The Ultimate Booster

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Winning The Biological Arms Race

The human immune system (and indeed, other immune systems, but we are all humans here, after all) is in a constant state of war with pathogens, and that war is a constant biological arms race:

  • We improve our defenses and destroy the attackers; the 1% of pathogens that survived now “know” how to counter that trick.
  • The pathogens wreak havoc in our systems; the n% of us that survive now have immune systems that “know” how to counter that trick.

Vaccines are a mighty tool in our favor here, because they’re the technology that stops our n% from also being a very low number.

With vaccines, we can effectively pass on established defenses onto the population at large, as this cute video explains very well and very simply in 57 seconds:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

The problem with vaccines

The problem is that this accelerates the arms race. It’s like a chess game where we are able to respond to every move quickly (which is good for us), and/but this means passing the move over to our opponent sooner.

That problem’s hard to avoid, because the alternative has always been “let people die in much larger numbers”.

Traditional vs mRNA vaccines

A quick refresher before we continue to the big news of the day:

  • Traditional vaccines use a disabled version of a pathogen to trigger an immune response that will teach the body to recognize the pathogen ready for when the full version shows up
  • mRNA vaccines use a custom-made bit of genetic information to tell the body to make its own harmless fake pathogen and then respond to the harmless fake pathogen it made.

Note: this happens independently of the host’s DNA, so no, it does not change your DNA

See also: The Truth About Vaccines

Here’s a more detailed explainer (with a helpful diagram) using the COVID mRNA vaccine as an example:

Genome.gov | How does an mRNA vaccine work?

However, this still leaves us “chasing strains”, because as the pathogen (in this case, a virus) adapts, the vaccine has to be updated too, hence all the boosters.

This is a lot like a security update for your computer’s antivirus software. They’re annoying, but they do an important job.

No more “chasing strains”

The press conference soundbite on this sums it up well:

❝Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.❞

~ Jules Bernstein

Read in full: Vaccine breakthrough means no more chasing strains

You may be wondering: what makes this one effective against any strain?

❝What I want to emphasize about this vaccine strategy is that it is broad.

It is broadly applicable to any number of viruses, broadly effective against any variant of a virus, and safe for a broad spectrum of people. This could be the universal vaccine that we have been looking for.

Viruses may mutate in regions not targeted by traditional vaccines. However, we are targeting their whole genome with thousands of small RNAs. They cannot escape this.❞

~ Dr. Rong Hai

Importantly, this means it can be applied not just to one disease, let alone just one strain of COVID. Rather, it can be used for a wide variety of viruses that have similar viral functions—COVID / SARS in general, including influenza, and even viruses such as dengue.

How it does this: the above article explains in more detail, but in few words: it targets tiny strings of the genome that are present in all strains of the virus.

Illustrative example: if you wanted to block 10almonds (please don’t), you could block our email address.

But if we were malicious (we’re not) we could be sneaky and change it, so you’d have to block the new one, and the cycle repeats.

But if you were block all emails containing the tiny string of characters “10almonds”, changing our email address would no longer penetrate your defenses.

Now imagine also blocking strings such as “One-Minute Book Review” and “Today’s almonds have been activated by” and other strings we use in every email.

Now multiply this by thousands of strings (because genomes are much larger than our little newsletter), and you see its effectiveness!

Great! How can I get this?

It’s still in the testing stages for now; this is “breaking news” science, after all.

The study itself

…is paywalled for now, sadly, but if you happen to have institutional access, here it is:

Live-attenuated virus vaccine defective in RNAi suppression induces rapid protection in neonatal and adult mice lacking mature B and T cells

Take care!

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  • Zuranolone: What to know about the pill for postpartum depression

    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.

    In the year after giving birth, about one in eight people who give birth in the U.S. experience the debilitating symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD), including lack of energy and feeling sad, anxious, hopeless, and overwhelmed. 

    Postpartum depression is a serious, potentially life-threatening condition that can affect a person’s bond with their baby. Although it’s frequently confused with the so-called “baby blues,” it’s not the same. 

