- 10almonds
- Posts
- Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Cheese (Or Are They?)
Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Cheese (Or Are They?)
Plus: the most dangerous movement for over-50s
The 10almonds Team
September 22, 2023
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
Loading Screen Tip: when making a change to your health routine, try to only change one thing at once, leaving at least a couple of weeks in between changes. That way, you’ll know what changes were responsible for what results!
⏰ 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:
Statistically, the action of stepping downwards (such as walking down stairs) is responsible for most injuries in general, and falls in particular, of over-50s
See today’s featured video for how to make sure you don’t add to this statistic!
Cheese contains tryptophan, which can be used by the body to produce 5-HTP, which in turn can be used by the body to produce melatonin and/or serotonin.
Which of these you get more of, will depend on what other cues your body is receiving at the time (e.g. light/darkness, amongst others).
Because melatonin brings about drowsiness and sleep, while serotonin brings about calm wakefulness, this means your evening habits’ effect on your sleep can be augmented (either way!) by evening tryptophan consumption.
Casein has often been considered to have an effect on sleep quality and/or dreams, vivid and/or disturbing, but this popular belief doesn’t appear to be backed by science.
Lactose may affect many people’s digestion—and certainly more people than just those with established lactose intolerance. This may have a negative impact on sleep for some people.
Hydration is a critical and often-neglected part of good health, and healthy habits are (by science!) best picked-up when they’re made more convenient and easy.
Today’s sponsor, Hint, are offering 10almonds subscribers 45% off and free shipping, on their already very reasonably-priced flavored waters and vitamin waters
They are, by the way, free from sugar and artificial sweeteners, so these are different from ones you’ve probably tried before
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
The most dangerous movement for over-50s (and how to not fall by it)
Will Harlow, a specialist over-50s physiotherapist, talks about the single movement that, statistically, is by far and away most responsible for a) most injuries in general in over 50s, and b) specifically, also, most falls.
We don’t believe in keeping things a mystery, so we’ll say what he doesn’t in the description: the dangerous movement in question is stepping downwards.
He goes on to share some exercises to avoid getting caught out by this. If you think it couldn’t happen to you, remember, there’s a first time for everything, so it pays to be prepared!
(If you use the link above, we skipped the intro for you)
Useful timestamps:
❓ 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 😎
❝I cant believe 10 Almonds addresses questions. Thanks. I see the word symptoms for menopause. I don’t know what word should replace it but maybe one should be used or is symptom accurate? And I recently read that there was a great disservice for women in my era as they were denied/scared of hormones replacement. Unnecessarily❞
You’d better believe it! In fact we love questions; they give us things to research and write about.
“Symptom” is indeed an entirely justified word to use, being:
General: any phenomenon or circumstance accompanying something and serving as evidence of it.
Medical: any phenomenon that arises from and accompanies a particular disease or disorder and serves as an indication of it.
If the question is more whether the menopause can be considered a disease/disorder, well, it’s a naturally occurring and ultimately inevitable change, yes, but then, so is cancer (it’s in the simple mathematics of DNA replication and mutation that, unless a cure for cancer is found, we will always eventually get cancer, if nothing else kills us first).
So, something being natural/inevitable isn’t a reason to not consider it a disease/disorder, nor a reason to not treat it as appropriate if it is causing us harm/discomfort that can be safely alleviated.
Moreover, and semantics aside, it is medical convention to consider menopause to be a medical condition, that has symptoms. Indeed, for example, the US’s NIH (and its constituent NIA, the National Institute of Aging) and the UK’s NHS, both list the menopause’s symptoms, using that word:
With regard to fearmongering around HRT, certainly that has been rife, and there were some very flawed (and later soundly refuted) studies a while back that prompted this—and even those flawed studies were not about the same (bioidentical) hormones available today, in any case. So even if they had been correct (they weren’t), it still wouldn’t be a reason to not get treatment nowadays, if appropriate!
❝In order to lose a little weight I have cut out cheese from my diet - and am finding that I am sleeping better. Would be interested in your views on cheese and sleep, and whether some types of cheese are worse for sleep than others. I don't want to give up cheese entirely!❞
In principle, there’s nothing in cheese that, biochemically, should impair sleep. If anything, its tryptophan content could aid good sleep.
