant melanoma. “It started to grow and started to become rather painful.”

    Timmins, though, discovered that his enrollment in a Premera Blue Cross Medicare Advantage plan would mean a limited network of doctors and the potential need for preapproval, or prior authorization, from the insurer before getting care. The experience, he said, made getting care more difficult, and now he wants to switch back to traditional, government-administered Medicare.

    But he can’t. And he’s not alone.

    “I have very little control over my actual medical care,” he said, adding that he now advises friends not to sign up for the private plans. “I think that people are not understanding what Medicare Advantage is all about.”

    Enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans has grown substantially in the past few decades, enticing more than half of all eligible people, primarily those 65 or older, with low premium costs and perks like dental and vision insurance. And as the private plans’ share of the Medicare patient pie has ballooned to 30.8 million people, so too have concerns about the insurers’ aggressive sales tactics and misleading coverage claims.

    Enrollees, like Timmins, who sign on when they are healthy can find themselves trapped as they grow older and sicker.

    “It’s one of those things that people might like them on the front end because of their low to zero premiums and if they are getting a couple of these extra benefits — the vision, dental, that kind of thing,” said Christine Huberty, a lead benefit specialist supervising attorney for the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources.

    “But it’s when they actually need to use it for these bigger issues,” Huberty said, “that’s when people realize, ‘Oh no, this isn’t going to help me at all.’”

    Medicare pays private insurers a fixed amount per Medicare Advantage enrollee and in many cases also pays out bonuses, which the insurers can use to provide supplemental benefits. Huberty said those extra benefits work as an incentive to “get people to join the plan” but that the plans then “restrict the access to so many services and coverage for the bigger stuff.”

    David Meyers, assistant professor of health services, policy, and practice at the Brown University School of Public Health, analyzed a decade of Medicare Advantage enrollment and found that about 50% of beneficiaries — rural and urban — left their contract by the end of five years. Most of those enrollees switched to another Medicare Advantage plan rather than traditional Medicare.

    In the study, Meyers and his co-authors muse that switching plans could be a positive sign of a free marketplace but that it could also signal “unmeasured discontent” with Medicare Advantage.

    “The problem is that once you get into Medicare Advantage, if you have a couple of chronic conditions and you want to leave Medicare Advantage, even if Medicare Advantage isn’t meeting your needs, you might not have any ability to switch back to traditional Medicare,” Meyers said.

    Traditional Medicare can be too expensive for beneficiaries switching back from Medicare Advantage, he said. In traditional Medicare, enrollees pay a monthly premium and, after reaching a deductible, in most cases are expected to pay 20% of the cost of each nonhospital service or item they use. And there is no limit on how much an enrollee may have to pay as part of that 20% coinsurance if they end up using a lot of care, Meyers said.

    To limit what they spend out-of-pocket, traditional Medicare enrollees typically sign up for supplemental insurance, such as employer coverage or a private Medigap policy. If they are low-income, Medicaid may provide that supplemental coverage.

    But, Meyers said, there’s a catch: While beneficiaries who enrolled first in traditional Medicare are guaranteed to qualify for a Medigap policy without pricing based on their medical history, Medigap insurers can deny coverage to beneficiaries transferring from Medicare Advantage plans or base their prices on medical underwriting.

    Only four states — Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and New York — prohibit insurers from denying a Medigap policy if the enrollee has preexisting conditions such as diabetes or heart disease.

    Paul Ginsburg is a former commissioner on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, also known as MedPAC. It’s a legislative branch agency that advises Congress on the Medicare program. He said the inability of enrollees to easily switch between Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare during open enrollment periods is “a real concern in our system; it shouldn’t be that way.”

    The federal government offers specific enrollment periods every year for switching plans. During Medicare’s open enrollment period, from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, enrollees can switch out of their private plans to traditional, government-administered Medicare.

    Medicare Advantage enrollees can also switch plans or transfer to traditional Medicare during another open enrollment period, from Jan. 1 to March 31.

    “There are a lot of people that say, ‘Hey, I’d love to come back, but I can’t get Medigap anymore, or I’ll have to just pay a lot more,’” said Ginsburg, who is now a professor of health policy at the University of Southern California.