    The baby blues include similar, temporary symptoms that affect up to 80 percent of people who have recently given birth and usually go away within the first few weeks. PPD usually begins within the first month after giving birth and can last for months and interfere with a person’s daily life if left untreated. Thankfully, PPD is treatable and there is help available

    On August 4, the FDA approved zuranolone, branded as Zurzuvae, the first-ever oral medication to treat PPD. Until now, besides other common antidepressants, the only medication available to treat PPD specifically was the IV injection brexanolone, which is difficult to access and expensive and can only be administered in a hospital or health care setting. 

    Read on to find out more about zuranolone: what it is, how it works, how much it costs, and more. 

    What is zuranolone?

    Zurzuvae is the brand name for zuranolone, an oral medication to treat postpartum depression. Developed by Sage Therapeutics in partnership with Biogen, it’s now available in the U.S. Zurzuvae is typically prescribed as two 25 mg capsules a day for 14 days. In clinical trials, the medication showed to be fast-acting, improving PPD symptoms in just three days

    How does zuranolone work? 

    Zuranolone is a neuroactive steroid, a type of medication that helps the neurotransmitter GABA’s receptors, which affect how the body reacts to anxiety, stress, and fear, function better.

    “Zuranolone can be thought of as a synthetic version of [the neuroactive steroid] allopregnanolone,” says Dr. Katrina Furey, a reproductive psychiatrist, clinical instructor at Yale University, and co-host of the Analyze Scripts podcast. “Women with PPD have lower levels of allopregnenolone compared to women without PPD.”

    How is it different from other antidepressants?

    “What differentiates zuranolone from other previously available oral antidepressants is that it has a much more rapid response and a shorter course of treatment,” says Dr. Asima Ahmad, an OB-GYN, reproductive endocrinologist, and founder of Carrot Fertility

    “It can take effect as early as on day three of treatment, versus other oral antidepressants that can take up to six to 12 weeks to take full effect.” 

    What are Zurzuvae’s side effects? 

    According to the FDA, the most common side effects of Zurzuvae include dizziness, drowsiness, diarrhea, fatigue, the common cold, and urinary tract infection. Similar to other antidepressants, the medication may increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and actions in people 24 and younger. However, NPR noted that this type of labeling is required for all antidepressants, and researchers didn’t see any reports of suicidal thoughts in their trials.

    “Drug trials also noted that the side effects for zuranolone were not as severe,” says Ahmad. “[There was] no sudden loss of consciousness as seen with brexanolone or weight gain and sexual dysfunction, which can be seen with other oral antidepressants.”

    She adds: “Given the lower incidence of side effects and more rapid-acting onset, zuranolone could be a viable option for many,” including those looking for a treatment that offers faster symptom relief. 

    Can someone breastfeed while taking zuranolone?

    It’s complicated. In clinical trials, participants were asked to stop breastfeeding (which, according to Furey, is common in early clinical trials). 

    A small study of people who were nursing while taking zuranolone found that 0.3 percent of the medication dose was passed on to breast milk, which, Furey says, is a pretty low amount of exposure for the baby. Ahmad says that “though some data suggests that the risk of harm to the baby may be low, there is still overall limited data.”

    Overall, people should talk to their health care provider about the risks and benefits of breastfeeding while on the medication. 

    “A lot of factors will need to be weighed, such as overall health of the infant, age of the infant, etc., when making this decision,” Furey says. 

    How much does Zurzuvae cost? 

    Zurzuvae’s price before insurance coverage is $15,900 for the 14-day treatment. However, the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health says insurance companies and Medicaid are expected to cover it because it’s the only drug of its kind. 

    Less than 1 percent of U.S. insurers have issued coverage guidelines so far, so it’s still unknown how much it will cost patients after insurance. Some insurers require patients to try another antidepressant first (like the more common SSRIs) before covering Zurzuvae. For uninsured and underinsured people, Sage Therapeutics said it will offer copay assistance

    The hefty price tag and potential issues with coverage may widen existing health disparities, says Ahmad. “We need to ensure that we are seeking out solutions to enable wide-scale access to all PPD treatments so that people have access to whatever treatment may work best for them.”

    If you or anyone you know is considering suicide or self-harm or is anxious, depressed, upset, or needs to talk, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741. For international resources, here is a good place to begin.

    For more information, talk to your health care provider.

