Beat Cancer Kitchen – by Chris Wark & Micah Wark
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When we eat, many things can increase our cancer risk. Some we might remember to avoid, like ultra-processed foods and red meat. Others might be more neutral when it comes to cancer, neither good nor bad.
But! Some foods also have cancer-fighting properties. Which means reducing cancer risk, and/or having an anti-proliferative effect (i.e., shrinks or at least slows growth of tumors), in the event of already having cancer.
That’s what Chris & Micah Wark are offering here; a cookbook built around anti-cancer foods—after the former beat his own cancer with the help of the latter. He had surgery, but skipped chemo, preferring to look to nutrition to keep cancer-free. Now 18 years later, and so far, so good.
The dietary advice here is entirely consistent with what we’d offer at 10almonds; it’s plant-based, and high in anti-cancer phytonutrients.
The recipes themselves (of which there are about 70-ish) are as delicious and simple as the title suggests, and/but you might want to know:
- On the one hand, many recipes are things like sauces, condiments, or dressings, which in a recipe book can sometimes feel like underdelivering on the promise of recipes when we expect full meals
- On the other hand, those things if you just purchase them ready-made are usually the things with the most ultra-processed products, thus, having anticancer homemade versions instead here can actually make a very big difference
- On the third hand, there areplenty of starters/mains/desserts too!
Bottom line: if you’re looking for an anti-cancer cookbook, this is a very good one whose ingredients aren’t obscure (which can otherwise be a problem for some books of this kind)
Click here to check out Beat Cancer Kitchen, and take good care of yourself and your loved ones!
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10 Tips for Better Sleep: Starting In The Morning
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Dr. Siobhan Deshauer advises:
Checklist
You’ll probably have heard similar advice before (including from us), but it’s always good to do a quick rundown and check which ones you are actually doing, as opposed to merely know you should be doing:
- Wake up at the same time every day, including weekends, to maintain a consistent sleep schedule and avoid “social jet lag.”
- Expose yourself to bright light in the morning, either sunlight or light therapy, to regulate your circadian rhythm and melatonin production.
- Avoid caffeine late in the day to maintain natural sleep pressure, experimenting with a cutoff time based on your sensitivity (e.g. 6–10 hours before bedtime)*.
- Limit naps to under 30 minutes and take them early in the afternoon to avoid disrupting sleep pressure.
- Exercise regularly but avoid strenuous activity 2 hours before bed. Optimal exercise time is 4–6 hours before bedtime.
- Avoid alcohol, as it disrupts sleep quality and may worsen conditions like sleep apnea. If drinking, have your last drink early in the evening—but honestly, it’s better to not drink at all.
- Establish a wind-down routine 1–2 hours before bed, including dimming lights and engaging in relaxing activities to signal your body to prepare for sleep.
- Keep your bedroom cool (below 68°F/20°C) and ensure your hands and feet stay warm to aid in natural body temperature regulation.
- Limit device use before bed. If unavoidable, reduce blue light exposure and avoid mentally stimulating content. Set boundaries, such as placing your phone out of reach.
- Ensure complete darkness in your sleeping environment using blackout curtains, covering light-emitting devices, or wearing a sleep mask.
*we imagine she picked 6–10 hours because, depending on whether you have the fast or slow caffeine metabolizer gene, the biological halflife of caffeine in your body will be around 4 or 8 hours (that’s not a range, that’s two distinct and non-overlapping options). However, if we use 4 or 8 hours depending on which gene version we have, then that will mean that 4 or 8 hours later, respectively, we’ll have half the caffeine in us that we did 4 or 8 hours ago (that’s what a halflife means). So for example if you had a double espresso that number of hours before bedtime, then congratulations, you have the caffeine of a single espresso in your body by bedtime. Which, for most people**, is not an ideal nightcap. Hence, adding on a few more hours. Again, earlier is better though, so consider limiting caffeine to the morning only.
**we say “most people”, because if you have ADHD or a similar condition, your brain’s relationship with caffeine is a bit different, and—paradoxically—stimulants can help you to relax. Do speak with your doctor though, as individual cases vary widely, and it also may make a difference depending on what relevant meds (if any) you’re on, too.
For more on all of those things, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- How Regularity Of Sleep Can Be Even More Important Than Duration ← here’s why you should still get up at the same regular (and ideally, early) hour, even if you didn’t sleep well
- Early Bird Or Night Owl? Genes vs Environment ← and here’s why that regular hour should ideally be early, even if it’s not your genetic predisposition to be a “morning lark”; see also the study linked there that mentions “Gene distinguishes early birds from night owls and helps predict time of death”
Take care!
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Vodka vs Beer – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing vodka to beer, we picked the vodka.
Why?
As you might have guessed, neither are exactly healthy. But one of them is relatively, and we stress relatively, less bad than the other.
In the category of nutrients, vodka is devoid of nutrients, and beer has small amounts of some vitamins and minerals—but the amounts are so small, that you would need to drink yourself to death before benefiting from them meaningfully. And while beer gets touted as “liquid bread”, it really isn’t. A thousand years ago it will have been a lot less alcoholic and more carby, but even then, it wasn’t a health product aside from that it provided a way of making potentially contaminated water safer to drink.
