Peanuts vs Walnuts – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing peanuts to walnuts, we picked the peanuts.
Why?
What heresy is this?!
“But walnuts are more expensive!”, we hear you cry. “They have omega-3s! They look like little brains!”
And, we must confess, all of these things are true. However…
In terms of macros, peanuts have much more protein, and a little more fiber, while walnuts have more fat. And yes, those fats are healthy, and yes, the omega-3 content of walnuts is worth noting. However, while walnuts are higher in total and polyunsaturated fats, peanuts are higher in monounsaturated fats, which are also beneficial. All in all, we’re calling it either a tie on macros, or a win for peanuts, as it really is a lot more protein, and we always consider fiber of top importance.
In the category of vitamins, peanuts have (a lot) more of vitamins B1, B3, B5, B9, E, and choline, while walnuts have a (very) little more of vitamins B2 and B6. So, a clear win for peanuts here, and that’s without considering that in terms of margins of difference, peanuts have 11x the vitamin E, for example.
Looking at minerals, peanuts have more iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while walnuts have more calcium, copper, and manganese. Another clear win for peanuts.
When it comes to polyphenols, peanuts have more diverse polyphenols, while walnuts have a greater total mass of polyphenols. A tie here, or possibly a subjective win for walnuts.
In short, both are great and both have their merits, but by the numbers, and adding up the sections, peanuts take the win today. Still (assuming no allergy), by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts
Enjoy!
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Fitness In Our Fifties
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
Q: What’s a worthwhile fitness goal for people in their 50s?
A: At 10almonds, we think that goals are great but habits are better.
If your goal is to run a marathon, that’s a fine goal, and can be very motivating, but then after the marathon, then what? You’ll look back on it as a great achievement, but what will it do for your future health?
PS, yes, marathon-running in one’s middle age is a fine and good activity for most people. Maybe skip it if you have osteoporosis or some other relevant problem (check with your doctor), but…
Marathons in Mid- and Later-Life ← we wrote about the science of it here
PS, we also explored some science that may be applicable to your other question, on the same page as that about marathons!
The thing about habits vs goals is that habits give ongoing cumulative (often even: compounding) benefits:
How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits
If you pressingly want advice on goals though, our advice is this:
Make it your goal to be prepared for the health challenges of later life. It may seem gloomy to say that old age is coming for us all if something else doesn’t get us first, but the fact is, old age does not have to come with age-related decline, and the very least, we can increase our healthspan (so we’re hitting 90 with most of the good health we enjoyed in our 70s, for example, or hitting 80 with most of the good health we enjoyed in our 60s).
If that goal seems a little wishy-washy, here are some very specific and practical ideas to get you started:
Train For The Event Of Your Life!
As for the limits and/or extents of how much we can do in that regard? Here are what two aging experts have to say:
And here’s what we at 10almonds had to say:
Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
Take care!
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Burned Out By Tuesday?
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Avoiding Burnout, The Active Way
This is Dr. Claudine Holt. She’s double board-certified, in Occupational & Environmental Medicine, and Lifestyle Medicine.
In short: preventative medicine in all parts of our life.
Hopefully, you are reading this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to take on another exciting day in this wonderful, beautiful world!
On the other hand, it’s possible that you’re reading this semi-focussed, looking for a crumb of dopamine as much as you are looking for information.
If you’ve ever had the “What a week!” / “It’s only Tuesday” moment, this one’s for you.
What does Dr. Holt want us to know?
You can recover from burnout without guilt
Sometimes, we overreach ourselves. Sometimes, life overreaches us! Sometimes it’s not that we overcommitted—it’s just that we were taking each day as it comes, but sometimes several days gang up on us at once.
Sometimes, even, we can feel exhausted when it seems like we haven’t done anything.
Note: if you feel exhausted and it seems like you haven’t done anything, then be aware: you are exhausted for a reason!
What that reason might be may vary, but contrary to popular belief, energy does not just vanish. It went somewhere.
This goes double if you have any chronic illness(es), even if you’re not aware of having had a flare-up, chances are you were just exceptionally busy (on a cellular level).
And it’s easy to think that “mere” cellular activity shouldn’t be exhausting, but that is 100% of where our energy transactions happen—whether or not we are consciously aware of them!
