Honey vs Maple Syrup – Which is Healthier?

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The 10almonds Team

Our Verdict

When comparing honey to maple syrup, we picked the honey.

Why?

It was very close, as both have small advantages:
•⁠ ⁠Honey has some medicinal properties (and depending on type, may contain an antihistamine)
•⁠ ⁠Maple syrup is a good source of manganese, as well as low-but-present amounts of other minerals

However, you wouldn’t want to eat enough maple syrup to rely on it as a source of those minerals, and honey has the lower GI (average 46 vs 54; for comparison, refined sugar is 65), which works well as a tie-breaker.

(If GI’s very important to you, though, the easy winner here would be agave syrup if we let it compete, with its GI of 15)

Read more:
•⁠ ⁠Can Honey Relieve Allergies?
•⁠ ⁠From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose C’s

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  • The Snooze-Button Controversy

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    To Snooze Or Not To Snooze? (Science Has Answers)

    This is Dr. Jennifer Kanaan. She’s a medical doctor with a focus on pulmonary critical care, sleep disorders, and sleep medicine.

    What does she want to tell us?

    She wants us to be wary of the many news articles that have jumped on a certain recent sleep study, such as:

    For the curious, here is the paper itself, by Dr. Tina Sundelin et al. It’s actually two studies, by the way, but one paper:

    Is snoozing losing? Why intermittent morning alarms are used and how they affect sleep, cognition, cortisol, and mood

    The authors of this study concluded:

    ❝There were no clear effects of snoozing on the cortisol awakening response, morning sleepiness, mood, or overnight sleep architecture.

    A brief snooze period may thus help alleviate sleep inertia, without substantially disturbing sleep, for late chronotypes and those with morning drowsiness.❞

    Notably, people tend to snooze because an alarm clock will, if not “smart” about it, wake us up mid sleep-cycle more often than not, and that will produce a short “sleep hangover”. By snoozing, we are basically re-rolling the dice on being woken up between sleep cycles, and thus feeling more refreshed.

    What’s Dr. Kanaan’s counterpoint?

    Dr. Kanaan says:

    ❝If you’re coming in and out of sleep for 30 minutes, after the alarm goes off the first time, you’re costing yourself 30 minutes of uninterrupted, quality, restorative sleep. This study doesn’t change that fact.❞

    She advises that rather than snoozing, we should prioritize getting good sleep in the first place, and once we do wake up, mid sleep-cycle or not, get sunlight. That way, our brain will start promptly scrubbing melatonin and producing the appropriate wakefulness hormones instead. That means serotonin, and also a spike of cortisol.

    Remember: cortisol is only bad when it’s chronically elevated. It’s fine, and even beneficial, to have a short spike of cortisol. We make it for a reason!

    If you’d like to hear more from Dr. Kanaan, you might like this interview with her at the University of Connecticut:

    You Snooze, You (Still) Lose: health sleep disorders specialist warns of misleading takeaway from study suggesting snooze button benefits

    Want the best of both worlds?

    A great option to avoid getting woken in the middle of a sleep cycle, and also not needing to hit snooze, is a sunrise alarm clock. Specifics of these devices vary, but for example, the kind this writer has starts gently glowing an hour before the set alarm time,and gradually gets brighter and lighter over the course of the hour.

    We don’t sell them, but here’s an example sunrise alarm clock on Amazon, for your convenience

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  • Tuna Steak with Protein Salad

    The 10almonds Team

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    Yes, it’s protein on protein today, and it’s all healthy.

    You will need (per person)

    • 1 tuna steak
    • 1 400g/12oz can mixed beans, drained & rinsed
    • 1 tsp capers
    • 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 red chili, chopped
    • 1 lime, cut into wedges
    • ½ tsp white wine vinegar
    • Extra virgin olive oil, for cooking
    • Garnish: chopped parsley

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Put the beans in a bowl, mixing in the capers, vinegar, and 1 tsp of the black pepper

    2) Gently rub a little olive oil onto each side of the tuna steak, and season with the remainder of the black pepper (as in, the other tsp, not the rest of what you have in the house).

