#actually i think the bigger issue is that my body shape is associated with curves

[sparrowposting]

Work bathroom pics to fight the haters*

*my mean thoughts brought about by my boss' (who has the same general body shape as me) incessant discussion about her weight

[solheira]

This is a story about a girl with enormous potential, she has something inside her that has to get out. It’s physically exploding out of her and is her life force. […] I started talking about Rapunzel as irrepressible; uncontainable. Even just the story; take a person that has this supernatural gift and put her in a tight tower and she’s got to get out.

— Glen Keane

The info above is my interpretation of the many different version of the tale along with Disney’s version, Tangled. It is for my use only. I request you do not use as your own. Thank you so much.

STATS:

OFFICIAL NAME: Chiara Valeria Del Sole (x)

CHOSEN NAME: Rapunzel Del Sole

NICKNAME: Blondie, Goldie, Sunshine, Raps, Princess, Sonnenblume

TITLE: Crown Princess of the kingdoms of Corona and Seporia. The Lost Princess.

PARENTS: King Leonardo Piergiuseppe Del Sole (father), Queen Arianna Eleonora Del Sole (mother)

BIRTHDATE: July 19th, 1793

SPOKEN LANGUAGE: Italian (fluent) / German, French, Latin (not fluent)

HEAD.

FACE SHAPE: Rapunzel has a heart-shaped face that’s very rounded.

CHEEKS: Chubby. Almost as if she never got rid of her baby fat.

CHEEKBONES: They aren’t particularly prominent but they do have a graceful curve.

LIPS: She has plump pink lips. Her neutral expression makes her mouth very round but the moment she begins to talk it stretches to tapered points on either side. Her cupid’s bow is defined but not sharp. The most important thing to know about her is that she has a very rounded in appearance.

SKIN COLOR: Rapunzel has a fair complexion, pink undertones. Sunkissed and glowy.

SKIN TYPE: smooth. with no imperfections. The magic in her hair has gifted her with perfect skin. She has natural freckles on her nose and cheeks, shoulders, hips, thighs, and spotted along the rest of her body. Those are far less noticeable than the ones on her face since they get the less sun.

EYE SHAPE: Rapunzel has very large rounded eyes with a slight downturn that are neither close-set or wide apart. Besides her hair, her eyes are her most defining feature. Her eyelids aren’t very hooded, if at all.

EYE COLOR: A bright green with a ring of brown around the irises.

EYEBROW SHAPE: they have a natural arch that isn’t very defined. Again the keyword is round, and they are as long as her eyes are big, framing the face beautifully. They are also not particularly thick.

EYEBROW COLOR: Chestnut Brown. The only thing that gives away her natural hair color.

EYELASHES: Long thick lashes that make her eyes seem like they’re set deeper than they really are. They travel around the eye, making them seem bigger than natural.

NOSE SHAPE: The bridge of her nose is very small and dips into her skull. Her nostrils aren’t particularly big and they don’t really have much of a flair. The tip is round and petite. The easiest way to describe her nose is “delicate.”

HAIR TEXTURE: Rapunzel has naturally wavy hair that is weighted down by the weight of her hair even though it doesn’t feel like it weighs much at all. It is similar to when you have your hair in a braid for a long time and take it off. It never tangles nor does it frizz.The girl has magic hair so it isn’t unbelievable that it is the healthiest hair in the world. No split ends. Physics-defying.

HAIR COLOR: golden blonde. literally looks like poured sunlight.

HAIR LENGTH: 70-80 feet of hair. (verse dependent ofc.)

HAIR NOTES: Rapunzel is a lot of things but she never wrathful unless you touched or used her hair without permission. When she first arrived at the castle, Rapunzel had kept her hair inside a large fabric bag at all times. No one was allowed to touch it except for Eugene. Little by little, she began to let other people help her with it which has cut her morning routine by half. The actual secret behind her hair has stayed just that, A SECRET. She can count the people who know about it on one hand.

Rapunzel can be often seen with her hair pulled up into a braided. She also wears hats when it’s sunny and uses a large basket that’s strapped to her horse when riding. Her hair is almost never down to its full length. [read more]

EARS: Round ears that stay pretty close to the head with an attached lobe. No piercings.

UPPER BODY.

SHOULDERS: Her shoulders are slightly freckled and she stands with a relax posture most of the time. They aren’t very broad but strong on account to her carrying her hair everywhere and pulling a grown woman up a 60-foot tower every other day.

ARMS: Thin arms but they’ve gains some muscle from the years of lifting Gothel up as stated above. They’re peppered with freckles here and there.

STOMACH AREA: Soft. Squishy. She isn’t particularly worried about abs and likes being “huggable.” She does, however, have a naturally formed narrow waist that is overly defined in corsets.

LOVE HANDLES: Not really but there is something to grab onto.

CHEST/BREASTS: Rapunzel wears a modern 30B bra size. Her breasts are side-set and fuller at the bottom and perky. Her nipples are pink and round, settled nicely in the middle about the size of a US quarter.

BACK: There aren’t any defining features on her back. The muscles are strong because she carries her hair. Freckled and sun-kissed. There is a pretty defined arch to her back that rounds down to a peach shaped bottom. She usually stands with a slight, relaxed, slouch when she isn’t conscious of it.

HAND SIZE: Thin and elongated. Rapunzel has the hands of an artist and a musician. Her palms are generally warm and her middle finger is the same length of her palm. Long Palm / Long Fingers. Soft knuckles. She has a long lifeline on her palm that goes from the middle of her thumb and pointer finger and goes down a little past the wrist. She has a broken fate-line and a faint head-line that breaks where it touches the lifeline and connects again where the fate line breaks. Right next to it is the line of success which is about as dark and long as the line of fate. The line after that, the line of heart, cuts right into fate and life at a diagonal. The line of heart is deep and made up of many other interwoven lines. She is ambidextrous from teaching but naturally left-handed. Her nails are cut short and are perfectly manicured.

LOWER BODY.

HIPS: Rapunzel’s pear-shaped, so her hips are very wide, round, and freckled (running theme here) and give her thin waist an even thinner form just by comparison.

BOTTOM: Plump! Round! Perfectly perky!

THIGHS: Her thighs are long but strong. She spends a lot of time running now that she’s able to do so, and it shows. They touch when she stands straight and are full at the top where it meets her hips.

CALVES: They’re toned but nothing extraordinary. Proportional to her thighs.

LEG LENGTH: Rapunzel has pretty long legs in comparison to her torso, though she isn’t very tall herself.

FEET: Rapunzel stand pigeon-toed, that is to say, her toes point inwards. Like her hands, her toenails are kept short and manicured. She’s known for her dislike of shoes and can often be seen walking barefoot across the kingdom. One would think that the bottoms of her feet are cracked, and calloused because of it but the magic in her body keeps her skin free of issues. She doesn’t like anything with a heel and detests boots. Slippers are ok but she’d much rather be barefoot. She loves feeling the ground beneath her feet because it’s a constant reminder that she is in fact out. She only wears shoes on special princess-duties occasions.

OTHER.

