Beetroot vs Sweet Potato – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing beetroot to sweet potato, we picked the sweet potato.
Why?
Quite a straightforward one today!
In terms of macros, sweet potato has more protein, carbs, and fiber. The glycemic index of both of these root vegetables is similar (and in each case varies similarly depending on how it is cooked), so we’ll call the winner the one that’s more nutritionally dense—the sweet potato.
Looking at vitamins next, beetroot has more vitamin B9 (and is in fact a very good source of that, unlike sweet potato), and/but sweet potato is a lot higher in vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, C, E, K, and choline. And we’re talking for example more than 582x more vitamin A, more than 17x more vitamin E, more than a 10x more vitamin K, and at least multiples more of the other vitamins mentioned. So this category’s not a difficult one to call for sweet potato.
When it comes to minerals, beetroot has more selenium, while sweet potato has more calcium, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium. They’re approximately equal in iron and zinc. Another win for sweet potato.
Of course, enjoy both. But if you’re looking for the root vegetable that’ll bring the most nutrients, it’s the sweet potato.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
No, beetroot isn’t vegetable Viagra. But here’s what else it can do
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Soap vs Sanitizer – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing soap to sanitizer, we picked the soap.
Why?
Both are good at killing bacteria / inactivating viruses, but there are several things that set them apart:
- Soap doesn’t just kill them; it slides them off and away down the drain. That means that any it failed to kill are also off and down the drain, not still on your hands. This is assuming good handwashing technique, of course!
- Sanitizer gel kills them, but can take up to 4 minutes of contact to do so. Given that people find 20 seconds of handwashing laborious, 240 seconds of sanitizer gel use seems too much to hope for.
Both can be dehydrating for the hands; both can have ingredients added to try to mitigate that.
We recommend a good (separate) moisturizer in either case, but the point is, the dehydration factor doesn’t swing it far either way.
So, we’ll go with the one that gets rid of the germs the most quickly: the soap
10almonds tip: splash out on the extra-nice hand-soaps for your home—this will make you and others more likely to wash your hands more often! Sometimes, making something a more pleasant experience makes all the difference.
Want to know more?
Check out:
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Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
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Time to go nuts for nuts!
Nuts, in popular perception, range from “basically the healthiest food anyone can eat” to “basically high calorie salty snacks”. And, they can be either!
Some notes, then:
- Raw is generally better that not
- Dry roasted is generally better than the kind with added oils
- Added salt is neither necessary nor good
Quick tip: if “roasted salted” are the cheapest or most convenient to buy, you can at least mitigate that by soaking them in warm water for 5 minutes, before rinsing and (if you don’t want wet nuts) drying.
You may be wondering: who does want wet nuts? And the answer is, if for example you’re making a delicious cashew and chickpea balti, the fact you didn’t dry them before throwing them in won’t make a difference.
Now, let’s do a quick run-down; we don’t usually do “listicles” but it seemed a good format here, so we’ve picked a top 5 for nutritional potency:
Almonds
We may have a bias. We accept it. But almonds are also one of the healthiest nuts around, and generally considered by most popular metrics the healthiest.
Not only are they high in protein, healthy fat, fiber, vitamins, and minerals, but they’re even a natural prebiotic that increases the populations of healthy gut bacteria, while simultaneously keeping down the populations of gut pathogens—what more can we ask of a nut?
Read more: Prebiotic effects of almonds and almond skins on intestinal microbiota in healthy adult humans
Pistachios
Not only are these super tasty and fun to eat (and mindful eating is all but guaranteed, as shelling them by hand slows us down and makes us more likely to eat them one at a time rather than by the handful), but also they contain lots of nutrients and are lower in calories than most nuts, so they’re a great option for anyone who’d like to eat more nuts but is doing a calorie-controlled diet and doesn’t want to have half a day’s calories in a tiny dish of nuts.
Walnuts
Popularly associated with brain health (perhaps easy to remember because of their appearance), they really are good for the brain:
Check it out: Beneficial Effects of Walnuts on Cognition and Brain Health
Cashews
A personal favorite of this writer for their versatility in cooking, food prep, or just as a snack, they also do wonders for metabolic health:
Brazil nuts
The most exciting thing about these nuts is that they’re an incredibly potent source of selenium, which is important not just for hair/skin/nails as popularly marketed, but also for thyroid hormone production and DNA synthesis.
But don’t eat too many, because selenium is definitely one of those “you can have too much of a good thing” nutrients, and selenium poisoning can make your hair (however beautiful and shiny it got because of the selenium) fall out if you take too much.
Know the numbers: Brazil nuts and selenium—health benefits and risks
Bottom line on nuts:
- Nuts are a great and healthful part of almost anyone’s diet
- Obviously, if you have a nut allergy, then we’re sorry; this one won’t have helped you so much
- Almonds are one of the most healthful nuts out there
- Brazil nuts are incredibly potent, to the point where moderation is recommended
- A handful of mixed nuts per day is a very respectable option—when it comes to food and health, diversity is almost always good!
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When Doctors Make House Calls, Modern-Style!
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In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you foryour opinion of telehealth for primary care consultations*, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:
- About 46% said “It is no substitute for an in-person meeting with a doctor; let’s keep the human touch”
- About 29% said “It means less waiting and more accessibility, while avoiding transmission of diseases”
- And 25 % said “I find that the pros and cons of telehealth vs in-person balance out, so: no preference”
*We specified that by “primary care” we mean the initial consultation with a non-specialist doctor, before receiving treatment or being referred to a specialist. By “telehealth” we mean by videocall or phonecall.
So, what does the science say?