    3) Heat a ridged grill pan until hot, and then cook the tuna for around 3 minutes on each side. Do not jiggle it! Do not slide it, and definitely do not stir it. Just gently turn it over when necessary. The edges should be cooked, and the inside should still be pink (it’s easy to forget when it comes from a can, but remember tuna is usually eaten raw)

    4) Serve, sprinkling with the chopped chili and garnishing with the parsley. The lime wedges go on the side for squeezing at the table.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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  • Toasted Chick’n Mango Tacos

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Tacos aren’t generally held up as the world’s healthiest food, but they can be! There’s so much going on in this dish today, healthwise, in a good way, that it’s hard to know where to start. But suffice it to say, these tacos are great for your gut, heart, blood sugars, and more.

    You will need

    For the chickpeas:

    • 1 can chickpeas, drained
    • 1 tbsp ras el-hanout*
    • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
    • ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
    • Extra virgin olive oil

    *You can easily make this yourself; following our recipe (linked above in the ingredients list) will be better than buying it ready-made, and if you have strong feelings about any of the ingredients, you can adjust per your preference.

    For the tahini sauce:

    • ⅓ cup tahini
    • 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
    • 2 tbsp finely chopped fresh dill
    • ¼ bulb garlic, minced
    • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
    • ½ tsp black pepper, coarse ground

    It may seem like salt is conspicuous by its absence, but there is already enough in the chickpeas component; you do not want to overwhelm the dish. Trust us that enjoying these things together will be well-balanced and delicious as written.

    For the mango relish:

    • ½ mango, pitted, peeled, and cubed
    • 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
    • 2 tsp cilantro, finely chopped (substitute with parsley if you have the “cilantro tastes like soap” gene)
    • 1 tsp red pepper flakes

    For building the taco:

    • Soft corn tortillas
    • Handful of arugula
    • 1 avocado, pitted, peeled, and sliced
    • ½ red onion, sliced

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Heat a sauté pan with a little olive oil in; add the chickpeas and then the rest of the ingredients from the chickpea section; cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, and set aside.

    2) Combine the tahini sauce ingredients in a small bowl, stirring in ¼ cup water, and set aside.

    3) Combine the mango relish ingredients in a separate small bowl, and set aside. You can eat the other half of the mango if you like.

    4) Lightly toast the tortillas in a dry skillet, or using a grill.

    5) Assemble the tacos; we recommend the order: tortillas, arugula, avocado slices, chickpeas, mango relish, red onion slices, tahini sauce.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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  • Physical Sunscreen or Chemical Sunscreen – Which is Healthier?

  • The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The 10almonds Team

    Take Your Mental Health As Seriously As General Health!

    Sometimes, health and productivity means excelling—sometimes, it means avoiding illness and unproductivity. Both are essential, and today we’re going to tackle some ground-up stuff. If you don’t need it right now, great; we suggest to read it for when and if you do. But how likely is it that you will?

    • One in four of us are affected by serious mental health issues in any given year.
    • One in five of us have suicidal thoughts at some point in our lifetime.
    • One in six of us are affected to at least some extent by the most commonly-reported mental health issues, anxiety and depression, in any given week.

    …and that’s just what’s reported, of course. These stats are from a UK-based source but can be considered indicative generally. Jokes aside, the UK is not a special case and is not measurably worse for people’s mental health than, say, the US or Canada.

    While this is not an inherently cheery topic, we think it’s an important one.

    Depression, which we’re going to focus on today, is very very much a killer to both health and productivity, after all.

    One of the most commonly-used measures of depression is known by the snappy name of “PHQ9”. It stands for “Patient Health Questionnaire Nine”, and you can take it anonymously online for free (without signing up for anything; it’s right there on the page already):

    Take The PHQ9 Test Here! (under 2 minutes, immediate results)

    There’s a chance you took that test and your score was, well, depressing. There’s also a chance you’re doing just peachy, or maybe somewhere in between. PHQ9 scores can fluctuate over time (because they focus on the past two weeks, and also rely on self-reports in the moment), so you might want to bookmark it to test again periodically. It can be interesting to track over time.