In the category of carbohydrates, vodka nominally has none, due to the distillation process, and beer has some. Glycemic index websites often advise that the GI of beers, wines, and spirits can’t be measured as their carb content is not sufficient to get a meaningful sample, but diabetes research tells a more useful story:
Any alcoholic drink will generally cause a brief drop in blood sugars, followed by a spike. This happens because the liver prioritises metabolizing alcohol over producing glycogen, so it hits pause on the sugar metabolism and then has a backlog to catch up on. In the case of alcoholic drinks that have alcohol and carbs, this will be more pronounced—so this means that the functional glycemic load of beer is higher.
That’s a point in favor of vodka.
Additionally, in terms of the alcohol content, correctly-distilled vodka’s alcohol is pure ethanol, while beer will contain an amount of methanol that will vary per beer, but an illustrative nominal figure could be about 16mg/L. Methanol is more harmful than ethanol.
So that’s another point in favor of vodka.
Once again, neither drink is healthy; both are distinctly unhealthy. But unit for unit, beer is the least healthy of the two, making vodka the lesser of two evils.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Can We Drink To Good Health? (answer: we cannot, but this was about alcohol’s proposed heart-healthy benefits)
- Guinness Is Good For You* (it isn’t, but this was the long-time slogan and marketing campaign that fooled many)
- How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
- How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver
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How Your Sleep Position Changes Dementia Risk
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This is not just about sleep duration or even about sleep quality… It really is about which way your body is positioned.
Goodnight, glymphatic system
The association between sleeping position and dementia risk is about glymphatic drainage, which is largely powered by gravity (and thus dependent on which way around your head and neck are oriented), and very important for clearing toxins out of the brain—including beta-amyloid proteins.
This becomes particularly important when the glymphatic system becomes less efficient in midlife, often 15–20 years before cognitive decline symptoms appear.
The video’s thumbnail headline, “SCIENTISTS REVEAL: THE WAY YOUR SLEEP CAN CAUSE DEMENTIA” is overstated and inaccurate, but our adjusted headline “how your sleep position changes dementia risk” is actually representative of the paper on which this video was based; we’ll quote from the paper itself here:
❝This paper concludes that 1. glymphatic clearance plays a major role in Alzheimer’s pathology; 2. the vast majority of waste clearance occurs during sleep; 3. dementias are associated with sleep disruption, alongside an age-related decline in AQP4 polarization; and 4. lifestyle choices such as sleep position, alcohol intake, exercise, omega-3 consumption, intermittent fasting and chronic stress all modulate* glymphatic clearance. Lifestyle choices could therefore alter Alzheimer’s disease risk through improved glymphatic clearance, and could be used as a preventative lifestyle intervention for both healthy brain ageing and Alzheimer’s disease.❞
…and specifically, they found:
❝Glymphatic transport is most efficient in the right lateral sleeping position, with more CSF clearance occurring compared to supine and prone. The average person changes sleeping position 11 times per night, but there was no difference in the number of position changes between neurodegenerative and control groups, making the percentage of time spent in supine position the risk factor, not the number of position changes❞
Read the paper in full here: The Sleeping Brain: Harnessing the Power of the Glymphatic System through Lifestyle Choices
*saying “modulate” here is not as useful as it could be, because they modulate it differently: side-sleeping improves clearance; back sleeping decreases it; front-sleeping isn’t great either. Alcohol intake reduces clearance, exercise (especially cardiovascular exercise) improves it; omega-3 consumption improves it up a degree and does depend on omega-3/6 ratios, intermittent fasting improves it, and chronic stress worsens it.
And for a more pop-science presentation, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
How To Clean Your Brain (Glymphatic Health Primer)
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Redcurrants vs Cranberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing redcurrants to cranberries, we picked the redcurrants.
Why?
First know: here we’re comparing raw redcurrants to raw cranberries, with no additives in either case. If you buy jelly made from either, or if you buy dried fruits but the ingredients list has a lot of added sugar and often some vegetable oil, then that’s going to be very different. But for now… Let’s look at just the fruits:
In terms of macros, redcurrants are higher in carbs, but also higher in fiber, and have the lower glycemic index as cranberries have nearly 2x the GI.
When it comes to vitamins, redcurrants have more of vitamins B1, B2, B6, B9, C, K, and choline, while cranberries have more of vitamins A, B5, and E. In other words, a clear win for redcurrants.
In the category of minerals, redcurrants sweep even more convincingly with a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. On the other hand, cranberries boast a little more manganese; they also have about 2x the sodium.
Both berries have generous amounts of assorted phytochemicals (flavonoids and others), and/but nothing to set one ahead of the other.
As per any berries that aren’t poisonous, both of these are fine choices for most people most of the time, but redcurrants win with room to spare in most categories.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Health Benefits Of Cranberries (But: You’d Better Watch Out)
Take care!
