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Blood and Water
Plus: what you really, really need to know about the menopause!
The 10almonds Team
March 23, 2023
Loading Screen Tip: Are you hydrated? If you’re thirsty, you’re dehydrated; why not get yourself a drink to enjoy while reading today’s newsletter?
⏰ IN A RUSH?
Today’s Key Learnings:
If you don’t have enough time to read the whole email, here are the most important tidbits:
Eye health is related to blood health is related to general health
So if you want healthy eyes, do cardio! Not an intuitive connection, but a logical one
Studies done on humans are better than similar studies done on animals, but animal studies still have their place. This is because we can learn things from tests we can’t do on humans. It’s a little grim at times, but that’s how it is.
The menopause, if not taken seriously, carries more risks than most people know about, including:
There’s an important link between untreated menopause and breast cancer
There’s an important link between untreated menopause and Alzheimer’s
Read on to learn more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
Man vs Machine?
YouTube’s Doctor Mike (a medical doctor) contends with ChatGPT (an AI) on an assortment of medical (and related) questions:
Want to have a go with ChatGPT? Try it out here! (it’s free, and no sign-in required)
🩸 MAIN FEATURE
Q&A with the 10almonds Team
Q: I really loved the information about macular degeneration! I was wondering if you have any other advice about looking after eye health?
A: We may well do a full feature on it sometime! Meanwhile, some top tips include:
Eat your greens (as you know from this last Tuesday’s edition of 10almonds)!
Exercise! Generally. We’re not talking about eye exercises here, we’re talking about exercises that will support:
Healthy heart rate
Healthy blood pressure
Healthy blood oxygenation
Healthy blood sugar levels
Healthy blood flow in general (so keep hydrated too! There’s a reason phlebotomists ask you to be well-hydrated before they take blood)
Eye health is a good indicator for a lot of other things, and that’s because whether or not the eyes are the window to your soul, they’re definitely the window to what your blood’s like, and that affects (and is affected by) so many other things.
On that note, don’t smoke!
Protect your eyes physically, too. This means:
UV-blocking sunglasses when appropriate
Protective eye-wear when appropriate
You think safety glasses are for laboratories and construction sites, then you go and do comparable tasks in your home? Your eyes are just as damageable in your kitchen or garden as they would be in a lab or workshop.
Some bits and bobs that can help:
Safety sunglasses! Because a thing can do two jobs (useful in the garden now the days are brightening up!)
Pulse oximeter! Check your own heart rate, pulse strength, and blood oxygenation at home!
Blood pressure monitor! Because it’s so important for a lot of things and you really should have one.
Q: Very interested in this article on CBD oil in the states. hope you do another one in the future with more studies done on people and more information on what's new as far as CBD oil goes
A: We’re glad you enjoyed it! We’ll be sure to revisit CBD in the future—partly because it was a very popular article, and partly because, as noted, there is a lot going on there, research-wise!
And yes, we prefer human studies rather than mouse/rat studies where possible, too, and try to include those where we find them. In some cases, non-human animal studies allow us to know things that we can’t know from human studies… because a research institution’s ethics board will greenlight things for mice that it’d never* greenlight for humans.
Especially: things that for non-human animals are considered “introduction of external stressors” while the same things done to humans would be unequivocally called “torture”.
Animal testing in general is of course a moral quagmire, precisely because of the suffering it causes for animals, while the research results (hopefully) can be brought to bear to reduce to suffering of humans. We’re a health and productivity newsletter, not a philosophical publication, but all this to say: we’re mindful of such too.
And yes, we agree, when studies are available on humans, they’re always going to be better than the same study done on mice and rats.
As a topical aside, did you know there’s a monument to laboratory mice and all they’ve (however unintentionally) done for us?
❝The quirky statue depicts an anthropomorphic mouse as an elderly woman, complete with glasses balanced atop its nose. Emerging from two knitting needles in its hands is the recognizable double-helix of a strand of DNA.❞
We didn’t get as many questions/requests this week as usual! We’re glad that our articles are so satisfying to you already, and/but love hearing from you too, so don’t be a stranger!
You can always hit reply to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom, and Real Human™ will read it, and if it’s something relevant for Q&A day, we’ll be glad to feature it here 😎
We also use your feedback to help us know what you’d like to know more about in general, and we’re not afraid of a challenge either, so don’t be shy!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
Everything You Need To Know About The Menopause - by Kate Muir
Kate Muir has made a career out of fighting for peri-menopausal health to be taken seriously. Because... it's actually far more serious than most people know.
What people usually know:
No more periods
Hot flushes
"I dunno, some annoying facial hairs maybe"
The reality encompasses a lot more, and Muir covers topics including:
Workplace struggles (completely unnecessary ones)
Changes to our sex life (not usually good ones, by default!)
Relationship between menopause and breast cancer
Relationship between menopause and Alzheimer's
"Wait", you say, "correlation is not causation, that last one's just an age thing", and that'd be true if it weren't for the fact that receiving Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) or not is strongly correlated with avoiding Alzheimer's or not.
The breast cancer thing is not to be downplayed either. Taking estrogen comes with a stated risk of breast cancer... But what they don't tell you, is that for many people, not taking it comes with a higher risk of breast cancer (but that's not the doctor's problem, in that case). It's one of those situations where fear of litigation can easily overrule good science.
This kind of thing, and much more, makes up a lot of the meat of this book.
Hormonal treatment for the menopause is often framed in the wider world as a whimsical luxury, not a serious matter of health…. If you've ever wondered whether you might want something different, something better, as part of your general menopause plan (you have a plan for this important stage of your life, right?), this is a powerful handbook for you.
Additionally, if (like many!) you justifiably fear your doctor may brush you off (or in the case of mood disorders, may try to satisfy you with antidepressants to treat the symptom, rather than HRT to treat the cause), this book will arm you as necessary to help you get what you need.
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Wishing you health and fulfilment today and every day,
The 10almonds Team