    In the event that you’re struggling (or: in case one day you find yourself struggling, or want to be able to support a loved one who is struggling), some top tips that are useful:

    Accept that it’s a medical condition like any other

    Which means some important things:

    • You/they are not lazy or otherwise being a bad person by being depressed
    • You/they will probably get better at some point, especially if help is available
    • You/they cannot, however, “just snap out of it”; illness doesn’t work that way
    • Medication might help (it also might not)

    Do what you can, how you can, when you can

    Everyone knows the advice to exercise as a remedy for depression, and indeed, exercise helps many. Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy.

    Did you ever see the 80s kids’ movie “The Neverending Story”? There’s a scene in which the young hero Atreyu must traverse the “Swamp of Sadness”, and while he has a magical talisman that protects him, his beloved horse Artax is not so lucky; he slows down, and eventually stops still, sinking slowly into the swamp. Atreyu pulls at him and begs him to keep going, but—despite being many times bigger and stronger than Atreyu, the horse just sinks into the swamp, literally drowning in despair.

    See the scene: The Neverending Story movie clip – Artax and the Swamp of Sadness (1984)

    Wow, they really don’t make kids’ movies like they used to, do they?

    But, depression is very much like that, and advice “exercise to feel less depressed!” falls short of actually being helpful, when one is too depressed to do it.

    If you’re in the position of supporting someone who’s depressed, the best tool in your toolbox will be not “here’s why you should do this” (they don’t care; not because they’re an uncaring person by nature, but because they are physiologically impeded from caring about themself at this time), but rather:

    “please do this with me”

    The reason this has a better chance of working is because the depressed person will in all likelihood be unable to care enough to raise and/or maintain an objection, and while they can’t remember why they should care about themself, they’re more likely to remember that they should care about you, and so will go with your want/need more easily than with their own. It’s not a magic bullet, but it’s worth a shot.

    What if I’m the depressed person, though?

    Honestly, the same, if there’s someone around you that you do care about; do what you can to look after you, for them, if that means you can find some extra motivation.

    But I’m all alone… what now?

    Firstly, you don’t have to be alone. There are free services that you can access, for example:

    …which varyingly offer advice, free phone services, webchats, and the like.

    But also, there are ways you can look after yourself a little bit; do the things you’d advise someone else to do, even if you’re sure they won’t work:

    • Take a little walk around the block
    • Put the lights on when you’re not sleeping
    • For that matter, get out of bed when you’re not sleeping. Literally lie on the floor if necessary, but change your location.
    • Change your bedding, or at least your clothes
    • If changing the bedding is too much, change just the pillowcase
    • If changing your clothes is too much, change just one item of clothing
    • Drink some water; it won’t magically cure you, but you’ll be in slightly better order
    • On the topic of water, splash some on your face, if showering/bathing is too much right now
    • Do something creative (that’s not self-harm). You may scoff at the notion of “art therapy” helping, but this is a way to get at least some of the lights on in areas of your brain that are a little dark right now. Worst case scenario is it’ll be a distraction from your problems, so give it a try.
    • Find a connection to community—whatever that means to you—even if you don’t feel you can join it right now. Discover that there are people out there who would welcome you if you were able to go join them. Maybe one day you will!
    • Hiding from the world? That’s probably not healthy, but while you’re hiding, take the time to read those books (write those books, if you’re so inclined), learn that new language, take up chess, take up baking, whatever. If you can find something that means anything to you, go with that for now, ride that wave. Motivation’s hard to come by during depression and you might let many things slide; you might as well get something out of this period if you can.

    If you’re not depressed right now but you know you’re predisposed to such / can slip that way?

    Write yourself instructions now. Copy the above list if you like.

    Most of all: have a “things to do when I don’t feel like doing anything” list.