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Heart-Healthy Gochujang Noodles
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Soba noodles are a good source of rutin, which is great for the heart and blood. Additionally, buckwheat (as soba noodles are made from) is healthier in various ways than rice, and certainly a lot healthier than wheat (remember that despite the name, buckwheat is about as related to wheat as a lionfish is to a lion). This dish is filled with more than just fiber though; there are a lot of powerful phytochemicals at play here, in the various kinds of cabbage, plus of course things like gingerol, capsaicin, allicin, and piperine.
You will need
- 14 oz “straight to wok” style soba noodles
- 3 bok choi (about 7 oz)
- 3½ oz red cabbage, thinly sliced
- 10 oz raw and peeled large shrimp (if you are vegan, vegetarian, allergic to shellfish/crustaceans, or observant of a religion that does not eat such, substitute with small cubes of firm tofu)
- 1 can (8 oz) sliced water chestnuts, drained (drained weight about 5 oz)
- 2 tbsp gochujang paste
- 2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 2 tsp garlic paste
- 2 tsp ginger paste
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- Avocado oil for frying (or another oil suitable for high temperatures—so, not olive oil)
Note: ideally you will have a good quality gochujang paste always in your cupboard, as it’s a great and versatile condiment. However, you can make your own approximation, by blending 5 pitted Medjool dates, 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar, 2 tbsp tomato purée, 2 tsp red chili flakes, 1 tsp garlic granules, and ¼ tsp MSG or ½ tsp low-sodium salt. This is not exactly gochujang, but unless you want to go shopping for ingredients more obscure in Western stores than gochujang, it’s close enough.
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Mix together the gochujang paste with the sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic paste, and ginger paste, in a small bowl. Whisk in ¼ cup hot water, or a little more if it seems necessary, but go easy with it. This will be your stir-fry sauce.
2) Slice the base of the bok choi into thin disks; keep the leaves aside.
3) Heat the wok to the highest temperature you can safely muster, and add a little avocado oil followed by the shrimp. When they turn from gray to pink (this will take seconds, so be ready) add the sliced base of the bok choi, and also the sliced cabbage and water chestnuts, stirring frequently. Cook for about 2 minutes; do not reduce the heat.
4) Add the sauce you made, followed 1 minute later by the noodles, stirring them in, and finally the leafy tops of the bok choi.
5) Garnish with the chia seeds (or sesame seeds, but chia pack more of a nutritional punch), and serve:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- What Matters Most For Your Heart?
- Red Cabbage vs White Cabbage – Which is Healthier?
- Ginger Does A Lot More Than You Think
- The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
- Capsaicin For Weight Loss And Against Inflammation
- Black Pepper’s Impressive Anti-Cancer Arsenal (And More)
- If You’re Not Taking Chia, You’re Missing Out
Take care!
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Your Heart In Their Hands: Surgeon Preferences & Survival Rates
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Unless you are paying entirely out-of-pocket for a heart surgery, you will not usually get final say over which surgeon you get.
The surgeon, however, will have final say over what they actually do when they open you up.
And their preferences, it seems, can make all the difference:
MAG vs SAG
When doing coronary artery bypass grafting, (CABG), surgeons may prefer to do multi-arterial grafting (MAG) or single-arterial grafting (SAG).
Recently, there was a study analysing more than a million Americans who underwent CABG on Medicare over an 18-year period, looking at outcomes for MAG vs SAG.
The superficial news: those who received MAG had much better long-term survival chances than those who received SAG.
However: this may be less to do with the relative merits of the procedures themselves, and more to do with the preferences of the surgeon.
The “eyeball test”
If surgeons look at a patient and think they will not have many years to live after surgery, they may opt for the SAG, as the long-term benefits of the MAG will only manifest in the long-term.
This may seem a little self-defeating (indeed, maybe you won’t live to see the long-term if you don’t get the surgery type with the longer-term survival chances), there can be other factors involved, that may make surgeons more interested in your short-term survival chances.
Or you might just not have enough donor artery tissue available to pick and choose; after all, a person having a coronary artery bypass quite possibly won’t have great arteries in their arm or leg, either.
Or a person could be missing limbs (a common complication, given the comorbidities of both peripheral artery disease, and diabetes).
See also: How To Stay A Step Ahead Of Peripheral Artery Disease
Why it might be ok that things are like this
When factoring in surgeon preference for MAG or SAG as an instrumental variable, no significant difference in long-term survival was observed. This may explain inconsistencies with randomized controlled trials like the Arterial Revascularization Trial (ART), which also found no survival benefit of MAG over SAG.
Also, MAG recipients were generally younger, healthier, and from more resourceful areas, which likely had a further impact on MAG-giving decisions, and/but at the same time, may also have increased survival chances for reasons other than that they got MAG rather than SAG.
Here’s a pop-science article that goes into more detail about this:
Surgeon preferences may explain differences in CABG survival rates
How to look out for yourself, and advocate for yourself
…or your loved one, of course. Now, having a coronary artery bypass surgery of any kind is not a fun activity; it will be dangerous, it’ll be stressful before and after, and the recovery will often not be an easy time either. However, it is possible to learn more about what is going on / what will happen, ask the right questions, and get the best options for you (which may not always be the same as the best options for someone else).
We wrote about that in more detail here:
Nobody Likes Surgery, But Here’s How To Make It Much Less Bad
Take care!
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