From Painkillers To Hunger-Killers

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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:

• The world of health science discoveries never stands still (fortunately!) and this week is no different

  • Today’s main feature looks at a selection of 5 recent discoveries (including how your gut can sabotage your back, what opioids may be doing to your endocrine system, and the effect of intense exercise on hunger for women), what they mean for you, and where you can go from there

• How’s your hydration looking today? For most people, at any given time, it’s not great. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

  • Today's sponsor NativePath is offering a 365-day money-back guarantee on their range of electrolyte and amino acid drink mixes, which are great for your kidneys, bladder, and pelvic floor muscles.

• Today’s featured book is a top-tier one-stop-shop for shoulder mobility!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

4 Practices To Build Self-Worth That Lasts

Self-worth is internal, based on who you are, not what you do or external validation. It differs from self-esteem, which is more performance-based. High self-worth doesn’t necessarily mean arrogance, but can lead to more confidence and success. Most importantly, it’ll help you to thrive in what’s actually most important to you, rather than being swept along by what other people want:

Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!

Friday’s Health News Round-Up

From Painkillers To Hunger-Killers

Here’s this week’s selection of health news discoveries, the science behind them, what they mean for you, and where you can go from there:

Killing more than pain

It’s well-known that overuse of opioids can lead to many problems, and here’s another one: messing with the endocrine system. This time, mostly well-evidenced in men—however, the researchers are keen to point out that absence of evidence is very much not evidence of absence, hence “the hidden effects” in the headline below. It’s not that the effects are hard to see—it’s that a lot of the research has yet to be done. For now, though, we know at the very least that there’s an association between opioid use and hyperprolactinemia in men. The same research also begins to shine a light on the effects of opioid use on the hypothalamic-pituitary system and bone health, too:

Read in full: The hidden effects of opioid use on the endocrine system

Related: The 7 Approaches To Pain Management

Gut microbiome dysbiosis may lead to slipping disks

These things sound quite unconnected, but the association is strong. The likely mechanism of action is that the gut dysbiosis influences systemic inflammation, and thus spinal health—because the gut-spine axis cannot really be disconnected (while you’re alive, at least). It’s especially likely if you’re over 50 and female:

Read in full: Are back problems influenced by your gut?

Related: Is Your Gut Leading You Into Osteoporosis?

The Internet is really really great (for brains)

It’s common to see many articles on the Internet telling us, paradoxically, that we should spend less time on the Internet. However… Remember when in the 90s, it was all about “the information superhighway”? It turns out, the fact that it’s more like “the information spaghetti junction” these days doesn’t change the fact that stimulation is good for our brains, and daily Internet use improves memory, because of the different way that we index and store information that came from a virtual source. While there are parts of your brain for “things at home” and “things at the local supermarket”, there are also parts for “things at 10almonds” and “things at Facebook” and so forth. You are, in effect, building a vast mental library as you surf:

Read in full: Daily internet use supercharges your memory!

Related: Make Social Media Work For Your Mental Health

Fall back

Around this time of year in many places in the Northern Hemisphere, the clocks go back an hour (it’s next weekend in the US and Canada, by the way, and this weekend in most of Europe). Many enjoy this as the potential for an extra hour’s sleep, but for night owls, it can be more of a nuisance than a benefit—throwing out what’s often an already difficult relationship with the clock, and presenting challenges both practical and physiological (different processing of melatonin, for instance). Here be science:

Read in full: Why night owls struggle more when the clocks go back

Related: Early Bird Or Night Owl? Genes vs Environment

Can you outrun your hunger?

It seems so, though benefits are strongest in women. We say “outrun”, though this study did use stationary cycling. To put it in few words, intense exercise (but not moderate exercise) significantly reduced acylated ghrelin (hunger hormone) levels, and subjective reports of hunger, especially in women:

Read in full: Study finds intense exercise may suppress appetite in healthy humans

Related: 3 Appetite Suppressants Better Than Ozempic

Take care!

Our Sponsors Make This Publication Possible

Hydration, Simplified

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

This Or That?

Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between pistachios and peanuts—shocking most people, we picked the peanuts (click here to read about why), as did only 10% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

Bonus (Sponsored) Recommendation

Cornbread Hemp’s Sleep CBD Gummies are your nighttime ally! Enjoy peaceful sleep with these full spectrum, USDA organic gummies. For a limited time, get one free when you buy one with code SUMMERTIMEBOGO. Order now. Sweet dreams await!

One-Minute Book Review

Shoulders Range: The Complete Playbook to Master Your Shoulders and Upper Body Flexibility – by Elia Bartolini

Shoulder flexibility and mobility can be a big deal, especially when it starts to decline—more so than other kinds of flexibility. Most seniors can get through the day without doing the splits against a wall, for example, but shoulder tightness can be more of a problem if you can’t easily get into or out of your clothes.

If you think it couldn’t happen to you: the great Jane Fonda has a now-famous photoset of her looking glamorous in a dress at a red carpet event, and then looking frazzled making breakfast in the same dress in her kitchen the next morning, because, as she wrote, “I couldn’t get my dress unzipped so I slept in it”.

Now, “to avoid ending up like Jane Fonda” is not a series of words that usually precedes advice, but in this case: this book delves into the science of one of the most quirky joints of the human body, and how to leverage this to maximize shoulder mobility, while maintaining adequate strength (because flexibility without strength is just asking for a dislocation) without doing anything that would actually bulk up our shoulders, because it’s just about progressing through passive, active, and tensed stretching, static, dynamic, and loaded stretching, as well as PNF stretching and antagonist stretching.

If that seems like a lot of stretching, don’t worry; the author presents a series of workouts that will take us through these stretches in a very small amount of time each day.

The style is instructional like a textbook, with clear diagrams where appropriate, and lots of callout boxes, bullet points, emboldening for key points, etc. It all makes for every easy learning.

Bottom line: if you’d like to improve and maintain your shoulder mobility, this is an excellent book for that.

Click here to check out Shoulders Range, and perfect your shoulders and upper body flexibility!

Penny For Your Thoughts?

May today see you well-prepared for the coming weekend,

The 10almonds Team