Pride, avocados and hair loss: The week in Well+Being (2024)

When we’re on a path different from people around us, we can feel alone and often afraid. “Possibility models,” those who have walked ahead on the same road, can be our guides. Their lives can be our inspiration and help us imagine a future full of hope and growth.

As a queer man, Jamal Jordan, an editor at The Washington Post, said he was terrified of growing old. He had never seen — in real life or the media — positive reflections of what it meant to grow old as a member of the LGBTQ community. Coming of age in the shadow of a generation of gay men who were lost to the AIDS epidemic, he longed for something that said: You can grow old. Life will be okay.

Jamal began to seek out queer elders and found his possibility models. He shared stories about them and others in a book called “Queer Love in Color.”

Jamal’s search is the subject of this beautiful comic illustrated by Arantza Peña Popo, which ends with his hope that he can be a possibility model for queer youths some day.

And here are a couple of other stories to read on International LGBT Pride Day:

During our live chat this week, readers asked for advice about fecal matters from our Ask a Doctor columnist Trisha S. Pasricha, a gastroenterologist and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. Here is Trisha’s answer to one question.

After being as regular and predictable as Old Faithful until the age of roughly 48 (I’m a 51 yo male), I find that I rarely have the sort of satisfying, bowel-emptying events that typified my 30s and 40s. … Is this normal for a man of my age? Should I just get used to my new, slower metabolic rate? What other options are there for increasing volume and frequency?

Much like love, those who have known a life of effortless bowel movements suffer dearly when it’s lost, but I am happy to hear that you were able to experience that sheer joy for so many years. And I’m optimistic we can get you back on track!

Our bodies are constantly changing. Sure, some of it is age — constipation, after all, comes for us all and is more common among older Americans.

But it’s often other factors for which we may not be connecting the dots — has your exercise routine shifted? Did you start any new medications or supplements? Has stress from your job, relationships or family shifted? For women, are you entering menopause?

I love starting with old-fashioned psyllium husk when things first begin slowing down. Fiber is a powerful, shape-shifting ally — it can bulk up loose stool and also soften hard stools. Laxatives come in several forms. There are the more natural options such as psyllium or kiwis that are also great places to start. Here’s a pro tip: Try taking two kiwis a day — a 2021 study found that consuming two kiwis per day was just as effective in increasing stool frequency and reducing straining as prunes. But unlike prunes, eating kiwis helped with bloating, too!

There are, of course, also laxatives you can buy over-the-counter — some stimulate contractions like senna, and others, like MiraLax, pull in water to the inside of the gut. You may not need these every single day, and if you find you still need more help, it’s worth talking to a physician, as he or she may need to consider more testing or a prescription laxative.

To read more questions and answers from the complete chat, click this link. We will not have a chat next week because of the July Fourth holiday. Our next live chat will be Thursday, July 11. Check out next week’s newsletter for the topic and the link to submit questions.

For avocado lovers, this is a dangerous time of year.

Thousands of people slice their hands and fingers every year while cutting avocados, and research shows that most of these injuries occur from April through July. Hand surgeons see these injuries so often that they have a name for it: avocado hand.

The injury typically occurs when someone holds an avocado in one hand and wields a sharp knife in the other. When the knife slips, or the person loses their grip on the avocado as they’re cutting it, the knife can slice into their palm or fingers. It’s not uncommon for people to sever nerves and tendons. In some cases, people stab themselves in the hand while using the tip of a knife to remove the pit.

“I’ve treated people who’ve cut off a finger while slicing an avocado,” said Eric Wagner, a hand surgeon and associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Emory University in Atlanta. “Cutting an avocado seems so harmless, but we’ve seen some pretty bad injuries from it. By far and away the most injuries I’ve seen are from avocado injuries.”

Read the full story by our food and nutrition columnist Anahad O’Connor, and watch a video to learn how to safely cut an avocado.

I’ve been using a white-noise machine since my son was born. It helps him sleep. Is that bad? Could it affect his hearing?

Many American households turn to white-noise machines to help their children get to and stay asleep. White noise is made up of different frequencies, creating a background sound that can muffle potential disturbances. The devices are easy to use, often in the form of a stand-alone machine or a smartphone app. The positives of this seemingly low-risk intervention are obvious: better sleep.

But just how low risk is it? To find out, we conducted a review of the available literature on white-noise machines for young children. The results, recently published in the journal Sleep Medicine, showed that all tested devices generated alarmingly loud sounds.

Here are a few things that brought us joy this week.