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Apples vs Carrots – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing apples to carrots, we picked the carrots.
Why?
Both are sweet crunchy snacks, both rightly considered very healthy options, but one comes out clearly on top…
Both contain lots of antioxidants, albeit mostly different ones. They’re both good for this.
Looking at their macros, however, apples have more carbs while carrots have more fiber. The carb:fiber ratio in apples is already sufficient to make them very healthy, but carrots do win.
In the category of vitamins, carrots have many times more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, C, E, K, and choline. Apples are not higher in any vitamins.
In terms of minerals, carrots have a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Apples are not higher in any minerals.
If “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, what might a carrot a day do?
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Sugar: From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose C’s
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What’s the difference between physical and chemical sunscreens? And which one should you choose?
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Sun exposure can accelerate ageing, cause skin burns, erythema (a skin reaction), skin cancer, melasmas (or sun spots) and other forms of hyperpigmentation – all triggered by solar ultraviolet radiation.
Approximately 80% of skin cancer cases in people engaged in outdoor activities are preventable by decreasing sun exposure. This can be done in lots of ways including wearing protective clothing or sunscreens.
But not all sunscreens work in the same way. You might have heard of “physical” and “chemical” sunscreens. What’s the difference and which one is right for you?
How sunscreens are classified
Sunscreens are grouped by their use of active inorganic and organic ultraviolet (UV) filters. Chemical sunscreens use organic filters such as cinnamates (chemically related to cinnamon oil) and benzophenones. Physical sunscreens (sometimes called mineral sunscreens) use inorganic filters such as titanium and zinc oxide.
These filters prevent the effects of UV radiation on the skin.
Organic UV filters are known as chemical filters because the molecules in them change to stop UV radiation reaching the skin. Inorganic UV filters are known as physical filters, because they work through physical means, such as blocking, scattering and reflection of UV radiation to prevent skin damage.
Nano versus micro
The effectiveness of the filters in physical sunscreen depends on factors including the size of the particle, how it’s mixed into the cream or lotion, the amount used and the refraction index (the speed light travels through a substance) of each filter.
When the particle size in physical sunscreens is large, it causes the light to be scattered and reflected more. That means physical sunscreens can be more obvious on the skin, which can reduce their cosmetic appeal.
Nanoparticulate forms of physical sunscreens (with tiny particles smaller than 100 nanometers) can improve the cosmetic appearance of creams on the skin and UV protection, because the particles in this size range absorb more radiation than they reflect. These are sometimes labelled as “invisible” zinc or mineral formulations and are considered safe.
So how do chemical sunscreens work?
Chemical UV filters work by absorbing high-energy UV rays. This leads to the filter molecules interacting with sunlight and changing chemically.
When molecules return to their ground (or lower energy) state, they release energy as heat, distributed all over the skin. This may lead to uncomfortable reactions for people with skin sensitivity.
Generally, UV filters are meant to stay on the epidermis (the first skin layer) surface to protect it from UV radiation. When they enter into the dermis (the connective tissue layer) and bloodstream, this can lead to skin sensitivity and increase the risk of toxicity. The safety profile of chemical UV filters may depend on whether their small molecular size allows them to penetrate the skin.
Chemical sunscreens, compared to physical ones, cause more adverse reactions in the skin because of chemical changes in their molecules. In addition, some chemical filters, such as dibenzoylmethane tend to break down after UV exposure. These degraded products can no longer protect the skin against UV and, if they penetrate the skin, can cause cell damage.
Due to their stability – that is, how well they retain product integrity and effectiveness when exposed to sunlight – physical sunscreens may be more suitable for children and people with skin allergies.
Although sunscreen filter ingredients can rarely cause true allergic dermatitis, patients with photodermatoses (where the skin reacts to light) and eczema have higher risk and should take care and seek advice.
What to look for
The best way to check if you’ll have a reaction to a physical or chemical sunscreen is to patch test it on a small area of skin.
And the best sunscreen to choose is one that provides broad-spectrum protection, is water and sweat-resistant, has a high sun protection factor (SPF), is easy to apply and has a low allergy risk.
Health authorities recommend sunscreen to prevent sun damage and cancer. Chemical sunscreens have the potential to penetrate the skin and may cause irritation for some people. Physical sunscreens are considered safe and effective and nanoparticulate formulations can increase their appeal and ease of use.