    This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • What Teas To Drink Before Bed (By Science!)

    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.

    Which Sleepy Tea?

    Herbal “tea” preparations (henceforth we will write it without the quotation marks, although these are not true teas) are popular for winding down at the end of a long day ready for a relaxing sleep.

    Today we’ll look at the science for them! We’ll be brief for each, because we’ve selected five and have only so much room, but here goes:

    Camomile

    Simply put, it works and has plenty of good science for it. Here’s just one example:

    ❝Noteworthy, our meta-analysis showed a significant improvement in sleep quality after chamomile administration❞

    ~ Dr. Hieu et al.

    Therapeutic efficacy and safety of chamomile for state anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, insomnia, and sleep quality: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials and quasi-randomized trials

    Also this writer’s favourite relaxation drink!

    (example on Amazon if you want some)

    Lavender

    We didn’t find robust science for its popularly-claimed sedative properties, but it does appear to be anxiolytic, and anxiety gets in the way of sleep, so while lavender may not be a sedative, it may calm a racing mind all the same, thus facilitating better sleep:

    The effect of lavender herbal tea on the anxiety and depression of the elderly: A randomized clinical trial

    (example on Amazon if you want some)

    Magnolia

    Animal study for the mechanism:

    Magnolol, a major bioactive constituent of the bark of Magnolia officinalis, induces sleep via the benzodiazepine site of GABA(A) receptor in mice

    Human study for “it is observed to help humans sleep better”:

    A randomized controlled pilot study of the effectiveness of magnolia tea on alleviating depression in postnatal women

    As you can see from the title, its sedative properties weren’t the point of the study, but if you click through to read it, you can see that they found (and recorded) this benefit anyway

    (example on Amazon if you want some)

    Passionflower

    There’s not a lot of evidence for this one, but there is some. Here’s a small study (n=41) that found:

    ❝Of six sleep-diary measures analysed, sleep quality showed a significantly better rating for passionflower compared with placebo (t(40) = 2.70, p < 0.01). These initial findings suggest that the consumption of a low dose of Passiflora incarnata, in the form of tea, yields short-term subjective sleep benefits for healthy adults with mild fluctuations in sleep quality.❞

    ~ Dr. Ngan & Dr. Conduit

    A double-blind, placebo-controlled investigation of the effects of Passiflora incarnata (passionflower) herbal tea on subjective sleep quality

    So, that’s not exactly a huge body of evidence, but it is promising.

    (example on Amazon if you want some)

    Valerian

    We’ll be honest, the science for this one is sloppy. It’s very rare to find Valerian tested by itself (or sold by itself; we had to dig a bit to find one for the Amazon link below), and that skews the results of science and renders any conclusions questionable.

    And the studies that were done? Dubious methods, and inconclusive results:

    Valerian Root in Treating Sleep Problems and Associated Disorders-A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

    Nevertheless, if you want to try it for yourself, you can do a case study (i.e., n=1 sample) if not a randomized controlled trial, and let us know how it goes 🙂

    (example on Amazon if you want some)

    Summary

    • Valerian we really don’t have the science to say anything about it
    • Passionflower has some nascent science for it, but not much
    • Lavender is probably not soporific, but it is anxiolytic
    • Magnolia almost certainly helps, but isn’t nearly so well-backed as…
    • Camomile comes out on top, easily—by both sheer weight of evidence, and by clear conclusive uncontroversial results.

    Enjoy!

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  • Parents are increasingly saying their child is ‘dysregulated’. What does that actually mean?

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    Welcome aboard the roller coaster of parenthood, where emotions run wild, tantrums reign supreme and love flows deep.

    As children reach toddlerhood and beyond, parents adapt to manage their child’s big emotions and meltdowns. Parenting terminology has adapted too, with more parents describing their child as “dysregulated”.

    But what does this actually mean?

    ShUStudio/Shutterstock

    More than an emotion

    Emotional dysregulation refers to challenges a child faces in recognising and expressing emotions, and managing emotional reactions in social settings.

    This may involve either suppressing emotions or displaying exaggerated and intense emotional responses that get in the way of the child doing what they want or need to do.