BODY HAIR: She’s not particularly hairy considering she has 70 feet of hair growing out of her head. Her body hair is sparse and thin and until she was brought to the castle, naturally grown. She’s very rarely shaven by her ladies and doesn’t particularly like it either. Her pubic hair is kept trim and neat, cut close to the skin but not eradicated completely.

SCENT: Rapunzel smells of the flowers she uses to decorate her hair and the oils she uses to bathe in. She’s most often associated with the scent of sugar, vanilla, lavender, grass, and paints.

FINGERNAILS: trimmed and manicured. Neat but usually have a line of paint, chalk, or dirt underneath the edge of the nail.

TOENAILS: same as above.

VOICE: Rapunzel has a very melodically voice that rises and falls with her breathing. There’s something very fun in the way she speaks; as if she’s always at the edge of a song. She mispronounces names and terms all the time and elongates her vowels to make a point. It isn’t high pitched or low, sort of just in the middle. She tends to finish her sentences with a question and uses plenty of voice fillers (um, well, you know, ah, hmm) to pause her words as she thinks. The more excited she is about something the faster she’ll speak. She’s also been known to speak. in. a. very. short. staccato. way. when making. a point.

CLOTHING: Being a princess, Rapunzel is entitled to the best of the best in the fashion world. She has ladies who help style her and keep her company. You won’t typically see her wear her crown unless she needs to show her position during an event. Jewelry falls in the same category. She has a modest collection of crown jewels given to her by the queen that she brings out during special occasions.

SCHOOLING: Rapunzel was taught how to read and write by Gothel when she was young. Once she learned the basics, Rapunzel kept a “diary” by painting and taking notes of the things she saw from her tower on the walls. While many believe Rapunzel has a low IQ because of her upbringing but that is far from the truth.

Almost immediately after being brought to the castle, Rapunzel began taking classes on manners and etiquette with her mother’s lead lady-in-waiting and a tutor. Both instructors eventually gave her a passing score, though they still show up from time to time to instruct her as thing develop and new things must be taught.

What she lacks in the physical freedoms she yearns for she makes up for in a spiritual and intellectual one. She buries herself deep into the many books in the castle library and has a natural affinity to engineering, astronomy, mathematics, and natural sciences. She also has a natural cleverness about her and is resourceful; and can absorb information like a sponge.She’s known to be a very renaissance sort of woman in the likes of Da Vinci and Michelangelo.

She’s also known to throw quirky little facts at people if she doesn’t know what to say in a conversation and has yet to be beaten in a game of chess in the castle (most argue they let her win).

LIFE:

Rapunzel was born on July 19th, 1793, on a Sunday morning, to the respectable King Leonardo and Queen Arianna of Corona and Seporia. She lived with her parents during the six months of her life but was stolen away by Gothel. The rest of Rapunzel’s early and teen years were spent with the witch; raised to believe Gothel was her mother.

When Rapunzel was old enough to be let alone Gothel’s trips began to grow longer and longer. It was during these years that Rapunzel befriended various creatures that found her tower. To Gothel’s disappointment, Rapunzel was a curious child and would often bombard her with questions about “the outside.” Gothel took advantage of this and began feeding Rapunzel lies in hopes that she would scare her into wanting to leave.

Once Rapunzel reached puberty, things began to change. Rapunzel was beginning to be her own person and Gothel had to go from scaring her to verbally abusing her. For whatever reason, her “loving” mother was acting strangely towards her and Rapunzel began to think that she had done something to upset the woman. In response, she tried to earn her affection twice as hard. It was here when she began to doubt Gothel with Pascal’s encouragement. This eventually lead to her salvation and the realization she was the lost princess.

Now a princess, Rapunzel is faced with the difficulties of having to be “perfect.” At first, people shrugged away her strangeness and gave her a break because she was “a silly little girl at the core.” The King and Queen were lovely to her and saw no fault in their daughter but as time went on people began to fear Rapunzel might be too special to ever be queen.

Even then, Rapunzel’s bright personality and goodness destroyed any doubt that she was just like the woman who raised her. She quickly became a recognizable face around the kingdom and was known for being as every bit a princess of Corona as others before her. She struggled for the first couple of years but after a failed marriage to a Duke from the Kingdom of Seporia —- he was secretly a member of a rebel group that wanted the kingdoms to break their unified status and when his treason was exposed by a family friend their marriage was eradicated — Rapunzel realized that if she wanted to have people on her side, sweet words alone wouldn’t be enough. She has grown more mature and taken her duties as a Princess seriously. Rapunzel wants to be someone her kingdom can be proud of but the gowns, tiaras, and curtsies are only a surface facade. (more info on this can be found in the verse page)

CHANGES TO CANON

Gothel notices Eugene reaching for the piece of glass as Rapunzel heals him and stops the healing halfway. Gothel decides that she’d rather Rapunzel fight against her and fail than have the thief survive and go after them.

At the same time, the Captain of the Guards is right on Eugene’s trail and runs into the forest after Maximus and Eugene. Once he let Eugene go he turns back around and leads the guards to the tower. To make a long story short the guards reach the tower, capture Gothel and lead Rapunzel and Eugene back to the kingdom. There she’s united with her real parents.

[brittanyyoungblog]

Pornography is Dangerous for Teens? Chill Out, The Kids are Going to be (Mostly) Alright

Americans have become increasingly fond of calling pornography a “public health crisis.” Those who claim this frequently cite adolescents’ “rampant access to pornography” as a central concern. Parents are encouraged to panic because “[p]orn is radically undermining the healthy development of children and youth, and contributing to increasing levels of sexual inequality, dysfunction, and violence.”  Of critical importance to this view is that the internet has allowed children to access pornography at increasingly younger ages and youth are especially vulnerable to its harmful effects. 

Is all of this panic justified, though? Is pornography really as dangerous as some claim? 

In early 2018, I was invited to join a group of hard-working sociologists in the Republic of Croatia to help them examine and publish data they had been collecting about adolescents’ pornography use. This was my first serious foray into the academic literature concerning teen porn use, but I tackled the work with gusto. I’ve since been reading and publishing as much as I can about this topic in academic channels; however, I’ve said very little about it in more public forums, where my take on this issue will likely be unsettling to many people because it conflicts with the popular narrative about the damaging effects of porn. When it comes to pornography, I genuinely think that the kids are going to be (mostly) alright. 

If you look beyond the rhetoric and take the time to read the actual research, it is very difficult to conclude that adolescents are in a state of crisis because of pornography. Whether we’re talking about pornography’s influence on sexual health, mental / psychological well-being, or rape-supportive attitudes and behaviors, there’s really not a whole lot going on. Sure, there’s tons of research one could cite to make the case that pornography is destroying adolescents, but much this work relies on overly simplified theoretical ideas and poor research practices designed to confirm morally-inspired presumptions about the harms of such materials. Critical analysis and reflection is often absent from this literature and inconsistent findings are typically ignored. 

