A Correction, And A New, Natural Way To Boost Daily Energy Levels

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Breast cancer (like most cancer, and like many health conditions) is more complex than we can ever go into here, but we made a misleading statement yesterday that we correct today:

  • We wrote “Anyone (who has not had a double mastectomy, anyway) can get breast cancer”.

  • Correction: there can still be a non-zero risk of breast cancer even after a double mastectomy, especially if the mastectomy was not total, and especially if it was performed after a cancer occurred, rather than before.

  • See today’s main feature for more discussion around this!

• Many symptoms of arthritis, an inflammatory condition, can be managed with an anti-inflammatory diet. It won’t cure it, but it can make quite a difference.

• Chronic fatigue is becoming increasingly common. Treating the cause can be difficult, but we can give our bodies a boost.

  • Today’s sponsor, Native Path, have launched a new product, Native Greens, packed with superfoods including vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants, to help support our bodies naturally.

Read on to learn about these things and more…

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

What are those floaty things in your eye?

You might think they’re dust or something on the surface of your eyeball… They’re not!

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❓ MAIN FEATURE

It’s Q&A Day 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!

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 😎

First: a correction and expansion!

After yesterday’s issue of 10almonds covering breast cancer risks and checks, a subscriber wrote to say, with regard to our opening statement, which was:

“Anyone (who has not had a double mastectomy, anyway) can get breast cancer”

Thank you for writing in about this! We wouldn’t want to mislead, and we’re always glad to hear from people who have been living with conditions for a long time, as (assuming they are a person inclined to learning) they will generally know topics far more deeply than someone who has researched it for a short period of time.

Regards a double mastectomy (we’re sure you know this already, but noting here for greater awareness, prompted by your message), a lot of circumstances can vary. For example, how far did a given cancer spread, and especially, did it spread to the lymph nodes at the armpits? And what tissue was (and wasn’t) removed?

Sometimes a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy will leave the lymph nodes partially or entirely intact, and a cancer could indeed come back, if not every last cancerous cell was removed.

A total double mastectomy, by definition, should have removed all tissue that could qualify as breast tissue for a breast cancer, including those lymph nodes. However, if the cancer spread unnoticed somewhere else in the body, then again, you’re quite correct, it could come back.

Some people have a double mastectomy without having got cancer first. Either because of a fear of cancer due to a genetic risk (like Angelina Jolie), or for other reasons (like Elliot Page).

This makes a difference, because doing it for reasons of cancer risk may mean surgeons remove the lymph nodes too, while if that wasn’t a factor, surgeons will tend to leave them in place.

In principle, if there is no breast tissue, including lymph nodes, and there was no cancer to spread, then it can be argued that the risk of breast cancer should now be the same “zero” as the risk of getting prostate cancer when one does not have a prostate.

But… Surgeries are not perfect, and everyone’s anatomy and physiology can differ enough from “textbook standard” that surprises can happen, and there’s almost always a non-zero chance of certain health outcomes.

For any unfamiliar, here’s a good starting point for learning about the many types of mastectomy, that we didn’t go into in yesterday’s edition. It’s from the UK’s National Health Service:

NHS: Mastectomy | Types of Mastectomy

And for the more sciency-inclined, here’s a paper about the recurrence rate of cancer after a prophylactic double mastectomy, after a young cancer was found in one breast.

The short version is that the measured incidence rate of breast cancer after prophylactic bilateral mastectomy was zero, but the discussion (including notes about the limitations of the study) is well worth reading:

Breast Cancer after Prophylactic Bilateral Mastectomy in Women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 Mutation

❝[Can you write about] the availability of geriatric doctors???? Sometimes I feel my primary isn’t really up on my 70 year old health issues. I would love to find a doctor that understands my issues and is able to explain them to me. Ie; my worsening arthritis in regards to food I eat; in regards to meds vs homeopathic solutions.! Thanks!❞

That’s a great topic, worthy of a main feature! Because in many cases, it’s not just about specialization of skills, but also about empathy, and the gap between studying a condition and living with a condition.

About arthritis, we’re going to do a main feature specifically on that quite soon, but meanwhile, you might like our previous article:

Keep Inflammation At Bay (arthritis being an inflammatory condition)

As for homeopathy, your question prompts our poll today!

(and then we’ll write about that tomorrow)

📊 POLL

We turn the tables and ask you a question…

We’ll then talk about this tomorrow:

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

🌏 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

• Which dietary supplements actually work and which should you take

• Assessing the quality of proteins and the unique benefits of pulses

• Step counts aren't just for the healthy: They also help heart failure patients

• Millions live with low back pain—addressing risk factors like smoking, obesity and workplace ergonomics could curb trend

• Bodybuilding supplement shown to stave off dementia in mice

• Smoking, physical inactivity, and other lifestyle factors increase the risk of multimorbidity

• Only four nations doing enough to stub out smoking: WHO

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

It's Not You, It's Your Hormones: The essential guide for women over 40 to fight fat, fatigue and hormone havoc – by Nicki Williams, DipION, mBANT, CNHC

Nicki Williams' basic principle is that we can manage our hormonal fluctuations, by managing our diet. Specifically, in three main ways:

• Intermittent fasting

• Anti-inflammatory diet

• Eating more protein and healthy fats

Why should these things matter to our hormones? The answer is to remember that our hormones aren't just the sex hormones. We have hormones for hunger and satedness, hormones for stress and relaxation, hormones for blood sugar regulation, hormones for sleep and wakefulness, and more. These many hormones make up our endocrine system, and affecting one part of it will affect the others.

Will these things magically undo the effects of the menopause? Well, some things yes, other things no. No diet can do the job of HRT. But by tweaking endocrine system inputs, we can tweak endocrine system outputs, and that's what this book is for.

The style is very accessible and clear, and Williams walks us through the changes we may want to make, to avoid the changes we don't want.

Bottom line: this book is aimed at peri-menopausal and post-menopausal women. It could also definitely help a lot of people with PCOS too, and, when it comes down it it, pretty much anyone with an endocrine system. It's a well-evidenced, well-established, healthy way of eating regardless of age, sex, or (most) physical conditions.

Click here to check out It's Not You, It's Your Hormones, and take control of yours!

Wishing you a healthy and happy day,

The 10almonds Team