Why Small Pleasures Become A Bigger, Not Smaller Deal, The More We Suffer & Age
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It all comes down to…
Perspective
As we age, we often develop a deeper appreciation for small, everyday moments—this video mentions the examples (amongst others) of enjoying a piece of chocolate, taking a walk, or spending time with a friend. These undramatic experiences tend to gain significance over time, even as one continues to encounter a wide range of places, people, and events. In contrast, youth is often marked by a desire for excitement, achievement, and grand experiences— sometimes at the cost of less attention being paid to the subtleties of daily life.
It’s not always about age itself, though, and this shift in perspective can come much sooner (or later!) for some than others, as it’s shaped in large part by life’s challenges. Difficult experiences—such as personal loss, illness, or financial crises—can lead us to value what is steady, peaceful, or modest. What once seemed mundane is seen differently by those who have navigated adversity, as a deeper awareness of life often emerges through contrast.
Writer’s anecdote: once upon a time when I was a 18, I became homeless. I wasn’t homeless for long in the grand scheme of things, a couple of months before I found myself a footing. But, for those months I was on the streets in the middle of a cold winter with literally nothing but the inadequate clothes I wore, no money whatsoever, and this was of course before smartphones and such. And even though it wasn’t a long time, it still affects me even after decades have passed, because to this day I often appreciate just watching the rain on my window from my warm dry house, and having a pantry stocked with food when I remember, all those years ago, sleeping cold and wet in the most ridiculous places, or an occasion of being glad to find a literal crust of stale bread on the sidewalk.
The point is, life can be hard, and yet here we are, living it, so let’s take a moment to “smell the roses” from time to time along our way. And yes, even when life has its thorns too! Because of course we’ll suffer sometimes at every age, sometimes even terribly. But where there is life, there is possibility, and there is beauty to be found.
For philosopher Alain de Botton’s words on all this (well, not about this writer’s life, but the rest of it), enjoy:
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You might also like:
9 Little Habits To Have A Better Day
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Ozempic vs Five Natural Supplements
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Semaglutide (GLP-1 agonist) drugs Ozempic and Wegovy really do work for losing weight, provided one then remains on these expensive drugs for life. Dr. Jin Sung recommends a supplements-based approach, instead.
Natural Alternatives
Dr. Sung recommends:
- Berberine, which increases production and secretion of GLP-1.
- Probiotics, which increase GLP-1 secretion. In particular he recommends Akkermansia municiphila which secretes P9, and this protein stimulates GLP-1 production and secretion.
- Psyllium, a soluble dietary fiber which will increase short-chain fatty acids which then help with increasing GLP-1.
- Curcumin, which enhances L-cell numbers, in turn promoting and increasing GLP-1 secretion. Also, curcumin may prolong gastric emptying, and increase insulin sensitivity.
- Ginseng, of which the bioactive compound stimulates secretion of GLP-1, and also has anti-diabetic effects.
Dr. Sung explains more about each of these in his video:
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You might enjoy our previous main feature looking at some of the pros and cons:
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The Painkilling Power Of Opioids, Without The Harm?
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When it comes to painkilling medications, they can generally be categorized into two kinds:
- non-opioids (e.g. ibuprofen, paracetamol/acetaminophen, aspirin)
- ones that actually work for something more serious than a headache
That’s an oversimplification, but broadly speaking, when there is serious painkilling to be done, that’s when doctors consider it’s time to break out the opioids.
Nor are all opioids created equal—there’s a noteworthy difference between codeine and morphine, for instance—but the problems of opioids are typically the same (tolerance, addiction, and eventual likelihood of overdose when one tries to take enough to make it work after developing a tolerance), and it becomes simply a matter of degree.
See also: I’ve been given opioids after surgery to take at home. What do I need to know?
So, what’s the new development?
A team of researchers have found that the body can effectively produce its own targetted painkilling peptides, similar in function to benzodiazepines (an opioid drug), but—and which is a big difference—confined to the peripheral nervous system (PNS), meaning that it doesn’t enter the brain.
- The peptides killing the pain before it can reach the brain is obviously good because that means the pain is simply not experienced
- The peptides not having any effect on the brain, however, means that the mechanism of addiction of opioids simply does not apply here
- The peptides not having any effect on the brain also means that the CNS can’t be “put to sleep” by these peptides in the same way it can if a high dose of opioids is taken (this is what typically causes death in opioid overdoses; the heart simply beats too slowly to maintain life)
The hope, therefore, is to now create medications that target the spinal ganglia that produce these peptides, to “switch them on” at will.
Obviously, this won’t happen overnight; there will need to be first a lot of research to find a drug that does that (likely this will involve a lot of trial and error and so many mice/rats), and then multiple rounds of testing to ascertain that the drug is safe and effective for humans, before it can then be rolled out commercially.
But, this is still a big breakthrough; there arguably hasn’t been a breakthrough this big in pain research since various opioid-related breakthroughs in the 70s and 80s.