It turns out that the effects of pornography, to the extent that they actually exist at all, are very subtle. So subtle in fact, that when it comes to real-world issues of societal import, like safer-sex, the effects are not consistently detected across studies. A quick review of the literature, for example, indicates that three studies find that pornography-using teens report less consistent condom use than teens who don’t use porn (Luder et al., 2011; Wingood et al., 2001; Wright, Tokunaga, & Kraus, 2016). Further reading, however, indicates that another three studies find no association between pornography consumption and condom use (Braun-Courville & Rojas, 2009; Lim, Agius, Carrotte, Vella, & Hellard, 2017; Sinković et al., 2013). Moreover, recent Croatian research that I was involved in found no evidence that pornography use was associated with decreases in subsequent condom use in two groups of adolescents who were followed over time (Koletić, Štulhofer, & Kohut, 2019). 

When it comes to risky sex beyond condom use, the story is essentially the same. Whether we’re talking about condom use, age of first intercourse, or number of sexual partners, we really do not have firm evidence that pornography is clearly or strongly influencing sexual risk behaviors.

Given the modest—at best—and conflicting findings, it shouldn’t be surprising that post-internet adolescents are actually doing better on many markers of sexual risk taking than pre-internet teens. Condom use and age of first intercourse have both increased, while rates of unintended pregnancies and abortions have decreased among teens in the age of unrestricted access to explicit models of risky sexual behaviors. If there are negative impacts on pornography on the sexual health of adolescents, they are clearly not strong enough to counteract these societal trends.  

With respect to sexual health (and many other presumed “harms”), porn has become a boogeyman. If you are legitimately worried about the sexual health of teens (and you should be, given the notably high level of STIs in this population), pointing the finger at porn is really a distraction from bigger issues. Research tells us that factors like recreational substance use, “abstinence only” sexual education, over-reliance on hormonal methods of birth control (which only protect against unintended pregnancy and not STIs), and the general lack of parental communication about safer sex, should all be much more concerning to you than teens’ access to online porn. 

Now, I often get the impression that people think of me as a porn apologist. I like to think that I’m not, or at least that I try not to be. In this spirit, I am going to suggest an important caveat about my conclusions. Scholars like me, that is, those in fields like psychology, communication science, or sociology, rely heavily on research practices that can only speak to what pornography might be doing “on average,” and can’t really speak to what porn might be doing for any given individual, in any given circumstance.  

With this point in mind, while I feel quite comfortable concluding that pornography is relatively harmless for teens “on average,” that doesn’t mean that pornography can’t have harmful impacts for specific people in specific circumstances. Just who those people and what those circumstances are, however, remain largely unanswered questions.

One important circumstance might be the typical lack of comprehensive sexuality education. A point on which we can probably all agree is that pornography should not be the sole or primary source of information about sexuality for kids. Porn is a fictionalized drama, and while many adolescents recognize this, some do not. In a social context of poor sexual education, both within the home and within schools, teens—and adults—who strongly believe that pornography offers an idealized template for sexual interactions are in for a world of problems. 

Let me leave you with a metaphor that I use in my human sexuality classes: Imagine if we lived in a world where Driver’s Education was more like your typical Sex Education class, replete with incomprehensible diagrams of the combustion engine and full of curious details like “pistons,” “crank-shafts,” and “exhaust manifolds.” Such complicated and incomprehensible instruction would almost always be accompanied by exposure to explicit visual reminders of the personal and social harms of unsafe driving. 

If you were a “lucky” student, a public health nurse might teach you how to properly apply your seatbelt across an oversized stuffed banana that roughly approximates the size and shape of the human body. Most importantly, at no time would you be allowed to look at, handle, or get into a car before you reach a magical and arbitrary age. Even then, you would only be allowed to do so once you’ve made a life-long commitment to a single car, and it would be expected that you would only use it for its intended purpose: to get you off somewhere.  

If this was the world in which we lived, illicit movies like Fast and Furious 8—which glorify the glistening curves of the automobile, the ecstatic cries of their engines, and the outright exhilaration of reckless and promiscuous (if a little unrealistic) driving—would give many of us cause for concern. In such a scenario, which of the following do you think best serves the public good: preventing teenagers from seeing a movie intended for adultsorgiving them frank, comprehensive, and effective Driver’s Education?

Thanks to Dr. Taylor Kohut for this guest post! Follow Taylor’s work here.

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook (facebook.com/psychologyofsex), Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit (reddit.com/r/psychologyofsex) to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

Image Credits: 123RF/Stas Vulkanov

Check out these other interviews with authors: 

How Porn Changes The Way Teens Think About Sex, And Why We Need Porn Literacy

Porn Ed: What Happens When Porn Replaces Sex Education?

How Is Porn Use Linked To Relationship Satisfaction? It’s Complicated

from Meet Positives SMFeed 8 https://ift.tt/2PJzZVw via IFTTT

[ellenlucasonlinedatingblog]

Pornography is Dangerous for Teens? Chill Out, The Kids are Going to be (Mostly) Alright

Americans have become increasingly fond of calling pornography a “public health crisis.” Those who claim this frequently cite adolescents’ “rampant access to pornography” as a central concern. Parents are encouraged to panic because “[p]orn is radically undermining the healthy development of children and youth, and contributing to increasing levels of sexual inequality, dysfunction, and violence.”  Of critical importance to this view is that the internet has allowed children to access pornography at increasingly younger ages and youth are especially vulnerable to its harmful effects. 

Is all of this panic justified, though? Is pornography really as dangerous as some claim? 

In early 2018, I was invited to join a group of hard-working sociologists in the Republic of Croatia to help them examine and publish data they had been collecting about adolescents’ pornography use. This was my first serious foray into the academic literature concerning teen porn use, but I tackled the work with gusto. I’ve since been reading and publishing as much as I can about this topic in academic channels; however, I’ve said very little about it in more public forums, where my take on this issue will likely be unsettling to many people because it conflicts with the popular narrative about the damaging effects of porn. When it comes to pornography, I genuinely think that the kids are going to be (mostly) alright. 

If you look beyond the rhetoric and take the time to read the actual research, it is very difficult to conclude that adolescents are in a state of crisis because of pornography. Whether we’re talking about pornography’s influence on sexual health, mental / psychological well-being, or rape-supportive attitudes and behaviors, there’s really not a whole lot going on. Sure, there’s tons of research one could cite to make the case that pornography is destroying adolescents, but much this work relies on overly simplified theoretical ideas and poor research practices designed to confirm morally-inspired presumptions about the harms of such materials. Critical analysis and reflection is often absent from this literature and inconsistent findings are typically ignored. 

It turns out that the effects of pornography, to the extent that they actually exist at all, are very subtle. So subtle in fact, that when it comes to real-world issues of societal import, like safer-sex, the effects are not consistently detected across studies. A quick review of the literature, for example, indicates that three studies find that pornography-using teens report less consistent condom use than teens who don’t use porn (Luder et al., 2011; Wingood et al., 2001; Wright, Tokunaga, & Kraus, 2016). Further reading, however, indicates that another three studies find no association between pornography consumption and condom use (Braun-Courville & Rojas, 2009; Lim, Agius, Carrotte, Vella, & Hellard, 2017; Sinković et al., 2013). Moreover, recent Croatian research that I was involved in found no evidence that pornography use was associated with decreases in subsequent condom use in two groups of adolescents who were followed over time (Koletić, Štulhofer, & Kohut, 2019). 