    If you only take one piece of advice from today’s newsletter, let that one be it!

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  • Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The 10almonds Team

    Lower Your Cortisol! Here’s Why & How…

    Cortisol, or “the stress hormone” to its friends, is produced by your adrenal glands, and as generally considered “not fun”.

    It does serve a purpose, of course, just like everything else our body does. It serves as part of the “fight or flight” response, for example, and helps you to wake up in the morning.

    While you do need some cortisol (and a small percentage of people have too little), most of us have too much.

    Why? Simply put, modern life is not what 200,000* years of human evolution prepared us for:

    *the 200,000 years figure is conservative and doesn’t take into account the 200,000,000 years of pre-hominid mammalian evolution. Doing so, on the basis of the mammalian brain & physiology being what’s important here, means our modern stressors have been around for <0.0001% of the time we have.

    So guess what, our bodies haven’t caught up. As far as our bodies are concerned, we are supposed to be enjoying the sunshine of grassy plains and the shade of woodland while eating fruit.

    • When the alarm clock goes off, our body panics and prepares us to either flee or help fight the predator, because why else would we have been woken so?
    • When we have a pressing deadline for work, our brain processes this as “if we don’t do this, we will literally starve and die”.
    • When people are upset or angry with us, there’s a part of our brain that fears exile from the tribe and resultant death.

    …and so on.

    Health Risks of High Cortisol

    The long-term stressors are the biggest issue for health. Unless you have a heart condition or other relevant health problem, almost anyone can weather a brief unpleasant surprise. But if something persists? That prompts the body to try to protect you, bless it. The body’s attempts backfire, because…

    • One way it does this by making sure to save as much food as possible in the form of body fat
    • It’ll also increase your appetite, to make sure you eat anything you can while you still can
    • It additionally tries to protect you by keeping you on the brink of fight-or-flight readiness, e.g:
      • High blood pressure
      • High blood sugar levels
      • Rapid mood changes—gotta be able to do those heel-turns as necessary and react quickly to any possible threat!

    Suffice it to say, these things are not good for your long-term health.

    That’s the “Why”—now here’s the “How”:

    Lowering your cortisol levels mostly means lowering your stress and/or lowering your stress response. We previously gave some powerful tools for lowering anxiety, which for these purposes amounts to the same thing.

    However, we can also make nutritional and lifestyle changes that will reduce our cortisol levels, for example:

    • Reduce (ideally: eliminate from your lifestyle) caffeine
    • Reduce (ideally: eliminate from your lifestyle) alcohol
      • Yes, really. While many understandably turn to alcohol specifically to help manage stress, it only makes it worse long-term.
      • Additionally, alcohol directly stimulates cortisol production, counterintuitive as that may be.

    Read: Alcohol, Aging, and the Stress Response ← full article (with 37 sources of its own) from the NYMC covering how alcohol stimulates cortisol production and what that means for us

    As well as reductions/eliminations, are some things you can add into your lifestyle that will help!

    We’ve written previously about some:

    Read: Ashwagandha / Read: L-Theanine / Read: CBD Oil

    Other things include, no surprises here:

    Progressive Relaxation

    We’ll give this one its own section because we’ve not talked about it before. Maybe you’re familiar. If not, then in a nutshell: progressive relaxation means progressively tensing and then relaxing each part of your body in turn.

    Why does this work? Part of it is just a physical trick involving biofeedback and the natural function of muscles to contract and relax in turn, but the other part is even cleverer:

    It basically tricks the most primitive part of your brain, the limbic system, into thinking you had a fight and won, telling it “thank you very much for the cortisol but we don’t need it anymore”.

    Take a Hike! Or a Stroll… You Do You!

    Last but not least: go connect with your roots. Spend time in the park, or at least the garden. Have a picnic, if the weather suits. Go somewhere you can spend time around leafy green things under a blue sky (we realize the blue sky may be subject to availability in some locations, but do what you can!).