    Dysregulation” is more than just feeling an emotion. An emotion is a signal, or cue, that can give us important insights to ourselves and our preferences, desires and goals.

    An emotionally dysregulated brain is overwhelmed and overloaded (often, with distressing emotions like frustration, disappointment and fear) and is ready to fight, flight or freeze.

    Developing emotional regulation

    Emotion regulation is a skill that develops across childhood and is influenced by factors such as the child’s temperament and the emotional environment in which they are raised.

    In the stage of emotional development where emotion regulation is a primary goal (around 3–5 years old), children begin exploring their surroundings and asserting their desires more actively.

    Child sits next to her parent's bed
    A child’s temperament and upbringing affect how they regulate emotions. bluedog studio/Shutterstock

    It’s typical for them to experience emotional dysregulation when their initiatives are thwarted or criticised, leading to occasional tantrums or outbursts.

    A typically developing child will see these types of outbursts reduce as their cognitive abilities become more sophisticated, usually around the age they start school.

    Express, don’t suppress

    Expressing emotions in childhood is crucial for social and emotional development. It involves the ability to convey feelings verbally and through facial expressions and body language.

    When children struggle with emotional expression, it can manifest in various ways, such as difficulty in being understood, flat facial expressions even in emotionally charged situations, challenges in forming close relationships, and indecisiveness.

    Several factors, including anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, giftedness, rigidity and both mild and significant trauma experiences, can contribute to these issues.

    Common mistakes parents can make is dismissing emotions, or distracting children away from how they feel.

    These strategies don’t work and increase feelings of overwhelm. In the long term, they fail to equip children with the skills to identify, express and communicate their emotions, making them vulnerable to future emotional difficulties.

    We need to help children move compassionately towards their difficulties, rather than away from them. Parents need to do this for themselves too.

    Caregiving and skill modelling

    Parents are responsible for creating an emotional climate that facilitates the development of emotion regulation skills.

    Parents’ own modelling of emotion regulation when they feel distressed. The way they respond to the expression of emotions in their children, contributes to how children understand and regulate their own emotions.

    Children are hardwired to be attuned to their caregivers’ emotions, moods, and coping as this is integral to their survival. In fact, their biggest threat to a child is their caregiver not being OK.

    Unsafe, unpredictable, or chaotic home environments rarely give children exposure to healthy emotion expression and regulation. Children who go through maltreatment have a harder time controlling their emotions, needing more brainpower for tasks that involve managing feelings. This struggle could lead to more problems with emotions later on, like feeling anxious and hypervigilant to potential threats.

    Recognising and addressing these challenges early on is essential for supporting children’s emotional wellbeing and development.

    A dysregulated brain and body

    When kids enter “fight or flight” mode, they often struggle to cope or listen to reason. When children experience acute stress, they may respond instinctively without pausing to consider strategies or logic.

    If your child is in fight mode, you might observe behaviours such as crying , clenching fists or jaw, kicking, punching, biting, swearing, spitting or screaming.

    In flight mode, they may appear restless, have darting eyes, exhibit excessive fidgeting, breathe rapidly, or try to run away.

    A shut-down response may look like fainting or a panic attack.

    When a child feels threatened, their brain’s frontal lobe, responsible for rational thinking and problem-solving, essentially goes offline.

    The amygdala, shown here in red, triggers survival mode. pikovit/Shutterstock

    This happens when the amygdala, the brain’s alarm system, sends out a false alarm, triggering the survival instinct.

    In this state, a child may not be able to access higher functions like reasoning or decision-making.

    While our instinct might be to immediately fix the problem, staying present with our child during these moments is more effective. It’s about providing support and understanding until they feel safe enough to engage their higher brain functions again.

    Reframe your thinking so you see your child as having a problem – not being the problem.

    Tips for parents

    Take turns discussing the highs and lows of the day at meal times. This is a chance for you to be curious, acknowledge and label feelings, and model that you, too, experience a range of emotions that require you to put into practice skills to cope and has shown evidence in numerous physical, social-emotional, academic and behavioural benefits.