When it comes to risky sex beyond condom use, the story is essentially the same. Whether we’re talking about condom use, age of first intercourse, or number of sexual partners, we really do not have firm evidence that pornography is clearly or strongly influencing sexual risk behaviors.

Given the modest—at best—and conflicting findings, it shouldn’t be surprising that post-internet adolescents are actually doing better on many markers of sexual risk taking than pre-internet teens. Condom use and age of first intercourse have both increased, while rates of unintended pregnancies and abortions have decreased among teens in the age of unrestricted access to explicit models of risky sexual behaviors. If there are negative impacts on pornography on the sexual health of adolescents, they are clearly not strong enough to counteract these societal trends.  

With respect to sexual health (and many other presumed “harms”), porn has become a boogeyman. If you are legitimately worried about the sexual health of teens (and you should be, given the notably high level of STIs in this population), pointing the finger at porn is really a distraction from bigger issues. Research tells us that factors like recreational substance use, “abstinence only” sexual education, over-reliance on hormonal methods of birth control (which only protect against unintended pregnancy and not STIs), and the general lack of parental communication about safer sex, should all be much more concerning to you than teens’ access to online porn. 

Now, I often get the impression that people think of me as a porn apologist. I like to think that I’m not, or at least that I try not to be. In this spirit, I am going to suggest an important caveat about my conclusions. Scholars like me, that is, those in fields like psychology, communication science, or sociology, rely heavily on research practices that can only speak to what pornography might be doing “on average,” and can’t really speak to what porn might be doing for any given individual, in any given circumstance.  

With this point in mind, while I feel quite comfortable concluding that pornography is relatively harmless for teens “on average,” that doesn’t mean that pornography can’t have harmful impacts for specific people in specific circumstances. Just who those people and what those circumstances are, however, remain largely unanswered questions.

One important circumstance might be the typical lack of comprehensive sexuality education. A point on which we can probably all agree is that pornography should not be the sole or primary source of information about sexuality for kids. Porn is a fictionalized drama, and while many adolescents recognize this, some do not. In a social context of poor sexual education, both within the home and within schools, teens—and adults—who strongly believe that pornography offers an idealized template for sexual interactions are in for a world of problems. 

Let me leave you with a metaphor that I use in my human sexuality classes: Imagine if we lived in a world where Driver’s Education was more like your typical Sex Education class, replete with incomprehensible diagrams of the combustion engine and full of curious details like “pistons,” “crank-shafts,” and “exhaust manifolds.” Such complicated and incomprehensible instruction would almost always be accompanied by exposure to explicit visual reminders of the personal and social harms of unsafe driving. 

If you were a “lucky” student, a public health nurse might teach you how to properly apply your seatbelt across an oversized stuffed banana that roughly approximates the size and shape of the human body. Most importantly, at no time would you be allowed to look at, handle, or get into a car before you reach a magical and arbitrary age. Even then, you would only be allowed to do so once you’ve made a life-long commitment to a single car, and it would be expected that you would only use it for its intended purpose: to get you off somewhere.  

If this was the world in which we lived, illicit movies like Fast and Furious 8—which glorify the glistening curves of the automobile, the ecstatic cries of their engines, and the outright exhilaration of reckless and promiscuous (if a little unrealistic) driving—would give many of us cause for concern. In such a scenario, which of the following do you think best serves the public good: preventing teenagers from seeing a movie intended for adultsorgiving them frank, comprehensive, and effective Driver’s Education?

Thanks to Dr. Taylor Kohut for this guest post! Follow Taylor’s work here.

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook (facebook.com/psychologyofsex), Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit (reddit.com/r/psychologyofsex) to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

Image Credits: 123RF/Stas Vulkanov

Check out these other interviews with authors: 

How Porn Changes The Way Teens Think About Sex, And Why We Need Porn Literacy

Porn Ed: What Happens When Porn Replaces Sex Education?

How Is Porn Use Linked To Relationship Satisfaction? It’s Complicated

from MeetPositives SM Feed 4 https://ift.tt/2PJzZVw via IFTTT

[robbiemeadow]

Pornography is Dangerous for Teens? Chill Out, The Kids are Going to be (Mostly) Alright

Americans have become increasingly fond of calling pornography a “public health crisis.” Those who claim this frequently cite adolescents’ “rampant access to pornography” as a central concern. Parents are encouraged to panic because “[p]orn is radically undermining the healthy development of children and youth, and contributing to increasing levels of sexual inequality, dysfunction, and violence.”  Of critical importance to this view is that the internet has allowed children to access pornography at increasingly younger ages and youth are especially vulnerable to its harmful effects. 

Is all of this panic justified, though? Is pornography really as dangerous as some claim? 

In early 2018, I was invited to join a group of hard-working sociologists in the Republic of Croatia to help them examine and publish data they had been collecting about adolescents’ pornography use. This was my first serious foray into the academic literature concerning teen porn use, but I tackled the work with gusto. I’ve since been reading and publishing as much as I can about this topic in academic channels; however, I’ve said very little about it in more public forums, where my take on this issue will likely be unsettling to many people because it conflicts with the popular narrative about the damaging effects of porn. When it comes to pornography, I genuinely think that the kids are going to be (mostly) alright. 

If you look beyond the rhetoric and take the time to read the actual research, it is very difficult to conclude that adolescents are in a state of crisis because of pornography. Whether we’re talking about pornography’s influence on sexual health, mental / psychological well-being, or rape-supportive attitudes and behaviors, there’s really not a whole lot going on. Sure, there’s tons of research one could cite to make the case that pornography is destroying adolescents, but much this work relies on overly simplified theoretical ideas and poor research practices designed to confirm morally-inspired presumptions about the harms of such materials. Critical analysis and reflection is often absent from this literature and inconsistent findings are typically ignored. 

It turns out that the effects of pornography, to the extent that they actually exist at all, are very subtle. So subtle in fact, that when it comes to real-world issues of societal import, like safer-sex, the effects are not consistently detected across studies. A quick review of the literature, for example, indicates that three studies find that pornography-using teens report less consistent condom use than teens who don’t use porn (Luder et al., 2011; Wingood et al., 2001; Wright, Tokunaga, & Kraus, 2016). Further reading, however, indicates that another three studies find no association between pornography consumption and condom use (Braun-Courville & Rojas, 2009; Lim, Agius, Carrotte, Vella, & Hellard, 2017; Sinković et al., 2013). Moreover, recent Croatian research that I was involved in found no evidence that pornography use was associated with decreases in subsequent condom use in two groups of adolescents who were followed over time (Koletić, Štulhofer, & Kohut, 2019). 

When it comes to risky sex beyond condom use, the story is essentially the same. Whether we’re talking about condom use, age of first intercourse, or number of sexual partners, we really do not have firm evidence that pornography is clearly or strongly influencing sexual risk behaviors.

Given the modest—at best—and conflicting findings, it shouldn’t be surprising that post-internet adolescents are actually doing better on many markers of sexual risk taking than pre-internet teens. Condom use and age of first intercourse have both increased, while rates of unintended pregnancies and abortions have decreased among teens in the age of unrestricted access to explicit models of risky sexual behaviors. If there are negative impacts on pornography on the sexual health of adolescents, they are clearly not strong enough to counteract these societal trends.  