    Timmins is one of those people. The retired veterinarian lives in a rural community on Whidbey Island just north of Seattle. It’s a rugged, idyllic landscape and a popular place for second homes, hiking, and the arts. But it’s also a bit remote.

    While it’s typically harder to find doctors in rural areas, Timmins said he believes his Premera Blue Cross plan made it more challenging to get care for a variety of reasons, including the difficulty of finding and getting in to see specialists.

    Nearly half of Medicare Advantage plan directories contained inaccurate information on what providers were available, according to the most recent federal review. Beginning in 2024, new or expanding Medicare Advantage plans must demonstrate compliance with federal network expectations or their applications could be denied.

    Amanda Lansford, a Premera Blue Cross spokesperson, declined to comment on Timmins’ case. She said the plan meets federal network adequacy requirements as well as travel time and distance standards “to ensure members are not experiencing undue burdens when seeking care.”

    Traditional Medicare allows beneficiaries to go to nearly any doctor or hospital in the U.S., and in most cases enrollees do not need approval to get services.

    Timmins, who recently finished immunotherapy, said he doesn’t think he would be approved for a Medigap policy, “because of my health issue.” And if he were to get into one, Timmins said, it would likely be too expensive.

    For now, Timmins said, he is staying with his Medicare Advantage plan.

    “I’m getting older. More stuff is going to happen.”

    There is also a chance, Timmins said, that his cancer could resurface: “I’m very aware of my mortality.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

    Share This Post

  • Castor Oil: All-Purpose Life-Changer, Or Snake Oil?

    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.

    As “trending” health products go, castor oil is enjoying a lot of popularity presently, lauded as a life-changing miracle-worker, and social media is abuzz with advice to put it everywhere from your eyes to your vagina.

    But:

    • what things does science actually say it’s good for,
    • what things lack evidence, and
    • what things go into the category of “wow definitely do not do that”?

    We don’t have the space to go into all of its proposed uses (there are simply far too many), but we’ll examine some common ones:

    To heal/improve the skin barrier

    Like most oils, it’s functional as a moisturizer. In particular, its high (90%!) ricinoleic fatty acid content does indeed make it good at that, and furthermore, has properties that can help reduce skin inflammation and promote wound healing:

    Bioactive polymeric formulations for wound healing ← there isn’t a conveniently quotable summary we can just grab here, but you can see the data and results, from which we can conclude:

    • formulations with ricinoleic acid (such as with castor oil) performed very well for topical anti-inflammatory purposes
    • they avoided the unwanted side effects associated with some other contenders
    • they consistently beat other preparations in the category of wound-healing

    To support hair growth and scalp health

    There is no evidence that it helps. We’d love to provide a citation for this, but it’s simply not there. There’s also no evidence that it doesn’t help. For whatever reason, despite its popularity, peer-reviewed science has simply not been done for this, or if it has, it wasn’t anywhere publicly accessible.

    It’s possible that if a person is suffering hair loss specifically as a result of prostaglandin D2 levels, that ricinoleic acid will inhibit the PGD2, reversing the hair loss, but even this is hypothetical so far, as the science is currently only at the step before that:

    In silico prediction of prostaglandin D2 synthase inhibitors from herbal constituents for the treatment of hair loss

    However, due to some interesting chemistry, the combination of castor oil and warm water can result in acute (and irreversible) hair felting, in other words, the strands of hair suddenly glue together to become one mass which then has to be cut off:

    “Castor Oil” – The Culprit of Acute Hair Felting

    👆 this is a case study, which is generally considered a low standard of evidence (compared to high-quality Randomized Controlled Trials as the highest standard of evidence), but let’s just say, this writer (hi, it’s me) isn’t risking her butt-length hair on the off-chance, and doesn’t advise you to, either. There are other hair-oils out there; argan oil is great, coconut oil is totally fine too.

    As a laxative

    This time, there’s a lot of evidence, and it’s even approved for this purpose by the FDA, but it can be a bit too good, insofar as taking too much can result in diarrhea and uncomfortable cramping (the cramps are a feature not a bug; the mechanism of action is stimulatory, i.e. it gets the intestines squeezing, but again, it can result in doing that too much for comfort):

    Castor Oil: FDA-Approved Indications

    To soothe dry eyes

    While putting oil in your eyes may seem dubious, this is another one where it actually works:

    ❝Castor oil is deemed safe and tolerable, with strong anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-nociceptive, analgesic, antioxidant, wound healing and vasoconstrictive properties.