    Family dinner
    Talk about your day over dinner. Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

    Spending even small amounts (five minutes a day!) of quality one-on-one time with your child is an investment in your child’s emotional wellbeing. Let them pick the activity, do your best to follow their lead, and try to notice and comment on the things they do well, like creative ideas, persevering when things are difficult, and being gentle or kind.

    Take a tip from parents of children with neurodiversity: learn about your unique child. Approaching your child’s emotions, temperament, and behaviours with curiosity can help you to help them develop emotion regulation skills.

    When to get help

    If emotion dysregulation is a persistent issue that is getting in the way of your child feeling happy, calm, or confident – or interfering with learning or important relationships with family members or peers – talk to their GP about engaging with a mental health professional.

    Many families have found parenting programs helpful in creating a climate where emotions can be safely expressed and shared.

    Remember, you can’t pour from an empty cup. Parenting requires you to be your best self and tend to your needs first to see your child flourish.

    Cher McGillivray, Assistant Professor Psychology Department, Bond University and Shawna Mastro Campbell, Assistant Professor Psychology, Bond University

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

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  • The Silent Struggle – by L. William Ross-Child, MLC

    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 vast majority of literature out there about ADHD is about children. And fair enough, there are enough popular misunderstandings of ADHD in children so it’s good those works exist… but what about adults?

    Adults face different challenges than children, and have different responsibilities. People have different expectations. And even if you say you have ADHD… If you’re not behaving like a squirrel, they will often not accept this, much less understand it, because half the actual symptoms are not what most people think they are.

    Ross-Child first lays out the neurobiological underpinnings of ADHD. This is a good place to start, because the physiology of it explains a lot of the other parts of it that can otherwise seem quite mystifying.

    Thereafter, he looks one-by-one at the various cognitive and behavioral aspects of ADHD in adults, which will surely help the reader to better understand themself (or perhaps a loved one).

    The next part of the book is given over to an exploration of ADHD and the differences it can make in the workplace, relationships (incl. ADHD and sex), as well as parenting, and how these things can all be navigated better by all concerned.

    The style throughout is light and very readable, peppered with science made comprehensible. If there’s any flaw, it’s that there are only two pages of references in the bibliography—we’d have liked to have seen more.

    All in all though, a really useful guide if you or a loved one has ADHD and you’d like strategies for working with (or around) this condition in a world not made to be kind to such.

    Order your copy of “The Silent Struggle: Taking Charge of ADHD in Adults” from Amazon today!

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  • Boundary-Setting Beyond “No”

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    More Than A “No”

    A lot of people struggle with boundary-setting, and it’s not always the way you might think.

    The person who “can’t say no” to people probably comes to mind, but the problem is more far-reaching than that, and it’s rooted in not being clear over what a boundary actually is.

    For example: “Don’t bring him here again!”

    Pretty clear, right?

    And while it is indeed clear, it’s not a boundary; it’s a command. Which may or may not be obeyed, and at the end of the day, what right have we to command people in general?

    Same goes for less dramatic things like “Don’t talk to me about xyz”, which can still be important or trivial, depending on whether the topic of xyz is deeply traumatizing for you, or mildly annoying, or something else entirely.

    Why this becomes a problem

    It becomes a problem not because of any lack of clarity about your wishes, but rather, because it opens the floor for a debate. The listener may be given to wonder whether your right to not experience xyz is greater or lesser than their right to do/say/etc xyz.

    “My right to swing my fist ends where someone else’s nose begins”

    …does not help here, firstly because both sides will believe themself (or nobody) to be the injured party; for the fist-swinger, the other person’s nose made a vicious assault on their freedom. Or secondly, maybe there was some higher principle at stake; a reason why violence was justified. And then ten levels of philosophical debate. We see this a lot when it comes to freedom of expression, and vigorous debate over whether this entails freedom from social consequences of one’s words/actions.

    How a good boundary-setting works (if this, then that)

    Consider two signs:

    • No trespassing!
    • Trespassers will be shot!

    Superficially, the second just seems like a more violent rendition of the first. But in fact, the second is more informationally useful: it explains what will happen if the boundary is not respected, and allows the reader to make their own informed decision with regard to what to do with that information.