With respect to sexual health (and many other presumed “harms”), porn has become a boogeyman. If you are legitimately worried about the sexual health of teens (and you should be, given the notably high level of STIs in this population), pointing the finger at porn is really a distraction from bigger issues. Research tells us that factors like recreational substance use, “abstinence only” sexual education, over-reliance on hormonal methods of birth control (which only protect against unintended pregnancy and not STIs), and the general lack of parental communication about safer sex, should all be much more concerning to you than teens’ access to online porn. 

Now, I often get the impression that people think of me as a porn apologist. I like to think that I’m not, or at least that I try not to be. In this spirit, I am going to suggest an important caveat about my conclusions. Scholars like me, that is, those in fields like psychology, communication science, or sociology, rely heavily on research practices that can only speak to what pornography might be doing “on average,” and can’t really speak to what porn might be doing for any given individual, in any given circumstance.  

With this point in mind, while I feel quite comfortable concluding that pornography is relatively harmless for teens “on average,” that doesn’t mean that pornography can’t have harmful impacts for specific people in specific circumstances. Just who those people and what those circumstances are, however, remain largely unanswered questions.

One important circumstance might be the typical lack of comprehensive sexuality education. A point on which we can probably all agree is that pornography should not be the sole or primary source of information about sexuality for kids. Porn is a fictionalized drama, and while many adolescents recognize this, some do not. In a social context of poor sexual education, both within the home and within schools, teens—and adults—who strongly believe that pornography offers an idealized template for sexual interactions are in for a world of problems. 

Let me leave you with a metaphor that I use in my human sexuality classes: Imagine if we lived in a world where Driver’s Education was more like your typical Sex Education class, replete with incomprehensible diagrams of the combustion engine and full of curious details like “pistons,” “crank-shafts,” and “exhaust manifolds.” Such complicated and incomprehensible instruction would almost always be accompanied by exposure to explicit visual reminders of the personal and social harms of unsafe driving. 

If you were a “lucky” student, a public health nurse might teach you how to properly apply your seatbelt across an oversized stuffed banana that roughly approximates the size and shape of the human body. Most importantly, at no time would you be allowed to look at, handle, or get into a car before you reach a magical and arbitrary age. Even then, you would only be allowed to do so once you’ve made a life-long commitment to a single car, and it would be expected that you would only use it for its intended purpose: to get you off somewhere.  

If this was the world in which we lived, illicit movies like Fast and Furious 8—which glorify the glistening curves of the automobile, the ecstatic cries of their engines, and the outright exhilaration of reckless and promiscuous (if a little unrealistic) driving—would give many of us cause for concern. In such a scenario, which of the following do you think best serves the public good: preventing teenagers from seeing a movie intended for adultsorgiving them frank, comprehensive, and effective Driver’s Education?

Thanks to Dr. Taylor Kohut for this guest post! Follow Taylor’s work here.

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook (facebook.com/psychologyofsex), Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit (reddit.com/r/psychologyofsex) to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

Image Credits: 123RF/Stas Vulkanov

Check out these other interviews with authors: 

How Porn Changes The Way Teens Think About Sex, And Why We Need Porn Literacy

Porn Ed: What Happens When Porn Replaces Sex Education?

How Is Porn Use Linked To Relationship Satisfaction? It’s Complicated

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[cristinajourdanqp]

Dear Mark: Really High HDL, More Heart Disease; Low-Salt For Grandpa?

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering two questions from readers. They were excellent this week. The first one comes from Sarah, who’s a bit puzzled by the recent paper in which people with the highest HDL levels died earlier than those with lower levels. What’s going on, and is more HDL actually bad? Last but not least, how should a reader approach a doctor who wants to put Grandpa on a low-salt diet? Is there any literature or information he can present?

Let’s go:

Hi Mark,

I just read this article in the NY Times about how really high HDL levels are linked to greater risk of heart attacks. What’s going on here? Isn’t HDL supposed to be good?

Sarah

Very interesting study.

Before we tackle your question, let’s establish what HDL particles actually do:

They intercept and neutralize oxidative stressors in the blood.

They regulate coagulation.

They reduce inflammation.

They inhibit platelet aggregation.

They deliver cholesterol to the liver for processing and to organs like the testicles and ovaries for conversion into steroid hormones.

These are established mechanisms, by the way. And they’re all “good things.” Avoiding clots, lowering inflammation, limiting oxidative damage to the endothelium, making sex hormones? What’s not to love? More HDL, please.

If that’s true, how can higher HDL be linked to more cardiovascular mortality?

Remember that production of HDL is a dynamic process. The body doesn’t just make HDL for the hell of it, nor does it make a set number of HDL particles irrespective of what’s going on in and outside the body. HDL has a very specific set of skills. When HDL’s services are required, the body makes more.

This means that very high HDL could indicate a need for high HDL. What does HDL do, again?

It could mean elevated platelet aggregation. Maybe you’re boosting HDL production to prevent a clot.

It could mean you’re in danger of atherosclerosis. A major role of HDL is to protect LDL from oxidative damage and prevent the atherosclerosis that would otherwise result. In one study, putting mice on a high omega-6/omega-3 ratio diet increased HDL—probably because the lopsided O6/O3 ratio was making the LDL more vulnerable to oxidative damage—but failed to prevent atherosclerosis.

HDL doesn’t have superpowers. It doesn’t always finish the job or prevent the malady from befalling you. Sometimes the clot happens, the atherosclerosis proceeds, the LDL particle oxidizes.

HDL is both an indicator of risk and an agent of protection against risk. Firemen put out fires, but that doesn’t mean you want a fire truck showing up in front of your house at 3 AM. That would be bad news, even though the guys manning it are fine, upstanding, invaluable members of the community.

In the original study, HDL followed a U-shaped mortality curve. Low HDL and extra-high HDL were both associated with more all-cause mortality (dying from any cause). Plain old “high” HDL was associated with the lowest risk, as you’d expect. High is enough to handle incoming threats. You can respond quickly and upregulate production when needed.

Next, John asks:

Hey Mark, My grandpa’s doctor wants him on a low-sodium diet. He can’t add salt to any food. He can eat food that already has salt though. I know you can’t give medical advice but maybe you could give me some suggestions for how to talk to the doc about it.

Thanks, John

Humans have a real craving for salt. It’s one of the few specific appetites we have. The craving doesn’t disappear. He’s going to seek out salt, and he’ll get it. Restricting adding his own salt to food and allowing “pre-salted” food will only drive him into the corpulent embrace of processed junk. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t loaded with sugar, grains, and industrial seed oils. But it is, so it is. What would doc rather have Grandpa eat—a salted-and-peppered ribeye or a pack of low-sodium cupcakes?

It crazy that it’s even a debate.

Most adults are forced into low-salt diets to improve their blood pressure. Those lab markers—already fraught with major reliability issues—must tick down. They’re everything.

Yet they don’t work well in most people. Some people with salt-sensitive hypertension definitely can benefit from salt reduction. Asian and African Americans see bigger benefits to blood pressure than other groups. Others are lucky to get a few points in the other direction. Better than nothing, but nothing to write home about. And that’s without taking into account the other hints that salt restriction may have other, unwanted effects.