See also: Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue ← yes, this also covers when you are too exhausted to shop and cook like a TV chef
Dr. Holt specializes in working with burned out medical professionals (and also specifically specializes in working with women), but there are lessons for everyone in her advice. For example:
Fiction: ”Medicine is my calling–it’s who I am.”
Fact: You are more than medicine! Remember that your career is just one aspect of your life. Don’t forget to create your big-picture vision and tend the garden of the other areas of your life too.
Read more: Dr. Claudine Holt | Burnout: Fact vs Fiction
This same thing can go for whatever part of your identity frequently follows “I’m a…”, and is somewhere that you put a lot of your energy; it could equally be a non-professional job like “homemaker”, or a relational status like “husband”, or a cultural identifier like “Christian”, or a hobby like “gardener” (assuming that is not also your profession, in which case, same item, different category).
Indeed, a lot of women especially get hit by “the triple burden” of professional work, housework, and childcare. And it’s not even necessarily that we resent any of those things or feel like they’re a burden; we (hopefully) love our professions, homes, children. But, here’s the thing:
No amount of love will add extra hours to the day.
So what does she recommend doing about it, when sometimes we’re juggling things that can’t be dropped?
Start simple, but start!
Dr. Holt recommends to start with a smile (yes even if, and sometimes especially when, the circumstances do not feel like they merit it), and deploy some CBT tools:
Two Hacks to Quickly Rise Above Burnout (Or Any Circumstance)
We’ve expanded on this topic here:
With a more level head on, it becomes easier to take on the next step, which creating healthy boundaries—and that doesn’t just mean with other people!
It also means slaying our own perfectionism and imposter syndrome—both things that will have us chasing our tails 36 hours per day if we let them.
See also:
- Perfectionism, And How To Make Yours Work For You
- Imposter Syndrome (And Why Almost Everyone Has It)
❝Burnout is the culture of our times. A culture that expects us to do more and think our way out of everything. A culture that asks for more than the body can bear. Unfortunately, even though the situation might not be of our creation, burnout culture is our inheritance.
An inheritance we can either perpetuate—or change—depending on what we embody.❞
Source: The Embodied MD on Burnout with Dr Claudine Holt
That “embodiment” is partly our choices and actions that we bring and own just as we bring and own our body—and it’s partly our relationship with our body itself, and learning to love it, and work with it to achieve wonderful things, instead of just getting through the day.
Which yes, does also mean making space for good diet, exercise, sleep and so forth, per:
These Top Five Things Make The Biggest Difference To Health
Want to know more?
You might like to check out Dr. Holt’s website:
The Embodied M.D. | Burnout Coach
…where she also offers resources such as a blog and a podcast.
Enjoy!
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The Drug & Supplement Combo That Reverses Aging
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So far, its effects have been dramatic (in a good way) in mice; human trials are now underway.
How does it work?
It builds from previous work, in which a Japanese research team created an “anti-aging vaccine”, that responded to a problem more specific than aging as a whole, namely atherosclerosis.
They found that a certain* protein was upregulated (i.e., it was made at a greater rate resulting in greater quantities) in patients (mouse and human alike) with atherosclerosis. So, they immunized the mice against that protein, and long story short, everything improved for them, from their atherosclerosis to general markers of aging—including growing back fur that had been lost due to age-related balding (just like in humans). They also lived longer, as is to be expected of a mouse who is now biologically younger.
*To avoid being mysterious: it was glycoprotein nonmetastatic melanoma protein B, known to its friends as GPNMB.
You may be wondering: how can one be immunized against a protein? If so, do bear in mind, a virus is also a protein. In this case, they developed an RNA vaccine, that works in a similar way to the COVID vaccines we all know and love (albeit with a different target).
You can read about this in abundant detail here: Senolytic vaccination improves normal and pathological age-related phenotypes and increases lifespan in progeroid mice
Hot on the heels of that, new approaches were found, including…
The combination
We’ll not keep you waiting; the combination is dasatinib plus quercetin, or else fisetin alone.
It’s about killing senescent (aging) “zombie cells” while sparing healthy cells, which that drug (dasatinib) and those supplements (quercetin and fisetin) do.
The researchers noted:
❝Senescent cells are resistant to apoptosis, which is governed through the upregulation of senescent cell anti-apoptotic pathways (SCAPs). Compounds were subsequently identified that disrupted the SCAPs, inducing death of senescent cells while leaving healthy cells unaffected. Forty-six potential senolytic agents were discovered through this process. To advance translational efforts, the majority of research has focused on agents with known safety profiles and limited off-target effects (Kirkland and Tchkonia, 2020).
The best characterized senolytic agents are dasatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor approved for use in humans for cancer treatment, and quercetin, a naturally occurring plant flavonoid. The agents have a synergistic effect, making their combination more potent for senescent cell clearance (Zhu et al., 2015). As senescent cells do not divide and accumulate over a period of weeks, they can be administered using an intermittent approach, which further serves to reduce the risk of side effects (Kirkland and Tchkonia, 2020).
In preclinical trials, the combination of dasatinib and quercetin (D + Q) have been found to alleviate numerous chronic medical conditions including vascular stiffness, osteoporosis, frailty, and hepatic stenosis❞
Source: A geroscience motivated approach to treat Alzheimer’s disease: Senolytics move to clinical trials
As to how they expanded on this research:
❝In our study, oral D + Q were intermittently administered to tau transgenic mice with late-stage pathology (approximated to a 70-year-old human with advanced AD) (Musi et al., 2018). The treatment effectively reduced cellular senescence and associated senescence-associated secretory phenotype incidence. The 35 % reduction in neurofibrillary tangles was accompanied by enhanced neuron density, decreased ventricular enlargement, diminished tau accumulation, and restoration of aberrant cerebral blood flow. A subsequent preclinical study validated the findings, reporting that intermittently administered D + Q cleared senescent cells in the central nervous system, reduced amyloid-β plaques, attenuated neuroinflammation, and enhanced cognition❞
Source: Ibid.
And now taking it to humans:
❝The first clinical trial of D + Q for early-stage Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) has completed enrollment (Gonzales et al., 2021). The primary aim of the open-label pilot study was to examine the central nervous system penetrance of D and Q in a small sample of older adults with early-stage AD (NCT04063124). In addition, two placebo-controlled trials of D + Q for neurodegenerative disease are underway (NCT04685590 and NCT04785300).
One of the trials in development is a multi-site, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of senolytic therapy in older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or early-stage dementia (Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR) Global 0.5–1) due to AD (elevated CSF total tau/Aβ42 ratio).
The treatment regimen will consist of 12-weeks of intermittently administered oral D + Q.❞
Source: Ibid.
The study is actually completed now, but its results are not yet published (again, at time of writing). Which means: they have the data, and now they’re writing the paper.
We look forward to providing an update about that, when the paper is published!
In the meantime…
Dasatinib is a drug usually prescribed to people with certain kinds of leukemia, and suffice it to say, it’s prescription-only. And unlike drugs that are often prescribed off-label (such as metformin for weight loss), getting your doctor to prescribe you an anticancer drug is unlikely unless you have the cancer in question.
You may be wondering: how is an anticancer drug helpful against aging? And the answer is that cancer and aging are very interrelated, and both have to do with “these old cells just won’t die, and are using the resources needed for young healthy cells”. So in both cases, killing those “zombie cells” while sparing healthy ones, is what’s needed. However, your doctor will probably not buy that as a reason to prescribe you a drug that is technically chemotherapy.
Quercetin, on the other hand, is a readily-available supplement, as is fisetin, and both have glowing (in a good way) safety profiles.
Want to know more?
You can read more about each of quercetin and fisetin (including how to get them), here:
Enjoy!
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Rutin For Your Circulation & More
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Rutin is a bioflavonoid so potent it’s also been called “vitamin P”, and it’s found most abundantly in buckwheat, as well appearing in citrus and some stone fruits (apricots, plums, etc) as well as figs and apples—it’s also found in asparagus, and green and black tea.
So, what does it do?
Quite a lot: The Pharmacological Potential of Rutin
There’s much more there than we have room to cover here, but we’ll pick out a few salient properties to focus on.
First, a word of warning
A lot of the extant science for rutin is in non-human animals. Sometimes, what works for non-human animals doesn’t work for humans; we saw a clear example of this here:
Conjugated Linoleic Acid For Weight Loss?
…in which CLA worked for weight loss in mice, hamsters, chickens, and pigs, but stubbornly not humans.
The state of affairs with the science for rutin isn’t nearly that bad and there are human studies showing efficacy, and indeed, rutin is given to (human) patients with capillary fragility, varicose veins, bruising, or hemorrhoids, for example:
So, we’ll try to give you humans-only sources so far as we can today!
Improving blood flow
Rutin does improve various blood metrics, including various kinds of blood pressure (diastolic, systolic, mean arterial, pulse) and heart rate. At least, it did in humans with type 2 diabetes, and we may reasonably assume these results may be extrapolated to humans without type 2 (or any other) diabetes:
As you may gather from the title, it did also significantly improve serum antioxidant levels, and quality of life (which latter was categorized as: emotional limitations, energy and freshness, mental health, social performance, and general health).
We couldn’t find studies for cardioprotective effects in humans (and of course those couldn’t be RCTs, they’d have to be observational studies, because no ethics board allows inducing heart attacks in humans for the sake of science), but here’s a study using rats (with and without diabetes), showing proof of principle at least:
Anti-Alzheimer’s potential
As ever, a good general rule of thumb is “what’s good for the blood is good for the brain”, and that’s true in this case too.
The title says it all, here:
In case that is not clear: everything in that title after the word “inhibits” is bad for the brain and is implicated in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis and progression; in other words, rutin is good against all those bad, Alzheimer’s-favoring things.
Other neuroprotective activity
You may remember from the above-linked research that it helps protect against damage caused by Advanced Glycation End-products (AGEs) (the golden-brown stuff that appears as a result of dry-cooking proteins and fats); it also helps against damage caused by acrylamide (the golden-brown stuff that appears as a result of dry-cooking starches).
Note: in both cases “dry-cooking” includes cooking with oil; it simply means “without water”.
Again, this was a rat study, because no ethics board would have let the researchers fry human brains for science.
Want to try some?
As well as simply enjoying the fruits and vegetables that contain it, it is possible to take a rutin supplement.
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎
Enjoy!
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Metabolic Health Roadmap – by Brenda Wollenberg
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The term “roadmap” is often used in informative books, but in this case, Wollenberg (a nutritionist with decades of experience) really does deliver what can very reasonably be described as a roadmap:
She provides chapters in the form of legs of a journey [to better metabolic health], and those legs are broadly divided into an “information center” to deliver new information, a “rest stop” for reflection, “roadwork” to guide the reader through implementing the information we just learned, in a practical fashion, and finally “traveller assistance” to give additional support / resources, as well as any potential troubleshooting, etc.
The information and guidance within are all based on very good science; a lot is what you will have read already about blood sugar management (generally the lynchpin of metabolic health in general), but there’s also a lot about leveraging epigenetics for our benefit, rather than being sabotaged by such.
There’s a little guidance that falls outside of nutrition (sleep, exercise, etc), but for the most part, Wollenberg stays within her own field of expertise, nutrition.
The style is idiosyncratic; it’s very clear that her goal is providing the promised roadmap, and not living up to any editor’s wish or publisher’s hope of living up to industry standard norms of book formatting. However, this pays off, because her delivery is clear and helpful while remaining personable and yet still bringing just as much actual science, and this makes for a very pleasant and informative read.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your metabolic health, as well as get held-by-the-hand through your health-improvement journey by a charming guide, this is very much the book for you!
Click here to check out the Metabolic Health Roadmap, and start taking steps!
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Eat to Live – by Dr. Joel Fuhrman
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It sure would be great if we could eat all that we wanted, and remain healthy without putting on weight.
That’s the main intent of Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book, with some caveats:
- His diet plan gives unlimited amounts of some foods, while restricting others
- With a focus on nutrient density, he puts beans and legumes into the “eat as much as you want” category, and grains (including whole grains) into the “restrict” category
This latter is understandable for a weight-loss diet (as the book’s subtitle promises). The question then is: will it be sustainable?
Current scientific consensus holds for “whole grains are good and an important part of diet”. It does seem fair that beans and legumes should be able to replace grains, for grains’ carbohydrates and fiber.
However, now comes the double-edged aspect: beans and legumes contain more protein than grains. So, we’ll feel fuller sooner, and stay fuller for longer. This means we’ll probably lose weight, and keep losing weight. Or at least: losing fat. Muscle mass will stay or go depending on what you’re doing with your muscles.
If you want to keep your body fat percentage at a certain level and not go below it, you may well need to reintroduce grains to your diet, which isn’t something that Dr. Fuhrman covers in this book.
Bottom line: this is a good, science-based approach for healthily losing weight (specifically, fat) and keeping it off. It might be a little too good at this for some people though.
Click here to check out Eat To Live and decide what point you want to stop losing weight at!
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