Yousuf Mohammed, Dermatology researcher, The University of Queensland and Khanh Phan, Postdoctoral research associate, Frazer Institute, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Balanced Energy Cake Bars
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Unlike a lot of commercially available products, these bars won’t spike your blood sugars in the same way. There’s technically plenty of sugar in them, mostly from the chopped dates, but they’re also full of fiber, protein, and healthy fats. This means they can give you an energy boost (along with lots of gut-healthy, heart-healthy, and brain-healthy ingredients) without any crash later. They’re also delicious, and make for a great afternoon snack!
You will need
- 1 cup oats
- 15 Medjool dates, pitted and soaked in hot water for 15 minutes
- 3 carrots, grated
- 4oz almond butter
- 2 tbsp tahini
- 2 tbsp flaxseeds, milled
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
- Optional: your choice of dried fruit and/or chopped nuts (mix it up; diversity is good!)
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Steam the grated carrots for 3–4 minutes; pat dry and allow to cool
2) Drain and pat dry the dates, roughly chop them and add them to a bowl with the carrots. Because we chopped the dates rather than blended them (as many recipes do), they keep their fiber, which is important.
3) Add the oats, seeds, almond butter, and tahini. Also add in any additional dried fruit and/or chopped nuts you selected for the optional part. Mix well; the mixture should be quite firm. If it isn’t, add more oats.
4) Press the mixture into a 10″ square baking tin lined with baking paper. Refrigerate for a few hours, before cutting into bar shapes (or squares if you prefer). These can now be eaten immediately or stored for up to a week.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
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The Hormone Therapy That Reduces Breast Cancer Risk & More
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The Hormone Balancing Act
We’ve written before about menopausal HRT:
What You Should Have Been Told About Menopause Beforehand
…and even specifically about the considerations when it comes to breast cancer risk:
Menopausal Hormone Replacement Therapy
this really does bear reading, by the way—scroll down to the bit about breast cancer risk, because it’s not a simple increased/decreased risk; it can go either way, and which way it goes will depend on various factors including your medical history and what HRT, if any, you are taking.
Hormone Modulating Therapy
Hormone modulating therapy, henceforth HMT, is something a little different.
Instead of replacing hormones, as hormone replacement therapy does, guess what hormone modulating therapy does instead? That’s right…
MHT can modulate hormones by various means, but the one we’re going to talk about today does it by blocking estrogen receptors,
Isn’t that the opposite of what we want?
You would think so, but since for many people with an increased breast cancer risk, the presence of estrogen increases that risk, which leaves menopausal (peri- or post) people in an unfortunate situation, having to choose between increased breast cancer risk (with estrogen), or osteoporosis and increased dementia risk, amongst other problems (without).
However, the key here (in fact, that’s a very good analogy) is in how the blocker works. Hormones and their receptors are like keys and locks, meaning that the wrong-shaped hormone won’t accidentally trigger it. And when the right-shaped hormone comes along, it gets activated and the message (in this case, “do estrogenic stuff here!” gets conveyed). A blocker is sufficiently similar to fit into the receptor, without being so similar as to otherwise act as the hormone.
In this case, it has been found that HMT blocking estrogen receptors was sufficient to alleviate the breast cancer risk, while also being associated with a 7% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias, with that risk reduction being even greater for some demographics depending on race and age. Black women in the 65–74 age bracket enjoyed a 24% relative risk reduction, with white women of the same age getting an 11% relative risk reduction. Black women enjoyed the same benefits after that age, whereas white women starting it at that age did not get the same benefits. The conclusion drawn from this is that it’s good to start this at 65 if relevant and practicable, especially if white, because the protective effect is strongest when gained aged 65–69.
Here’s a pop-science article that goes into the details more deeply than we have room for here:
Hormone therapy for breast cancer linked with lower dementia risk
And here’s the paper itself; we highly recommend reading at least the abstract, because it goes into the numbers in much more detail than we reasonably can here. It’s a huge cohort study of 18,808 women aged 65 years or older, so this is highly relevant data:
Want to learn more?