In healthy men and women, a low-salt diet increased insulin resistance compared to a higher-salt diet.

In hypertensive patients, low-salt reduced blood pressure by a few points while worsening triglycerides, LDL, and stress hormones.

In adults, eating under 3 grams of sodium (just over a teaspoon of salt) or between 6-7 grams of sodium (more than 2 teaspoons) led to more strokes and heart attacks than eating between 4-6 grams of sodium.

Sodium restriction may also increase stress hormones.

One study even established the important role of chloride (from such famous works as “sodium chloride”) in host immunity. Our white blood cells use chloride to produce a chlorine-based microbicide—bleach, essentially—that targets infectious microbes. Infections become really dangerous the older you get. Chloride-based microbicide is invaluable, and so is the salt which carries its precursor.

Maybe Grandpa needs the low-salt diet. Maybe the supposed benefits outweigh the ignored deficits. Talk to the doc, come prepared, and find out for sure. Oh, and ask what he or she thinks about sugar as the primary driver of hypertension.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading! Be well and leave some thoughts down below!

Want to make fat loss easier? Try the Definitive Guide for Troubleshooting Weight Loss for free here.

[milenasanchezmk]

Dear Mark: Really High HDL, More Heart Disease; Low-Salt For Grandpa?

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering two questions from readers. They were excellent this week. The first one comes from Sarah, who’s a bit puzzled by the recent paper in which people with the highest HDL levels died earlier than those with lower levels. What’s going on, and is more HDL actually bad? Last but not least, how should a reader approach a doctor who wants to put Grandpa on a low-salt diet? Is there any literature or information he can present?

Let’s go:

Hi Mark,

I just read this article in the NY Times about how really high HDL levels are linked to greater risk of heart attacks. What’s going on here? Isn’t HDL supposed to be good?

Sarah

Very interesting study.

Before we tackle your question, let’s establish what HDL particles actually do:

They intercept and neutralize oxidative stressors in the blood.

They regulate coagulation.

They reduce inflammation.

They inhibit platelet aggregation.

They deliver cholesterol to the liver for processing and to organs like the testicles and ovaries for conversion into steroid hormones.

These are established mechanisms, by the way. And they’re all “good things.” Avoiding clots, lowering inflammation, limiting oxidative damage to the endothelium, making sex hormones? What’s not to love? More HDL, please.

If that’s true, how can higher HDL be linked to more cardiovascular mortality?

Remember that production of HDL is a dynamic process. The body doesn’t just make HDL for the hell of it, nor does it make a set number of HDL particles irrespective of what’s going on in and outside the body. HDL has a very specific set of skills. When HDL’s services are required, the body makes more.

This means that very high HDL could indicate a need for high HDL. What does HDL do, again?

It could mean elevated platelet aggregation. Maybe you’re boosting HDL production to prevent a clot.

It could mean you’re in danger of atherosclerosis. A major role of HDL is to protect LDL from oxidative damage and prevent the atherosclerosis that would otherwise result. In one study, putting mice on a high omega-6/omega-3 ratio diet increased HDL—probably because the lopsided O6/O3 ratio was making the LDL more vulnerable to oxidative damage—but failed to prevent atherosclerosis.

HDL doesn’t have superpowers. It doesn’t always finish the job or prevent the malady from befalling you. Sometimes the clot happens, the atherosclerosis proceeds, the LDL particle oxidizes.

HDL is both an indicator of risk and an agent of protection against risk. Firemen put out fires, but that doesn’t mean you want a fire truck showing up in front of your house at 3 AM. That would be bad news, even though the guys manning it are fine, upstanding, invaluable members of the community.

In the original study, HDL followed a U-shaped mortality curve. Low HDL and extra-high HDL were both associated with more all-cause mortality (dying from any cause). Plain old “high” HDL was associated with the lowest risk, as you’d expect. High is enough to handle incoming threats. You can respond quickly and upregulate production when needed.

Next, John asks:

Hey Mark, My grandpa’s doctor wants him on a low-sodium diet. He can’t add salt to any food. He can eat food that already has salt though. I know you can’t give medical advice but maybe you could give me some suggestions for how to talk to the doc about it.

Thanks, John

Humans have a real craving for salt. It’s one of the few specific appetites we have. The craving doesn’t disappear. He’s going to seek out salt, and he’ll get it. Restricting adding his own salt to food and allowing “pre-salted” food will only drive him into the corpulent embrace of processed junk. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t loaded with sugar, grains, and industrial seed oils. But it is, so it is. What would doc rather have Grandpa eat—a salted-and-peppered ribeye or a pack of low-sodium cupcakes?

It crazy that it’s even a debate.

Most adults are forced into low-salt diets to improve their blood pressure. Those lab markers—already fraught with major reliability issues—must tick down. They’re everything.

Yet they don’t work well in most people. Some people with salt-sensitive hypertension definitely can benefit from salt reduction. Asian and African Americans see bigger benefits to blood pressure than other groups. Others are lucky to get a few points in the other direction. Better than nothing, but nothing to write home about. And that’s without taking into account the other hints that salt restriction may have other, unwanted effects.

In healthy men and women, a low-salt diet increased insulin resistance compared to a higher-salt diet.

In hypertensive patients, low-salt reduced blood pressure by a few points while worsening triglycerides, LDL, and stress hormones.

In adults, eating under 3 grams of sodium (just over a teaspoon of salt) or between 6-7 grams of sodium (more than 2 teaspoons) led to more strokes and heart attacks than eating between 4-6 grams of sodium.

Sodium restriction may also increase stress hormones.

One study even established the important role of chloride (from such famous works as “sodium chloride”) in host immunity. Our white blood cells use chloride to produce a chlorine-based microbicide—bleach, essentially—that targets infectious microbes. Infections become really dangerous the older you get. Chloride-based microbicide is invaluable, and so is the salt which carries its precursor.

Maybe Grandpa needs the low-salt diet. Maybe the supposed benefits outweigh the ignored deficits. Talk to the doc, come prepared, and find out for sure. Oh, and ask what he or she thinks about sugar as the primary driver of hypertension.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading! Be well and leave some thoughts down below!

Want to make fat loss easier? Try the Definitive Guide for Troubleshooting Weight Loss for free here.

[fishermariawo]

Dear Mark: Really High HDL, More Heart Disease; Low-Salt For Grandpa?

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering two questions from readers. They were excellent this week. The first one comes from Sarah, who’s a bit puzzled by the recent paper in which people with the highest HDL levels died earlier than those with lower levels. What’s going on, and is more HDL actually bad? Last but not least, how should a reader approach a doctor who wants to put Grandpa on a low-salt diet? Is there any literature or information he can present?

Let’s go:

Hi Mark,

I just read this article in the NY Times about how really high HDL levels are linked to greater risk of heart attacks. What’s going on here? Isn’t HDL supposed to be good?

Sarah

Very interesting study.

Before we tackle your question, let’s establish what HDL particles actually do:

They intercept and neutralize oxidative stressors in the blood.

They regulate coagulation.

They reduce inflammation.

They inhibit platelet aggregation.

They deliver cholesterol to the liver for processing and to organs like the testicles and ovaries for conversion into steroid hormones.