    These can supplement deficient physiological tear film lipids, enabling enhanced lipid spreading characteristics and reducing aqueous tear evaporation.

    Studies reveal that castor oil applied topically to the ocular surface has a prolonged residence time, facilitating increased tear film lipid layer thickness, stability, improved ocular surface staining and symptoms.❞

    Source: Therapeutic potential of castor oil in managing blepharitis, meibomian gland dysfunction and dry eye

    Against candidiasis (thrush)

    We couldn’t find science for (or against) castor oil’s use against vaginal candidiasis, but here’s a study that investigated its use against oral candidiasis:

    Rosemary, Castor Oils, and Propolis Extract: Activity Against Candida Albicans and Alterations on Properties of Dental Acrylic Resins

    …in which castor oil was the only preparation that didn’t work against the yeast.

    Summary

    We left a lot unsaid today (so many proposed uses, it feels like a shame to skip them), but in few words: it’s good for skin (including wound healing) and eyes; but we’d give it a miss for hair, candidiasis, and digestive disorders.

    Want to try some?

    We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • 52 Small Changes – by Brett Blumenthal

    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.

    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!

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • 90% Of People Skip This Essential Exercise—Are You One Of Them?
  • Sunflower Oil vs Canola Oil – 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 sunflower oil to canola oil, we picked the sunflower oil.

    Why?

    They’re both terrible! But canola oil is worse. Sunflower oil is marketed as being higher in polyunsaturated fats, which it is, albeit not by much.

    Canola oil is very bad for the heart, and sunflower oil is only moderately bad for the heart, to the point that it can be heart-neutral if used sparingly.

    As seed oils, they are both sources of vitamin E, but you’d need to drink a cup of oil to get your daily dose, so please just eat some seeds (or nuts, or fruit, or something) instead. It can even be sunflower seeds if you like! Rapeseed* itself (the seed that canola oil is made from) isn’t really sold as a foodstuff, so that one’s less of an option.

    *Fun fact: if you’re N. American and wondering what this “rapeseed” is, know that most of the rest of the Anglosphere calls canola oil “rapeseed oil”, as it’s made from rapeseed, which comes from a plant called rape, whose name is unrelated to the crime of the same name, and comes from rāpa, the Latin word for turnip. Anyway, “canola” is a portmanteau of “Canadian” and “Ola” meaning oil, and is a trademark that has made its way into generic use throughout N. America, as a less alarming name.

    Back to health matters: while sunflower seeds are healthy in moderation, the ultraprocessed and refined sunflower and canola oils are not.

    Canola oil has also been found to be implicated in age-related cognitive decline, whereas sunflower oil has had mixed results in that regard.

    In summary

    Sunflower oil is relatively, and we stress relatively, healthier than canola oil. Please use a healthier oil than either if you can. Olive oil is good for most things, and if you need something with a higher smoke point (and/or less distinctive flavor), consider avocado oil, which is also very healthy and whose smoke point is even higher than the seed oils we’ve been discussing today.

    Want to know more?

    Check out:

    Avocado Oil vs Olive Oil – Which is Healthier?

    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:

  • The Real Benefit Of Genetic Testing

    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.

    Genetic Testing: Health Benefits & Methods

    Genetic testing is an oft-derided American pastime, but there’s a lot more to it than finding out about your ancestry!

    Note: because there are relatively few companies offering health-related genetic testing services, and we are talking about the benefits of those services, some of this main feature may seem like an advert.

    It’s not; none of those companies are sponsoring us, and if any of them become a sponsor at some point, we’ll make it clear and put it in the clearly-marked sponsor segment.

    As ever, our only goal here is to provide science-backed information, to enable you to make your own, well-informed, decisions.

    Health genomics & genetic testing

    The basic goal of health genomics and genetic testing is to learn:

    • What genetic conditions you have
      • Clearcut genetic conditions, such as Fragile X syndrome, or Huntington’s disease
    • What genetic predispositions you have
      • Such as an increased/decreased risk for various kinds of cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, and so forth
    • What genetic traits you have
      • These may range from “blue eyes” to “superathlete muscle type”
    • More specifically, pharmacogenomic information
      • For example, “fast caffeine metabolizer” or “clopidogrel (Plavix) non-responder” (i.e., that drug simply will not work for you)

    Wait, what’s the difference between health genomics and genetic testing?