If you’d like a much deeper understanding of breast cancer risk management, including in the context of hormone therapy, you might like this excellent book that we reviewed recently:
The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer – by Dr. Jenn Simmons
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Ageless Aging – by Maddy Dychtwald
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Maddy Dychtwald, herself 73, has spent her career working in the field of aging. She’s not a gerontologist or even a doctor, but she’s nevertheless been up-to-the-ears in the industry for decades, mostly as an organizer, strategist, facilitator, and so forth. As such, she’s had her finger on the pulse of the healthy longevity movement for a long time.
This book was written to address a problem, and the problem is: lifespan is increasing (especially for women), but healthspan has not been keeping up the pace.
In other words: people (especially women) are living longer, but often with more health problems along the way than before.
And mostly, it’s for lack of information (or sometimes: too much competing incorrect information).
Fortunately, information is something that a woman in Dychtwald’s position has an abundance of, because she has researchers and academics in many fields on speed-dial and happy to answer her questions (we get a lot of input from such experts throughout the book—which is why this book is so science-based, despite the author not being a scientist).
The book answers a lot of important questions beyond the obvious “what diet/exercise/sleep/supplements/etc are best for healthy aging” (spoiler: it’s quite consistent with the things we recommend here, because guess what, science is science), questions like how best to prepare for this that or the other, how to get a head start on preventative healthcare for some things, how to avoid being a burden to our families (one can argue that families are supposed to look after each other, but still, it’s a legitimate worry for many, and understandably so), and even how to balance the sometimes conflicting worlds of health and finances.
Unlike many authors, she also talks about the different kinds of aging, and tackles each of them separately and together. We love to see it!
Bottom line: this book is a very good one-stop-shop for all things healthy aging. It’s aimed squarely at women, but most advice goes for men the same too, aside from the section on hormones and such.
Click here to check out Ageless Aging, and plan your future!
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Caffeine: Cognitive Enhancer Or Brain-Wrecker?
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The Two Sides Of Caffeine
We asked you for your health-related opinions on caffeine itself, not necessarily the coffee, tea, energy drinks, etc that might contain it.
We have, by the way previously written about the health effects of coffee and tea specifically:
As for our question about caffeine itself, though, we got the above-depicted, below-described, set of results:
- About 59% said “caffeine is a safe stimulant and cognitive enhancer”
- About 31% said “caffeine is a moderately safe recreational drug”
- About 8% said “caffeine’s addictive properties make it de facto bad”
- One (1) person said “caffeine will leave you a trembling exhausted wreck”
But what does the science say?
Caffeine is addictive: True or False?
True, though one will find occasional academics quibbling the definition. Most of the studies into the mechanisms of caffeine addiction have been conducted on rats, but human studies exist too and caffeine is generally considered addictive for humans, for example:
See also:
Notwithstanding its addictive status, caffeine is otherwise safe: True or False?
True-ish, for most people. Some people with heart conditions or a hypersensitivity to caffeine may find it is not safe for them at all, and for the rest of us, the dose makes the poison. For example:
❝Can too much caffeine kill you? Although quite rare, caffeine can be fatal in cases of overdose; such circumstances are generally not applicable to healthy individuals who typically consume caffeine via beverages such as tea or coffee.❞
this paper, by the way, also includes a good example of academics quibbling the definition of addiction!
Caffeine is a cognitive enhancer: True or False?
True, but only in the case of occasional use. If you are using it all the time, your physiology will normalize it and you will require caffeine in order to function at your normal level. To attain higher than that, once addicted to caffeine, would now require something else.
Read more: Caffeine: benefits and drawbacks for technical performance
Caffeine will leave you a trembling exhausted wreck: True or False?
True or False depending on usage:
- The famously moderate 3–5 cups per day will not, for most people, cause any such problems.
- Using/abusing it to make up for lost sleep (or some other source of fatigue, such as physical exhaustion from exertion), however, is much more likely to run into problems.
In the latter case, caffeine really is the “payday loan” of energy! It’ll give you an adrenal boost now (in return, you must suffer the adrenal dumping later, along with lost energy expended in the adrenaline surge), and also, the tiredness that you thought was gone, was just caffeine’s adenosine-blocking activities temporarily preventing you from being able to perceive the tiredness. So you’ll have to pay that back later, with interest, because of the extra time/exertion too.
Want to make caffeine a little more gentle on your system?
Taking l-theanine alongside caffeine can ameliorate some of caffeine’s less wonderful effects—and as a bonus, l-theanine has some nifty benefits of its own, too:
Enjoy!