    Remember also: just as your body’s responses will be tricked by the alarm clock or the housework, they will also be easily tricked by blue and green stuff around you. If a sunny garden isn’t available in your location, a picture of one as your desktop background is the next best thing.

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  • An RSV vaccine has been approved for people over 60. But what about young children?

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    Allen Cheng – Monash University

    The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has approved a vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in Australia for the first time. The shot, called Arexvy and manufactured by GSK, will be available by prescription to adults over 60.

    RSV is a contagious respiratory virus which causes an illness similar to influenza, most notably in babies and older adults.

    So while it will be good to have an RSV vaccine available for older people, where is protection up to for the youngest children?

    A bit about RSV

    RSV was discovered in chimpanzees with respiratory illness in 1956, and was soon found to be a common cause of illness in humans.

    There are two key groups of people we would like to protect from RSV: babies (up to about one year old) and people older than 60.

    Babies tend to fill up hospitals during the RSV season in late spring and winter in large numbers, but severe infection requiring admission to intensive care is less common.

    In babies and younger children, RSV generally causes a wheezing asthma-like illness (bronchiolitis), but can also cause pneumonia and croup.

    Although there are far fewer hospital admissions among older people, they can develop severe disease and die from an infection.

    A baby sitting on a bed.
    Babies account for the majority of hospitalisations with RSV.
    Prostock-studio/Shutterstock

    RSV vaccines for older people

    For older adults, there are actually several RSV vaccines in the pipeline. The recent Australian TGA approval of Arexvy is likely to be the first of several, with other vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna currently in development.

    The GSK and Pfizer RSV vaccines are similar. They both contain a small component of the virus, called the pre-fusion protein, that the immune system can recognise.

    Both vaccines have been shown to reduce illness from RSV by more than 80% in the first season after vaccination.

    In older adults, side effects following Arexvy appear to be similar to other vaccines, with a sore arm and generalised aches and fatigue frequently reported.

    Unlike influenza vaccines which are given each year, it is anticipated the RSV vaccine would be a one-off dose, at least at this stage.

    Protecting young children from RSV

    Younger babies don’t tend to respond well to some vaccines due to their immature immune system. To prevent other diseases, this can be overcome by giving multiple vaccine doses over time. But the highest risk group for RSV are those in the first few months of life.

    To protect this youngest age group from the virus, there are two potential strategies available instead of vaccinating the child directly.

    The first is to give a vaccine to the mother and rely on the protective antibodies passing to the infant through the placenta. This is similar to how we protect babies by vaccinating pregnant women against influenza and pertussis (whooping cough).

    The second is to give antibodies directly to the baby as an injection. With both these strategies, the protection provided is only temporary as antibodies wane over time, but this is sufficient to protect infants through their highest risk period.

    A pregnant woman receives a vaccination.
    Women could be vaccinated during pregnancy to protect their baby in its first months of life.
    Image Point Fr/Shutterstock

    Abrysvo, the Pfizer RSV vaccine, has been trialled in pregnant women. In clinical trials, this vaccine has been shown to reduce illness in infants for up to six months. It has been approved in pregnant women in the United States, but is not yet approved in Australia.

    An antibody product called palivizumab has been available for many years, but is only partially effective and extremely expensive, so has only been given to a small number of children at very high risk.

    A newer antibody product, nirsevimab, has been shown to be effective in reducing infections and hospitalisations in infants. It was approved by the TGA in November, but it isn’t yet clear how this would be accessed in Australia.

    What now?

    RSV, like influenza, is a major cause of respiratory illness, and the development of effective vaccines represents a major advance.

    While the approval of the first vaccine for older people is an important step, many details are yet to be made available, including the cost and the timing of availability. GSK has indicated its vaccine should be available soon. While the vaccine will initially only be available on private prescription (with the costs paid by the consumer), GSK has applied for it to be made free under the National Immunisation Program.

    In the near future, we expect to hear further news about the other vaccines and antibodies to protect those at higher risk from RSV disease, including young children.The Conversation

    Allen Cheng, Professor of Infectious Diseases, Monash University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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