You can see a pop-science article about it here:
And you can see the previous research (from earlier this year) that this is now building from, about the glial cells in the spinal ganglia, here:
Peripheral gating of mechanosensation by glial diazepam binding inhibitor
But wait, there’s more!
Remember what we said about affecting the PNS without affecting the CNS, to kill the pain without killing the brain?
More researchers are already approaching the same idea to deal with the same problem, but from the angle of gene therapy, and have already had some very promising results with mice:
Structure-guided design of a peripherally restricted chemogenetic system
…which you can read about in pop-science terms (with diagrams!) here:
New gene therapy could alleviate chronic pain, researchers find
While you’re waiting…
In the meantime, approaches that are already available include:
- The 7 Approaches To Pain Management
- Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!)
- Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief ← when painkillers aren’t helping, these things might!
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Kiwi vs Raspberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing kiwi to raspberries, we picked the raspberries.
Why?
This was pretty even in most categories! But…
In terms of macros, kiwi has slightly more carbs while raspberries have more than 2x the fiber. An easy win for raspberries.
In the category of vitamins, kiwi has more of vitamins A, B6, B9, C, E, and K, while raspberries have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B7, and choline; a 6:6 tie.
When it comes to minerals, kiwi has more calcium, copper, phosphorus, and potassium, while raspberries have more iron, magnesium, manganese, and zinc; a 4:4 tie this time.
In other considerations: kiwi has some anticancer properties that raspberries don’t, while raspberries have a lot more polyphenols; we’re calling this round another tie.
Adding up the sections is not difficult arithmetic today; it’s an overall win for raspberries because of the fiber content, while they’re very balanced in all the other categories!
Want to learn more?
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Hearing loss is twice as common in Australia’s lowest income groups, our research shows
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Around one in six Australians has some form of hearing loss, ranging from mild to complete hearing loss. That figure is expected to grow to one in four by 2050, due in a large part to the country’s ageing population.
Hearing loss affects communication and social engagement and limits educational and employment opportunities. Effective treatment for hearing loss is available in the form of communication training (for example, lipreading and auditory training), hearing aids and other devices.
But the uptake of treatment is low. In Australia, publicly subsidised hearing care is available predominantly only to children, young people and retirement-age people on a pension. Adults of working age are mostly not eligible for hearing health care under the government’s Hearing Services Program.
Our recent study published in the journal Ear and Hearing showed, for the first time, that working-age Australians from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are at much greater risk of hearing loss than those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.
We believe the lack of socially subsidised hearing care for adults of working age results in poor detection and care for hearing loss among people from disadvantaged backgrounds. This in turn exacerbates social inequalities.
Population data shows hearing inequality
We analysed a large data set called the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey that collects information on various aspects of people’s lives, including health and hearing loss.
Using a HILDA sub-sample of 10,719 working-age Australians, we evaluated whether self-reported hearing loss was more common among people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than for those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds between 2008 and 2018.
Relying on self-reported hearing data instead of information from hearing tests is one limitation of our paper. However, self-reported hearing tends to underestimate actual rates of hearing impairment, so the hearing loss rates we reported are likely an underestimate.
We also wanted to find out whether people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to develop hearing loss in the long run.
Hearing care is publicly subsidised for children.
mady70/ShutterstockWe found people in the lowest income groups were more than twice as likely to have hearing loss than those in the highest income groups. Further, hearing loss was 1.5 times as common among people living in the most deprived neighbourhoods than in the most affluent areas.
For people reporting no hearing loss at the beginning of the study, after 11 years of follow up, those from a more deprived socioeconomic background were much more likely to develop hearing loss. For example, a lack of post secondary education was associated with a more than 1.5 times increased risk of developing hearing loss compared to those who achieved a bachelor’s degree or above.
Overall, men were more likely to have hearing loss than women. As seen in the figure below, this gap is largest for people of low socioeconomic status.
Why are disadvantaged groups more likely to experience hearing loss?
There are several possible reasons hearing loss is more common among people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Noise exposure is one of the biggest risks for hearing loss and people from low socioeconomic backgrounds may be more likely to be exposed to damaging levels of noise in jobs in mining, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture.
Lifestyle factors which may be more prevalent in lower socioeconomic communities such as smoking, unhealthy diet, and a lack of regular exercise are also related to the risk of hearing loss.
Finally, people with lower incomes may face challenges in accessing timely hearing care, alongside competing health needs, which could lead to missed identification of treatable ear disease.
Why does this disparity in hearing loss matter?
We like to think of Australia as an egalitarian society – the land of the fair go. But nearly half of people in Australia with hearing loss are of working age and mostly ineligible for publicly funded hearing services.
Hearing aids with a private hearing care provider cost from around A$1,000 up to more than $4,000 for higher-end devices. Most people need two hearing aids.