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Doctors Are as Vulnerable to Addiction as Anyone. California Grapples With a Response
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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Ariella Morrow, an internal medicine doctor, gradually slid from healthy self-esteem and professional success into the depths of depression.
Beginning in 2015, she suffered a string of personal troubles, including a shattering family trauma, marital strife, and a major professional setback. At first, sheer grit and determination kept her going, but eventually she was unable to keep her troubles at bay and took refuge in heavy drinking. By late 2020, Morrow could barely get out of bed and didn’t shower or brush her teeth for weeks on end. She was up to two bottles of wine a day, alternating it with Scotch whisky.
Sitting in her well-appointed home on a recent autumn afternoon, adorned in a bright lavender dress, matching lipstick, and a large pearl necklace, Morrow traced the arc of her surrender to alcohol: “I’m not going to drink before 5 p.m. I’m not going to drink before 2. I’m not going to drink while the kids are home. And then, it was 10 o’clock, 9 o’clock, wake up and drink.”
As addiction and overdose deaths command headlines across the nation, the Medical Board of California, which licenses MDs, is developing a new program to treat and monitor doctors with alcohol and drug problems. But a fault line has appeared over whether those who join the new program without being ordered to by the board should be subject to public disclosure.
Patient advocates note that the medical board’s primary mission is “to protect healthcare consumers and prevent harm,” which they say trumps physician privacy.
The names of those required by the board to undergo treatment and monitoring under a disciplinary order are already made public. But addiction medicine professionals say that if the state wants troubled doctors to come forward without a board order, confidentiality is crucial.
Public disclosure would be “a powerful disincentive for anybody to get help” and would impede early intervention, which is key to avoiding impairment on the job that could harm patients, said Scott Hambleton, president of the Federation of State Physician Health Programs, whose core members help arrange care and monitoring of doctors for substance use disorders and mental health conditions as an alternative to discipline.
But consumer advocates argue that patients have a right to know if their doctor has an addiction. “Doctors are supposed to talk to their patients about all the risks and benefits of any treatment or procedure, yet the risk of an addicted doctor is expected to remain a secret?” Marian Hollingsworth, a volunteer advocate with the Patient Safety Action Network, told the medical board at a Nov. 14 hearing on the new program.
Doctors are as vulnerable to addiction as anyone else. People who work to help rehabilitate physicians say the rate of substance use disorders among them is at least as high as the rate for the general public, which the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration put at 17.3% in a Nov. 13 report.
Alcohol is a very common drug of choice among doctors, but their ready access to pain meds is also a particular risk.
“If you have an opioid use disorder and are working in an operating room with medications like fentanyl staring you down, it’s a challenge and can be a trigger,” said Chwen-Yuen Angie Chen, an addiction medicine doctor who chairs the Well-Being of Physicians and Physicians-in-Training Committee at Stanford Health Care. “It’s like someone with an alcohol use disorder working at a bar.”
From Pioneer to Lagger
California was once at the forefront of physician treatment and monitoring. In 1981, the medical board launched a program for the evaluation, treatment, and monitoring of physicians with mental illness or substance use problems. Participants were often required to take random drug tests, attend multiple group meetings a week, submit to work-site surveillance by colleagues, and stay in the program for at least five years. Doctors who voluntarily entered the program generally enjoyed confidentiality, but those ordered into it by the board as part of a disciplinary action were on the public record.
The program was terminated in 2008 after several audits found serious flaws. One such audit, conducted by Julianne D’Angelo Fellmeth, a consumer interest lawyer who was chosen as an outside monitor for the board, found that doctors in the program were often able to evade the random drug tests, attendance at mandatory group therapy sessions was not accurately tracked, and participants were not properly monitored at work sites.
Today, MDs who want help with addiction can seek private treatment on their own or in many cases are referred by hospitals and other health care employers to third parties that organize treatment and surveillance. The medical board can order a doctor on probation to get treatment.
In contrast, the California licensing boards of eight other health-related professions, including osteopathic physicians, registered nurses, dentists, and pharmacists, have treatment and monitoring programs administered under one master contract by a publicly traded company called Maximus Inc. California paid Maximus about $1.6 million last fiscal year to administer those programs.
When and if the final medical board regulations are adopted, the next step would be for the board to open bidding to find a program administrator.