    We can employ this method (and can even do so gently, if we so wish and hopefully we mostly do wish to be gentle) when it comes to social and interpersonal boundary-setting:

    • If you bring him here again, I will refuse you entrance
    • If you bring up that topic again, I will ask you to leave
    • If you do that, I will never speak to you again
    • If you don’t stop drinking, I will divorce you

    This “if-this-then-that” model does the very first thing that any good boundary does: make itself clear.

    It doesn’t rely on moral arguments; it doesn’t invite debate. For example in that last case, it doesn’t argue that the partner doesn’t have the right to drink—it simply expresses what the speaker will exercise their own right to do, in that eventuality.

    (as an aside, the situation that occurs when one is enmeshed with someone who is dependent on a substance is a complex topic, and if you’re interested in that, check out: Codependency Isn’t What Most People Think)

    Back on track: boundary-setting is not about what’s right or good—it’s about nothing more nor less than a clear delineation between what we will and won’t accept, and how we’ll enforce that.

    We can also, in particularly personal boundary-setting (such as with sexual boundaries’ oft-claimed “gray areas”), fix an improperly-set boundary that forgot to do the above, e.g:

    “How about [proposition]?”
    “No thank you” ← casually worded answer; contextually reasonable, and yet not a clear boundary per what we discussed above
    “Come on, I think you’d like it”
    “I said no. No means no. Ask me again and I will [consequences that are appropriate and actionable]”

    What’s “appropriate and actionable” may vary a lot from one situation to another, but it’s important that it’s something you can do and are prepared to do and will do if the condition for doing it is met.

    Anything less than that is not a boundary—it’s just a request.

    Note: this does not require that we have power, by the way. If we have zero power in a situation, well, that definitely sucks, but even then we can still express what is actionable, e.g. “I will never trust you again”.

    “Price of entry”

    You may have wondered, upon reading “boundary-setting is not about what’s right or good—it’s about nothing more nor less than a clear delineation between what we will and won’t accept, and how we’ll enforce that”, can’t that be used to control and manipulate people, essentially coercing them to do or not do things with the threat of consequences (specifically: bad ones)?

    And the answer is: yes, yes it can.

    But that’s where the flipside comes into play—the other person gets to set their boundaries, too.

    For all of us, if we have any boundaries at all, there is a “price of entry” and all who want to be in our lives, or be close to us, have to decide for themselves whether that price of entry is worth it.

    • If a person says “do not talk about topic xyz to me or I will leave”, that is a price of entry for being close to them.
    • If you are passionate about talking about topic xyz to the point that you are unwilling to shelve it when in their presence, then that is the price of entry for being close to you.
    • If one or more of you is not willing to pay the price of entry, then guess what, you’re just not going to be close.

    In cases of forced proximity (e.g. workplaces or families) this is likely to get resolved by the workplace’s own rules (i.e. the price of entry that you agreed to when signing a contract to work there), and if something like that doesn’t exist (such as in families), well, that forced proximity is going to reach a breaking point, and somebody may discover it wasn’t enforceable after all.

    See also: Family Estrangement: More Common Than Most People Think

    …which also details how to fix it, where possible.

    Take care!

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  • Strawberries vs Blackberries – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing strawberries to blackberries, we picked the blackberries.

    Why?

    Shocking nobody, both are very healthy options. However, blackberries do come out on top:

    In terms of macros, the main thing that sets them apart is that blackberries have more than 2x the fiber. Other differences in macros are also in blackberries’ favor, but only very marginally, so we’ll not distract with those here. The fiber difference is distinctly significant, though.

    In the category of vitamins, blackberries lead with more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B5, B9, E, and K, as well as more choline. Meanwhile, strawberries boast more of vitamins B1, B6, and C. So, a 8:2 advantage for blackberries (and some of the margins are very large, such as 9x more choline, 4x more vitamin E, and nearly 18x more vitamin A).

    When it comes to minerals, things are not less clear: blackberries have considerably more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, and zinc. The two fruits are equal in other minerals that they both contain, and strawberries don’t contain any mineral in greater amounts than blackberries do.

    A discussion of these berries’ health benefits would be incomplete without at least mentioning polyphenols, but both of them are equally good sources of such, so there’s no distinction to set one above the other in this category.

    As ever, enjoy both, though! Diversity is good.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Take care!

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