    • Health genomics is the science of how our genes affect our health.
    • Genetic testing can be broadly defined as the means of finding out which genes we have.

    A quick snippet…

    More specifically, a lot of these services look at which single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, pronounced “snips”) we have. While we share almost all of our DNA with each other (and indeed, with most vertebrates), our polymorphisms are the bits that differ, and are the bits that, genetically speaking, make us different.

    So, by looking just at the SNPs, it means we “only” need to look at about 3,000,000 DNA positions, and not our entire genome. For perspective, those 3,000,000 DNA positions make up about 0.1% of our whole genome, so without focusing on SNPs, the task would be 1000x harder.

    For example, the kind of information that this sort of testing may give you, includes (to look at some “popular” SNPs):

    • rs53576 in the oxytocin receptor influences social behavior and personality
    • rs7412 and rs429358 can raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by more than 10x
    • rs6152 can influence baldness
    • rs333 resistance to HIV
    • rs1800497 in a dopamine receptor may influence the sense of pleasure
    • rs1805007 determines red hair and sensitivity to anesthetics
    • rs9939609 triggers obesity and type-2 diabetes
    • rs662799 prevents weight gain from high fat diets
    • rs12255372 linked to type-2 diabetes and breast cancer
    • rs1799971 makes alcohol cravings stronger
    • rs17822931 determines earwax, sweating and body odor
    • rs1333049 coronary heart disease
    • rs1051730 and rs3750344 nicotine dependence
    • rs4988235 lactose intolerance

    (You can learn about these and more than 100,000 other SNPs at SNPedia.com)

    I don’t know what SNPs I have, and am disinclined to look them up one by one!

    The first step to knowing, is to get your DNA out of your body and into a genetic testing service. This is usually done by saliva or blood sample. This writer got hers done many years ago by 23andMe and was very happy with that service, but there are plenty of other options.

    Healthline did an independent review of the most popular companies, so you might like to check out:

    Healthline: Best DNA Testing Kits of 2023

    Those companies will give you some basic information, such as “6x higher breast cancer risk” or “3x lower age-related macular degeneration risk” etc.

    However, to really get bang-for-buck, what you want to do next is:

    1. Get your raw genetic data (the companies above should provide it); this will probably look like a big text file full of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts, but it make take another form.
    2. Upload it to Promethease. When this writer got hers done , the cost was $2; that price has now gone up to a whopping $12.
    3. You will then get a report that will cross-reference your data with everything known about SNPs, and give a supremely comprehensive, readable-to-the-human-eye, explanation of what it all means for you—from much more specific health risk prognostics, to more trivial things like whether you can roll your tongue or smell decomposed asparagus metabolites in urine.

    A note on privacy: anything you upload to Promethease will be anonymized, and/but in doing so, you consent to it going into the grand scientific open-source bank of “things we know about the human genome”, and thus contribute to the overall sample size of genetic data.

    In our opinion, it means you’re doing your bit for science, without personal risk. But your opinion may differ, and that’s your decision to make.

    Lastly, on the pros and cons of pharmacogenetic testing specifically:

    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:

  • Beetroot vs Carrot – 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 beetroot to carrot, we picked the carrot.

    Why?

    It was close! And beetroot does have its advantages, but we say carrot wins on balance.

    In terms of macros, these two root vegetables are close to identical, down to both having 9.57g carbs per 100g, and 2.8g fiber per 100g. Technically, beetroot has a smidgen more protein, but nobody’s eating these for their tiny protein content.

    When it comes to vitamins, it’s not close and the margins are mostly huge: carrots have a lot more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, C, E, K, and choline, while beetroot has more vitamin B9.

    In the category of minerals, superficially it swings the other way, but the margins this time are small. Nevertheless, beetroot has more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while carrots have more calcium.

    This would make things, on balance, a tie: equal on macros, carrots win on vitamins, beetroot wins on minerals.

    But because of the relative margins of difference, carrots win the day, because they’re almost as good as beetroot on those minerals, whereas beetroot doesn’t come close to carrot on the vitamins.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    From Apples to Bees, and high-fructose C’s: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    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: