Guinness Is Good For You*
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Guinness Is Good For You*
*This is our myth-buster edition, so maybe best not take that at face value!
To this day, writing the words “Guinness is” into Google will autocomplete to “Guinness is good for you”. The ad campaign proclaiming such launched about a hundred years ago, and was based on Guinness as it was when it was launched another hundred years before that.
Needless to say, none of this was based on modern science.
Is there any grain of truth?
Perhaps its strongest health claim, in terms of what stands up to modern scrutiny, is that it does contain some B vitamins. Famously (as it was once given to pregnant women in Ireland on the strength of such) it contains folate (also known as Vitamin B9). How much?
A 15oz glass of Guinness contains 12.8µg of folate, which is 3.2% of the RDA. In other words, you could get all the folate your body needs by drinking just 32 glasses of Guinness per day.
With that in mind, you might want to get the non-alcoholic version!
“I heard you could live on just Guinness and oranges, because it contains everything but vitamin C?”
The real question is: how long could you live? Otherwise, a facetious answer here could be akin to the “fun fact” that you can drink lava… once.
Guinness is missing many essential amino acids and fatty acids, several vitamins, and many minerals. Exactly what it’s missing may vary slightly from region to region, as while the broad recipe is the same, some processes add or remove some extra micronutrients.
As to what you’d die of first, for obvious reasons there have been no studies done on this, but our money would be on liver failure.
It would also wreak absolute havoc with your kidneys, but kidneys are tricky beasts—you can be down to 10% functionality and unaware that anything’s wrong yet. So we think liver failure would get you first.
(Need that 0.0% alcohol Guinness link again? Here it is)
Fun fact: Top contender in the category of “whole food” is actually seaweed (make sure you don’t get too much iodine, though)!
Or, should we say, top natural contender. Because foods that have been designed by humans to contain everything we need and more for optimized health, such as Huel, do exactly what they say on the tin.
And in case you’re curious…
Read: what bare minimum nutrients do you really need, to survive?
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A drug that can extend your life by 25%? Don’t hold your breath
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Every few weeks or months, the media reports on a new study that tantalisingly dangles the possibility of a new drug to give us longer, healthier lives.
The latest study centres around a drug involved in targeting interleukin-11, a protein involved in inflammation. Blocking this protein appeared to help mice stave off disease and extend their life by more than 20%.
If only defying the ravages of time could be achieved through such a simple and effort-free way – by taking a pill. But as is so often the case, the real-world significance of these findings falls a fair way short of the hype.
Halfpoint/Shutterstock The role of inflammation in disease and ageing
Chronic inflammation in the body plays a role in causing disease and accelerating ageing. In fact, a relatively new label has been coined to represent this: “inflammaging”.
While acute inflammation is an important response to infection or injury, if inflammation persists in the body, it can be very damaging.
A number of lifestyle, environmental and societal drivers contribute to chronic inflammation in the modern world. These are largely the factors we already know are associated with disease and ageing, including poor diet, lack of exercise, obesity, stress, lack of sleep, lack of social connection and pollution.
While addressing these issues directly is one of the keys to addressing chronic inflammation, disease and ageing, there are a number of research groups also exploring how to treat chronic inflammation with pharmaceuticals. Their goal is to target and modify the molecular and chemical pathways involved in the inflammatory process itself.
What the latest research shows
This new interleukin-11 research was conducted in mice and involved a number of separate components.
In one component of this research, interleukin-11 was genetically knocked out in mice. This means the gene for this chemical mediator was removed from these mice, resulting in the mice no longer being able to produce this mediator at all.
In this part of the study, the mice’s lives were extended by over 20%, on average.
Another component of this research involved treating older mice with a drug that blocks interleukin-11.
Injecting this drug into 75-week old mice (equivalent to 55-year-old humans) was found to extend the life of mice by 22-25%.
These treated mice were less likely to get cancer and had lower cholesterol levels, lower body weight and improved muscle strength and metabolism.
From these combined results, the authors concluded, quite reasonably, that blocking interleukin-11 may potentially be a key to mitigating age-related health effects and improving lifespan in both mice and humans.
Why you shouldn’t be getting excited just yet
There are several reasons to be cautious of these findings.
First and most importantly, this was a study in mice. It may be stating the obvious, but mice are very different to humans. As such, this finding in a mouse model is a long way down the evidence hierarchy in terms of its weight.
Research shows only about 5% of promising findings in animals carry over to humans. Put another way, approximately 95% of promising findings in animals may not be translated to specific therapies for humans.
Second, this is only one study. Ideally, we would be looking to have these findings confirmed by other researchers before even considering moving on to the next stage in the knowledge discovery process and examining whether these findings may be true for humans.
We generally require a larger body of evidence before we get too excited about any new research findings and even consider the possibility of human trials.
Third, even if everything remains positive and follow-up studies support the findings of this current study, it can take decades for a new finding like this to be translated to successful therapies in humans.
Until then, we can focus on doing the things we already know make a huge difference to health and longevity: eating well, exercising, maintaining a healthy weight, reducing stress and nurturing social relationships.
Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Stop Using The Wrong Hairbrush For Your Hair Type
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When you brush your hair, you’re either making it healthier or damaging it, depending on what you’re using and how. To avoid pulling your hair out, and to enjoy healthy hair of whatever kind you have and whatever length suits you, it pays to know a little about different brushes, and the different techniques involved.
Head-to-head
Brush shapes and sizes are designed to achieve different effects in hair, not just for decoration. For example:
- Rat tail combs are excellent for parting and sectioning hair with clean lines. The rat tail part is actually more important than the comb part.
- Regular combs are multipurpose but best for use with flat irons, ensuring straighter hair for a longer time.
- Wide-tooth combs should not be used for detangling as they can cause breakage; instead, use a proper detangling brush. Speaking of detangling…
- Detangling brushes are essential for daily use. Whichever you use, start brushing from the bottom to prevent tangles from stacking and worsening. As for kinds of detangling brush:
- The “Tangle Teaser” is a good beginner option, but it may not detangle well for thicker hair.
- Wet Brush (this is a brand name, and is not about any inherent wetness) is the recommended detangling brush for most people. It can be used on wet or dry hair.
- Mason Pearson brush is a luxury detangling brush (see it here on Amazon) that works slightly more quickly and efficiently, but is expensive and not necessary for most people.
- Teasing brushes are for adding volume by backcombing—but require skill to prevent visible tangles. Best avoided for most people.
- Ceramic round brushes are the best for blow-drying, because they hold tension and help hair dry smoother and shinier.
- Blow-dryer brushes are great for easy blow-drying but should not be used on dry hair, to avoid damage.
- Denman brushes are for people with natural curls, enhancing curls without straightening them like a Wet brush would.
For more on all of these brushes, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Take care!
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Four Thousand Weeks – by Oliver Burkeman
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This is not, strictly speaking, a time management book. It’s more a “contemplating mortality and making things count while still doing the necessaries”.
Burkeman’s premise is that we get around 4,000 weeks of life, on average. If we live to 120, it’s more like 6,200. Unlucky souls may have to do the best they can with 1,000 or so.
The book is thought-provoking; consider:
- how was your last week?
- how will your next week be?
- what if it were your last?
Of course, we cannot necessarily liquidate all our assets and spend next week burning out in style, because then the following week comes. So, what’s the solution?
That’s something Burkeman lays out over the course of the book, with key ideas including passion projects and figuring out what can be safely neglected, but there’s far more there than we could sum up here.
Bottom line: if you ever find yourself struggling to balance what is expected of you with what is of value to you, this book can help you get the most out of your choices.
Click here to check out Four Thousand Weeks, and make yours count!
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Plant-Based Alternatives for Meat Recipes
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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
❝How about providing a plant-based alternative when you post meat-based recipes? I appreciate how much you advocate for veggie diets and think offering an alternative with your recipes would support that❞
Glad you’re enjoying! And yes, we do usually do that. But: pardon, we missed one (the Tuna Steak with Protein Salad) because it’d be more than a simple this-for-that substitution, we didn’t already have an alternative recipe up (as with the salmon recipes such as the Chili Hot-Bedded Salmon and Thai Green Curry Salmon Burgers).
Our recipes, by the way, will tend towards being vegan, vegetarian, or at least pescatarian. This is for several reasons:
- Good science suggests the best diet for general purpose good health is one that is mostly plants, with optional moderate amounts of fermented dairy products, fish, and/or eggs.
- Your writer here (it’s me, hi) has been vegan for many years, transitioning to such via pescatarianism and ovo-lacto vegetarianism, and so the skill of cooking meat is least fresh in my memory, meaning I’d not be confident writing about that, especially as cooking meat has the gravest health consequences for messing it up.
Note on biases: notwithstanding this writer being vegan, we at 10almonds are committed to reporting the science as it stands with no agenda besides good health. Hence, there will continue to be unbiased information about animal products’ health considerations, positive as well as negative.
See also: Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy?
…as well as, of course, some animal-based classics from our archives including:
We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of & Eggs: All Things In Moderation?
Finishing with one for the vegans though, you might enjoy:
Which Plant Milk? We Compare 6 Of The Most Popular
Some previous articles you might enjoy meanwhile:
- Pinpointing The Usefulness Of Acupuncture
- Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief
- Peripheral Neuropathy: How To Avoid It, Manage It, Treat It
- What Does Lion’s Mane Actually Do, Anyway?
Take care!
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Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Emotional Eating – by Allen Carr
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We’ve reviewed books before on quitting drinking; is this book about emotional eating so different?
There are overlaps, but important points of contrast, too. After all, alcohol and junk food are both often unhealthy coping mechanisms for other things, though:
- Alcohol has in principle the stronger grip (making it harder to give up)
- Junk food is so much easier to justify (making it harder to give up)
Author Allen Carr is of course most well-known for his debut book about quitting smoking, and he brings a lot of that expertise to bear on the slightly different beast that is emotional eating.
Focused on reframing quitting as being less about self-denial and more about self-liberation, he helps readers to understand that giving up a substance (in this case, junk food) does not mean giving up happiness—rather, it means finding happiness beyond it.
If this book has a downside, it’s that some parts can be a little repetitive, and it can sometimes seem like one of those “this book could have been an article” situations.
On the other hand, many people benefit from repeated messages to truly inculcate an idea, so this could be a positive for a lot of readers.
Bottom line: if you’ve tried to eat more healthily but find that you keep reaching for an unhealthy comfort food, then this book may make a difference that other methods didn’t.
Click here to check out The Easy Way To Quit Emotional Eating, and find your own freedom!
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The Painkilling Power Of Opioids, Without The Harm?
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When it comes to painkilling medications, they can generally be categorized into two kinds:
- non-opioids (e.g. ibuprofen, paracetamol/acetaminophen, aspirin)
- ones that actually work for something more serious than a headache
That’s an oversimplification, but broadly speaking, when there is serious painkilling to be done, that’s when doctors consider it’s time to break out the opioids.
Nor are all opioids created equal—there’s a noteworthy difference between codeine and morphine, for instance—but the problems of opioids are typically the same (tolerance, addiction, and eventual likelihood of overdose when one tries to take enough to make it work after developing a tolerance), and it becomes simply a matter of degree.
See also: I’ve been given opioids after surgery to take at home. What do I need to know?
So, what’s the new development?
A team of researchers have found that the body can effectively produce its own targetted painkilling peptides, similar in function to benzodiazepines (an opioid drug), but—and which is a big difference—confined to the peripheral nervous system (PNS), meaning that it doesn’t enter the brain.
- The peptides killing the pain before it can reach the brain is obviously good because that means the pain is simply not experienced
- The peptides not having any effect on the brain, however, means that the mechanism of addiction of opioids simply does not apply here
- The peptides not having any effect on the brain also means that the CNS can’t be “put to sleep” by these peptides in the same way it can if a high dose of opioids is taken (this is what typically causes death in opioid overdoses; the heart simply beats too slowly to maintain life)
The hope, therefore, is to now create medications that target the spinal ganglia that produce these peptides, to “switch them on” at will.
Obviously, this won’t happen overnight; there will need to be first a lot of research to find a drug that does that (likely this will involve a lot of trial and error and so many mice/rats), and then multiple rounds of testing to ascertain that the drug is safe and effective for humans, before it can then be rolled out commercially.
But, this is still a big breakthrough; there arguably hasn’t been a breakthrough this big in pain research since various opioid-related breakthroughs in the 70s and 80s.
You can see a pop-science article about it here:
And you can see the previous research (from earlier this year) that this is now building from, about the glial cells in the spinal ganglia, here:
Peripheral gating of mechanosensation by glial diazepam binding inhibitor
But wait, there’s more!
Remember what we said about affecting the PNS without affecting the CNS, to kill the pain without killing the brain?
More researchers are already approaching the same idea to deal with the same problem, but from the angle of gene therapy, and have already had some very promising results with mice:
Structure-guided design of a peripherally restricted chemogenetic system
…which you can read about in pop-science terms (with diagrams!) here:
New gene therapy could alleviate chronic pain, researchers find
While you’re waiting…
In the meantime, approaches that are already available include:
- The 7 Approaches To Pain Management
- Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!)
- Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief ← when painkillers aren’t helping, these things might!
Take care!
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