Tryptophan is found in many foods, including cheese, which (of common foods, anyway), for example cheddar cheese ranks second only to pumpkin seeds in tryptophan content.
Tryptophan can be converted by the body into 5-HTP, which you’ve maybe seen sold as a supplement. Its full name is 5-hydroxytryptophan.
5-HTP can, in turn, be used to make melatonin and/or serotonin. Which of those you will get more of, depends on what your body is being cued to do by ambient light/darkness, and other environmental cues.
If you are having cheese and then checking your phone, for instance, or otherwise hanging out where there are white/blue lights, then your body may dutifully convert the tryptophan into serotonin (calm wakefulness) instead of melatonin (drowsiness and sleep).
In short: the cheese will (in terms of this biochemical pathway, anyway) augment some sleep-inducing or wakefulness-inducing cues, depending on which are available.
You may be wondering: what about casein?
Casein is oft-touted as producing deep sleep, or disturbed sleep, or vivid dreams, or bad dreams. There’s no science to back any of this up, though the following research review is fascinating:
(it largely supports the null hypothesis of “not a causal factor” but does look at the many more likely alternative explanations, ranging from associated actually casual factors (such as alcohol and caffeine) and placebo/nocebo effect)
Finally, simple digestive issues may be the real thing at hand:
Worth noting that around two thirds of all people, including those who regularly enjoy dairy products, have some degree of lactose intolerance:
So, in terms of what cheese may be better/worse for you in this context, you might try experimenting with lactose-free cheese, which will help you identify whether that was the issue!
📊 POLL
We turn the tables and ask you a question…
We’ll then talk about this tomorrow:
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
No sugar, no sweeteners, just hydration bursting with fruit flavors
Hydration is a critical and often-neglected part of good health, so this is one where convenience really pays and keeps your body and brain nourished.
Hint Water specialize in flavored water infused with fruit essences. By using purified water and natural fruit essences, Hint Water provides surprisingly accurate fruit flavors—not the “sickly sweet with a strange aftertaste” flavored waters you might otherwise know.
Best of all, they offer 8 delicious flavors to choose from, and have a “Hint+vitamin” range too.
Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free
🌏 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
Anti-aging drugs could make more organs viable for transplants
NIH launches Phase 1 trial of new investigational universal influenza vaccine
Study finds firearm injuries increase in gentrified neighborhoods
What does having a good relationship with food mean? 4 ways to know if you’ve got one
How important is inflammation and body weight in the origin of depression?
Women less likely than men to be given CPR in public places, research finds
Where Ukraine’s thousands of amputees go to repair their lives
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World – by Dr. Adam Gazzaley and Dr. Larry Rosen
Yes, yes, we know, unplug once in a while. But what else do this highly-qualified pair of neuroscientists have to offer?
Rather than being a book for the sake of being a book, with lots of fluff and the usual advice about single-tasking, the authors start with a reframe:
Neurologically speaking, the hit of dopamine we get when looking for information is the exact same as the hit of dopamine that we, a couple of hundred thousand years ago, got when looking for nuts and berries.
When we don't find them, we become stressed, and search more.
When we do find them, we are encouraged and search more nearby, and to the other side of nearby, and near around, to find more.
But in the case of information (be it useful information or celebrity gossip or anything in between), the Internet means that's always available now.
So, we jitter around like squirrels, hopping from one to the next to the next.
A strength of this book is where it goes from there. Specifically, what evidence-based practices will actually keep our squirrel-brain focused... and which are wishful thinking for anyone who lives in this century.
Bringing original research from their own labs, as well as studies taken from elsewhere, the authors present a science-based toolkit of genuinely useful resources for actual focus.
Bottom line: if you think you could really optimize your life if you could just get on track and stay on track, this is the book for you.
What did you think of today's newsletter?We always love to hear from you, whether you leave us a comment or even just a click in the poll if you're speeding by! |
Wishing you a peaceful International Day of Peace,
The 10almonds Team