These are established mechanisms, by the way. And they’re all “good things.” Avoiding clots, lowering inflammation, limiting oxidative damage to the endothelium, making sex hormones? What’s not to love? More HDL, please.

If that’s true, how can higher HDL be linked to more cardiovascular mortality?

Remember that production of HDL is a dynamic process. The body doesn’t just make HDL for the hell of it, nor does it make a set number of HDL particles irrespective of what’s going on in and outside the body. HDL has a very specific set of skills. When HDL’s services are required, the body makes more.

This means that very high HDL could indicate a need for high HDL. What does HDL do, again?

It could mean elevated platelet aggregation. Maybe you’re boosting HDL production to prevent a clot.

It could mean you’re in danger of atherosclerosis. A major role of HDL is to protect LDL from oxidative damage and prevent the atherosclerosis that would otherwise result. In one study, putting mice on a high omega-6/omega-3 ratio diet increased HDL—probably because the lopsided O6/O3 ratio was making the LDL more vulnerable to oxidative damage—but failed to prevent atherosclerosis.

HDL doesn’t have superpowers. It doesn’t always finish the job or prevent the malady from befalling you. Sometimes the clot happens, the atherosclerosis proceeds, the LDL particle oxidizes.

HDL is both an indicator of risk and an agent of protection against risk. Firemen put out fires, but that doesn’t mean you want a fire truck showing up in front of your house at 3 AM. That would be bad news, even though the guys manning it are fine, upstanding, invaluable members of the community.

In the original study, HDL followed a U-shaped mortality curve. Low HDL and extra-high HDL were both associated with more all-cause mortality (dying from any cause). Plain old “high” HDL was associated with the lowest risk, as you’d expect. High is enough to handle incoming threats. You can respond quickly and upregulate production when needed.

Next, John asks:

Hey Mark, My grandpa’s doctor wants him on a low-sodium diet. He can’t add salt to any food. He can eat food that already has salt though. I know you can’t give medical advice but maybe you could give me some suggestions for how to talk to the doc about it.

Thanks, John

Humans have a real craving for salt. It’s one of the few specific appetites we have. The craving doesn’t disappear. He’s going to seek out salt, and he’ll get it. Restricting adding his own salt to food and allowing “pre-salted” food will only drive him into the corpulent embrace of processed junk. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t loaded with sugar, grains, and industrial seed oils. But it is, so it is. What would doc rather have Grandpa eat—a salted-and-peppered ribeye or a pack of low-sodium cupcakes?

It crazy that it’s even a debate.

Most adults are forced into low-salt diets to improve their blood pressure. Those lab markers—already fraught with major reliability issues—must tick down. They’re everything.

Yet they don’t work well in most people. Some people with salt-sensitive hypertension definitely can benefit from salt reduction. Asian and African Americans see bigger benefits to blood pressure than other groups. Others are lucky to get a few points in the other direction. Better than nothing, but nothing to write home about. And that’s without taking into account the other hints that salt restriction may have other, unwanted effects.

In healthy men and women, a low-salt diet increased insulin resistance compared to a higher-salt diet.

In hypertensive patients, low-salt reduced blood pressure by a few points while worsening triglycerides, LDL, and stress hormones.

In adults, eating under 3 grams of sodium (just over a teaspoon of salt) or between 6-7 grams of sodium (more than 2 teaspoons) led to more strokes and heart attacks than eating between 4-6 grams of sodium.

Sodium restriction may also increase stress hormones.

One study even established the important role of chloride (from such famous works as “sodium chloride”) in host immunity. Our white blood cells use chloride to produce a chlorine-based microbicide—bleach, essentially—that targets infectious microbes. Infections become really dangerous the older you get. Chloride-based microbicide is invaluable, and so is the salt which carries its precursor.

Maybe Grandpa needs the low-salt diet. Maybe the supposed benefits outweigh the ignored deficits. Talk to the doc, come prepared, and find out for sure. Oh, and ask what he or she thinks about sugar as the primary driver of hypertension.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading! Be well and leave some thoughts down below!

Want to make fat loss easier? Try the Definitive Guide for Troubleshooting Weight Loss for free here.

[watsonrodriquezie]

Dear Mark: Really High HDL, More Heart Disease; Low-Salt For Grandpa?

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering two questions from readers. They were excellent this week. The first one comes from Sarah, who’s a bit puzzled by the recent paper in which people with the highest HDL levels died earlier than those with lower levels. What’s going on, and is more HDL actually bad? Last but not least, how should a reader approach a doctor who wants to put Grandpa on a low-salt diet? Is there any literature or information he can present?

Let’s go:

Hi Mark,

I just read this article in the NY Times about how really high HDL levels are linked to greater risk of heart attacks. What’s going on here? Isn’t HDL supposed to be good?

Sarah

Very interesting study.

Before we tackle your question, let’s establish what HDL particles actually do:

They intercept and neutralize oxidative stressors in the blood.

They regulate coagulation.

They reduce inflammation.

They inhibit platelet aggregation.

They deliver cholesterol to the liver for processing and to organs like the testicles and ovaries for conversion into steroid hormones.

These are established mechanisms, by the way. And they’re all “good things.” Avoiding clots, lowering inflammation, limiting oxidative damage to the endothelium, making sex hormones? What’s not to love? More HDL, please.

If that’s true, how can higher HDL be linked to more cardiovascular mortality?

Remember that production of HDL is a dynamic process. The body doesn’t just make HDL for the hell of it, nor does it make a set number of HDL particles irrespective of what’s going on in and outside the body. HDL has a very specific set of skills. When HDL’s services are required, the body makes more.

This means that very high HDL could indicate a need for high HDL. What does HDL do, again?

It could mean elevated platelet aggregation. Maybe you’re boosting HDL production to prevent a clot.

It could mean you’re in danger of atherosclerosis. A major role of HDL is to protect LDL from oxidative damage and prevent the atherosclerosis that would otherwise result. In one study, putting mice on a high omega-6/omega-3 ratio diet increased HDL—probably because the lopsided O6/O3 ratio was making the LDL more vulnerable to oxidative damage—but failed to prevent atherosclerosis.

HDL doesn’t have superpowers. It doesn’t always finish the job or prevent the malady from befalling you. Sometimes the clot happens, the atherosclerosis proceeds, the LDL particle oxidizes.

HDL is both an indicator of risk and an agent of protection against risk. Firemen put out fires, but that doesn’t mean you want a fire truck showing up in front of your house at 3 AM. That would be bad news, even though the guys manning it are fine, upstanding, invaluable members of the community.

In the original study, HDL followed a U-shaped mortality curve. Low HDL and extra-high HDL were both associated with more all-cause mortality (dying from any cause). Plain old “high” HDL was associated with the lowest risk, as you’d expect. High is enough to handle incoming threats. You can respond quickly and upregulate production when needed.

Next, John asks:

Hey Mark, My grandpa’s doctor wants him on a low-sodium diet. He can’t add salt to any food. He can eat food that already has salt though. I know you can’t give medical advice but maybe you could give me some suggestions for how to talk to the doc about it.