Fall From Grace
Morrow’s troubles started long after the original California program had been shut down.
The daughter of a prominent cosmetic surgeon, Morrow grew up in Palm Springs in circumstances she describes as “beyond privileged.” Her father, David Morrow, later became her most trusted mentor.
But her charmed life began to fall apart in 2015, when her father and mother, Linda Morrow, were indicted on federal insurance fraud charges in a well-publicized case. In 2017, the couple fled to Israel in an attempt to escape criminal prosecution, but later they were both arrested and returned to the United States to face prison sentences.
The legal woes of Morrow’s parents, later compounded by marital problems related to the failure of her husband’s business, took a heavy toll on Morrow. She was in her early 30s when the trouble with her parents started, and she was working 16-hour days to build a private medical practice, with two small children at home. By the end of 2019, she was severely depressed and turning increasingly to alcohol. Then, the loss of her admitting privileges at a large Los Angeles hospital due to inadequate medical record-keeping shattered what remained of her self-confidence.
Morrow, reflecting on her experience, said the very strengths that propel doctors through medical school and keep them going in their careers can foster a sense of denial. “We are so strong that our strength is our greatest threat. Our power is our powerlessness,” she said. Morrow ignored all the flashing yellow lights and even the red light beyond which serious trouble lay: “I blew through all of it, and I fell off the cliff.”
By late 2020, no longer working, bedridden by depression, and drinking to excess, she realized she could no longer will her way through: “I finally said to my husband, ‘I need help.’ He said, ‘I know you do.’”
Ultimately, she packed herself off to a private residential treatment center in Texas. Now sober for 21 months, Morrow said the privacy of the addiction treatment she chose was invaluable because it shielded her from professional scrutiny.
“I didn’t have to feel naked and judged,” she said.
Morrow said her privacy concerns would make her reluctant to join a state program like the one being considered by the medical board.
Physician Privacy vs. Patient Protection
The proposed regulations would spare doctors in the program who were not under board discipline from public disclosure as long as they stayed sober and complied with all the requirements, generally including random drug tests, attendance at group sessions, and work-site monitoring. If the program put a restriction on a doctor’s medical license, it would be posted on the medical board’s website, but without mentioning the doctor’s participation in the program.
Yet even that might compromise a doctor’s career since “having a restricted license for unspecified reasons could have many enduring personal and professional implications, none positive,” said Tracy Zemansky, a clinical psychologist and president of the Southern California division of Pacific Assistance Group, which provides support and monitoring for physicians.
Zemansky and others say doctors, just like anyone else, are entitled to medical privacy under federal law, as long as they haven’t caused harm.
Many who work in addiction medicine also criticized the proposed new program for not including mental health problems, which often go hand in hand with addiction and are covered by physician health programs in other states.
“To forgo mental health treatment, I think, is a grave mistake,” Morrow said. For her, depression and alcoholism were inseparable, and the residential program she attended treated her for both.
Another point of contention is money. Under the current proposal, doctors would bear all the costs of the program.
The initial clinical evaluation, plus the regular random drug tests, group sessions, and monitoring at their work sites could cost participants over $27,000 a year on average, according to estimates posted by the medical board. And if they were required to go for 30-day inpatient treatment, that would add an additional $40,000 — plus nearly $36,000 in lost wages.
People who work in the field of addiction medicine believe that is an unfair burden. They note that most programs for physicians in other states have outside funding to reduce the cost to participants.
“The cost should not be fully borne by the doctors, because there are many other people that are benefiting from this, including the board, malpractice insurers, hospitals, the medical association,” said Greg Skipper, a semi-retired addiction medicine doctor who ran Alabama’s state physician health program for 12 years. In Alabama, he said, those institutions contribute to the program, significantly cutting the amount doctors have to pay.
The treatment program that Morrow attended in spring of 2021, at The Menninger Clinic in Houston, cost $80,000 for a six-week stay, which was covered by a concerned family member. “It saved my life,” she said.
Though Morrow had difficulty maintaining her sobriety in the first year after treatment, she has now been sober since April 2, 2022. These days, Morrow regularly attends therapy and Alcoholics Anonymous and has pivoted to become an addiction medicine doctor.
“I am a better doctor today because of my experience — no question,” Morrow said. “I am proud to be a doctor who’s an alcoholic in recovery.”
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
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