Hearing loss might be more common in low income groups because they’re exposed to more noise at work.
Dmitry Kalinovsky/ShutterstockLack of access to affordable hearing care for working-age adults on low incomes comes with an economic as well as a social cost.
Previous economic analysis estimated hearing loss was responsible for financial costs of around $20 billion in 2019–20 in Australia. The largest component of these costs was productivity losses (unemployment, under-employment and Jobseeker social security payment costs) among working-age adults.
Providing affordable hearing care for all Australians
Lack of affordable hearing care for working-age adults from lower socioeconomic backgrounds may significantly exacerbate the impact of hearing loss among deprived communities and worsen social inequalities.
Recently, the federal government has been considering extending publicly subsidised hearing services to lower income working age Australians. We believe reforming the current government Hearing Services Program and expanding eligibility to this group could not only promote a more inclusive, fairer and healthier society but may also yield overall cost savings by reducing lost productivity.
All Australians should have access to affordable hearing care to have sufficient functional hearing to achieve their potential in life. That’s the land of the fair go.
Mohammad Nure Alam, PhD Candidate in Economics, Macquarie University; Kompal Sinha, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Macquarie University, and Piers Dawes, Professor, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Two Awesome Hours – by Dr. Josh Davis
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The brain is an amazing and powerful organ, with theoretically unlimited potential in some respects. So why doesn’t it feel that way a lot of the time?
The truth is that not only are we often tired, dehydrated, or facing other obvious physiological challenges to peak brain health, but also… We’re simply not making the best use of it!
What Dr. Davis does is outline for us how we can create the conditions for “two awesome hours” of effective mental performance by:
- Recognizing when to most effectively flip the switch on our automatic thinking
- Scheduling tasks based on their “processing demand” and recovery time
- Learning how to direct attention, rather than avoid distractions
- Feeding and moving our bodies in ways that prep us for success
- Identifying what matters in our environment to be at the top of our mental game
Why only two hours? Why not four, or eight, or more?
Well, our brains need recovery time too, so we can’t be “always on” and operating and peak efficiency. But, what we can do is optimize a couple of hours for absolute peak efficiency, and then enjoy the rest of time with lower cognitive-load activities.
Bottom line: if the idea of what you could accomplish if you could just be guaranteed two schedulable hours (your preference when!) of peak cognitive performance per day, then this is a great book for you.
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Glycine: The Cheapest Anti-Aging Supplement That Actually Works
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Dr. Leonid Kim explains glycine’s role in anti-aging:
The essential non-essential
Glycine is a “non-essential” amino acid (i.e., our body is able to synthesize it, so we don’t die quickly and horribly if it’s not in our diet, which is what happens if “essential” amino acids are missing) that’s nonetheless essential (in the sense of being necessary) for many things including collagen formation, liver support, neurotransmitter regulation, and glutathione production, which latter protects your cells from oxidative stress and mitochondrial damage—in other words, aging.
A quick side-note about glutathione: glutathione is made from glutamate, cysteine, and glycine; glycine and cysteine are often rate-limiting, so low levels of either can reduce your antioxidant capacity
And a side-side-note about cysteine: cysteine is unstable and often in short supply during stress or illness; n-acetylceysteine (NAC) delivers usable cysteine, allowing glycine to complete glutathione synthesis—this is why the combined approach (glyNAC) is sometimes preferred.
That said, glycine alone is typically enough for healthy younger people using it mainly for sleep, while glyNAC may be more appropriate if you have insulin resistance, diabetes, fatty liver, PCOS, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, chronic inflammation, or an autoimmune condition.
As for what to expect:
- Metabolic and anti-inflammatory actions: evidence suggests glycine can help with inflammation and can even become conditionally essential during metabolic disease in particular, illness in general, and/or chronic inflammation. Glycine levels also tend to be lower in people with insulin resistance or other metabolic syndrome considerations, so may benefit extra from supplementing in those cases, too.
- Sleep effects: glycine before bed can improve sleep quality by helping you fall asleep more quickly, cooling your core temperature, calming orexin (wakefulness) receptor neurons, regulating serotonin, and supporting full muscle relaxation during REM sleep, for greater restfulness.
As for dosing if doing it one way or the other:
- Dosing for glycine: the most studied dose is 3 g taken 30–60 minutes before sleep; it tastes sweet, dissolves easily in water, and is generally well tolerated; very high doses used in schizophrenia studies (40–90 g per day) looked tolerable short-term but aren’t advisable due to unclear long-term safety and possible neurobehavioral or cardiovascular concerns.
- Dosing for glyNAC: published human studies typically use 100 mg/kg glycine + 100 mg/kg NAC per day (about 7 g of each for a 70-kg person), usually split into two doses; many people start around 3 g per day and increase slowly.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
- The Sweet Truth About Glycine
- N-Acetyl Cysteine For The Liver & More
- Why You Can’t Skimp On Amino Acids
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Don’t Forget…
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