Thanks, John

Humans have a real craving for salt. It’s one of the few specific appetites we have. The craving doesn’t disappear. He’s going to seek out salt, and he’ll get it. Restricting adding his own salt to food and allowing “pre-salted” food will only drive him into the corpulent embrace of processed junk. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t loaded with sugar, grains, and industrial seed oils. But it is, so it is. What would doc rather have Grandpa eat—a salted-and-peppered ribeye or a pack of low-sodium cupcakes?

It crazy that it’s even a debate.

Most adults are forced into low-salt diets to improve their blood pressure. Those lab markers—already fraught with major reliability issues—must tick down. They’re everything.

Yet they don’t work well in most people. Some people with salt-sensitive hypertension definitely can benefit from salt reduction. Asian and African Americans see bigger benefits to blood pressure than other groups. Others are lucky to get a few points in the other direction. Better than nothing, but nothing to write home about. And that’s without taking into account the other hints that salt restriction may have other, unwanted effects.

In healthy men and women, a low-salt diet increased insulin resistance compared to a higher-salt diet.

In hypertensive patients, low-salt reduced blood pressure by a few points while worsening triglycerides, LDL, and stress hormones.

In adults, eating under 3 grams of sodium (just over a teaspoon of salt) or between 6-7 grams of sodium (more than 2 teaspoons) led to more strokes and heart attacks than eating between 4-6 grams of sodium.

Sodium restriction may also increase stress hormones.

One study even established the important role of chloride (from such famous works as “sodium chloride”) in host immunity. Our white blood cells use chloride to produce a chlorine-based microbicide—bleach, essentially—that targets infectious microbes. Infections become really dangerous the older you get. Chloride-based microbicide is invaluable, and so is the salt which carries its precursor.

Maybe Grandpa needs the low-salt diet. Maybe the supposed benefits outweigh the ignored deficits. Talk to the doc, come prepared, and find out for sure. Oh, and ask what he or she thinks about sugar as the primary driver of hypertension.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading! Be well and leave some thoughts down below!

Want to make fat loss easier? Try the Definitive Guide for Troubleshooting Weight Loss for free here.

[cynthiamwashington]

Dear Mark: Really High HDL, More Heart Disease; Low-Salt For Grandpa?

For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering two questions from readers. They were excellent this week. The first one comes from Sarah, who’s a bit puzzled by the recent paper in which people with the highest HDL levels died earlier than those with lower levels. What’s going on, and is more HDL actually bad? Last but not least, how should a reader approach a doctor who wants to put Grandpa on a low-salt diet? Is there any literature or information he can present?

Let’s go:

Hi Mark,

I just read this article in the NY Times about how really high HDL levels are linked to greater risk of heart attacks. What’s going on here? Isn’t HDL supposed to be good?

Sarah

Very interesting study.

Before we tackle your question, let’s establish what HDL particles actually do:

They intercept and neutralize oxidative stressors in the blood.

They regulate coagulation.

They reduce inflammation.

They inhibit platelet aggregation.

They deliver cholesterol to the liver for processing and to organs like the testicles and ovaries for conversion into steroid hormones.

These are established mechanisms, by the way. And they’re all “good things.” Avoiding clots, lowering inflammation, limiting oxidative damage to the endothelium, making sex hormones? What’s not to love? More HDL, please.

If that’s true, how can higher HDL be linked to more cardiovascular mortality?

Remember that production of HDL is a dynamic process. The body doesn’t just make HDL for the hell of it, nor does it make a set number of HDL particles irrespective of what’s going on in and outside the body. HDL has a very specific set of skills. When HDL’s services are required, the body makes more.

This means that very high HDL could indicate a need for high HDL. What does HDL do, again?

It could mean elevated platelet aggregation. Maybe you’re boosting HDL production to prevent a clot.

It could mean you’re in danger of atherosclerosis. A major role of HDL is to protect LDL from oxidative damage and prevent the atherosclerosis that would otherwise result. In one study, putting mice on a high omega-6/omega-3 ratio diet increased HDL—probably because the lopsided O6/O3 ratio was making the LDL more vulnerable to oxidative damage—but failed to prevent atherosclerosis.

HDL doesn’t have superpowers. It doesn’t always finish the job or prevent the malady from befalling you. Sometimes the clot happens, the atherosclerosis proceeds, the LDL particle oxidizes.

HDL is both an indicator of risk and an agent of protection against risk. Firemen put out fires, but that doesn’t mean you want a fire truck showing up in front of your house at 3 AM. That would be bad news, even though the guys manning it are fine, upstanding, invaluable members of the community.

In the original study, HDL followed a U-shaped mortality curve. Low HDL and extra-high HDL were both associated with more all-cause mortality (dying from any cause). Plain old “high” HDL was associated with the lowest risk, as you’d expect. High is enough to handle incoming threats. You can respond quickly and upregulate production when needed.

Next, John asks:

Hey Mark, My grandpa’s doctor wants him on a low-sodium diet. He can’t add salt to any food. He can eat food that already has salt though. I know you can’t give medical advice but maybe you could give me some suggestions for how to talk to the doc about it.

Thanks, John

Humans have a real craving for salt. It’s one of the few specific appetites we have. The craving doesn’t disappear. He’s going to seek out salt, and he’ll get it. Restricting adding his own salt to food and allowing “pre-salted” food will only drive him into the corpulent embrace of processed junk. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t loaded with sugar, grains, and industrial seed oils. But it is, so it is. What would doc rather have Grandpa eat—a salted-and-peppered ribeye or a pack of low-sodium cupcakes?

It crazy that it’s even a debate.

Most adults are forced into low-salt diets to improve their blood pressure. Those lab markers—already fraught with major reliability issues—must tick down. They’re everything.

Yet they don’t work well in most people. Some people with salt-sensitive hypertension definitely can benefit from salt reduction. Asian and African Americans see bigger benefits to blood pressure than other groups. Others are lucky to get a few points in the other direction. Better than nothing, but nothing to write home about. And that’s without taking into account the other hints that salt restriction may have other, unwanted effects.

In healthy men and women, a low-salt diet increased insulin resistance compared to a higher-salt diet.

In hypertensive patients, low-salt reduced blood pressure by a few points while worsening triglycerides, LDL, and stress hormones.

In adults, eating under 3 grams of sodium (just over a teaspoon of salt) or between 6-7 grams of sodium (more than 2 teaspoons) led to more strokes and heart attacks than eating between 4-6 grams of sodium.

Sodium restriction may also increase stress hormones.

One study even established the important role of chloride (from such famous works as “sodium chloride”) in host immunity. Our white blood cells use chloride to produce a chlorine-based microbicide—bleach, essentially—that targets infectious microbes. Infections become really dangerous the older you get. Chloride-based microbicide is invaluable, and so is the salt which carries its precursor.

Maybe Grandpa needs the low-salt diet. Maybe the supposed benefits outweigh the ignored deficits. Talk to the doc, come prepared, and find out for sure. Oh, and ask what he or she thinks about sugar as the primary driver of hypertension.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading! Be well and leave some thoughts down below!

Want to make fat loss easier? Try the Definitive Guide for Troubleshooting Weight Loss for free here.

The post Dear Mark: Really High HDL, More Heart Disease; Low-Salt For Grandpa? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

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