A quick note first
Because telehealth was barely a thing (statistically speaking) before the first stages of the COVID pandemic, compared to how it is now, most of the science for this is young, and a lot of the science simply hasn’t been done yet, and/or has not been published yet, because the process can take years.
Because of this, some studies we do have aren’t specifically about primary care, and are sometimes about specialists. We think this should not affect the results much, but it bears highlighting.
Nevertheless, we’ll do what we can with the science we have!
Telehealth is more accessible than in-person consultations: True or False?
True, for most people. For example…
❝Data was found from a variety of emergency and non-emergency departments of primary, secondary, and specialised healthcare.
Satisfaction was high among recipients of healthcare, scoring 9-10 on a scale of 0-10 or ranging from 73.3% to 100%.
Convenience was rated high in every specialty examined. Satisfaction of clinicians was high throughout the specialities despite connection failure and concerns about confidentiality of information.❞
whereas…
❝Nonetheless, studies reported perception of increased barriers to accessing care and inequalities for vulnerable patients especially in older people❞
~ Ibid.
Source: Satisfaction with telemedicine use during COVID-19 pandemic in the UK: a systematic review
Now, perception of those things does necessarily equate to an actual increased barrier, but it is reasonable that someone who thinks something is inaccessible will be less inclined to try to access it.
The quality of care provided via telehealth is as good as in-person: True or False?
True, ostensibly, with caveats. The caveats are:
- We’re going offreported patient satisfaction, not objective patient health outcomes (we found little* science as yet for the relative incidence of misdiagnosis, for example—which kind of thing will take time to be revealed).
- We’re also therefore speaking (as statistics do) for the significant majority of people. However, if we happen to be (statistically speaking) an insignificant minority, well, that just sucks for us personally.
*we did find some, but it wasn’t very helpful yet. For example:
An electronic trigger to detect telemedicine-related diagnostic errors
this one does look at the incidence of diagnostic errors, but provides no control group (i.e. otherwise-comparable in-person consultations) for comparison.
While most oft-considered demographic groups reported comparable patient satisfaction (per race, gender, and socioeconomic status, for example), there was one outlier variable, which was age (as we quoted from that first study above).
However!
Looking under the hood of these stats, it seems that age is not the real culprit, so much as technological illiteracy, which is heavily correlated with age:
❝Lower eHealth literacy is associated with more negative attitudes towards I/C technology in healthcare. This trend is consistent across diverse demographics and regions. ❞
Source: Meta-analysis: eHealth literacy and attitudes towards internet/computer technology
There are things that can be done at an in-person consultation that can’t be done by telehealth: True or False?
True, of course. It is incredibly rare that we will cite “common sense”, (as sometimes “common sense” is actually “common mistakes” and is simply and verifiably wrong), but in this case, as one 10almonds subscriber put it:
❝The doctor uses his five senses to assess. This cannot be attained over the phone❞
~ 10almonds subscriber
A quick note first: if your doctor is using their sense of taste to diagnose you, please get a different doctor, because they should definitely not be doing that!
Not in this century, anyway… Once upon a time, diabetes was diagnosed by urine-tasting (and yes, that was a fairly reliable method).
However, nowadays indeed a doctor will use sight, sound, touch, and sometimes even smell.
In a videocall we’re down to two of those senses (sight and sound), and in a phonecall, down to one (sound) and even that is hampered. Your doctor cannot, for example, use a stethoscope over the phone.
With this in mind, it really comes down to what you need from your doctor in that consultation.
- If you’re 99% sure that what you need is to be prescribed an antidepressant, that probably doesn’t need a full physical.
- If you’re 99% sure that what you need is a referral, chances are that’ll be fine by telehealth too.
- If your doctor is 99% sure that what you need is a verbal check-up (e.g. “How’s it been going for you, with the medication that I prescribed for you a month ago?”, then again, a call is probably fine.
If you have a worrying lump, or an unhappy bodily discharge, or an unexplained mysterious pain? These things, more likely an in-person check-up is in order.
Take care!
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Healthy Kids, Happy Kids – by Dr. Elisa Song
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If you have young children or perhaps grandchildren, you probably care deeply about those children and their wellbeing, but there can often be a lot more guesswork than would be ideal, when it comes to ensuring they be and remain healthy.
Nevertheless, a lot of common treatments for children are based (whether parents know it or not—and often they dont) on what is most convenient for the parent, not necessarily what is best for the child. Dr. Song looks to correct that.
Rather than dosing kids with acetaminophen or even antibiotics, assuming eczema can be best fixed with a topical cream (treating the symptom rather than the cause, much?), and that some things like asthma “just are”, and “that’s unfortunate”, Dr. Song takes us on a tour of pediatric health, centered around the gut.
Why the gut? Well, it’s pretty central to us as adults, and it’s the same for kids, except one difference: their gut microbiome is changing even more quickly than ours (along with the rest of their body), and as such, is even more susceptible to little nudges for better or for worse, having a big impact in either direction. So, might as well make it a good one!
After an explanatory overview, most of the book is given over to recognizing and correcting what things can go wrong, including the top 25 acute childhood conditions, and the most critical chronic ones, and how to keep things on-track as a team (the child is part of the team! An important part!).
The style of the book is very direct and instructional; easy to understand throughout. It’s a lot like being in a room with a very competent pediatrician who knows her stuff and explains it well, thus neither patronizing nor mystifying.
Bottom line: if there are kids in your life, be they yours or your grandkids or someone else, this is a fine book for giving them the best foundational health.
Click here to check out Healthy Kids, Happy Kids, and take care of yours!
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What Are Nootropics, Really?
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What are nootropics, really?
A nootropic is anything that functions as a cognitive enhancer—in other words, improves our brainpower.
These can be sensationalized as “smart drugs”, misrepresented excitingly in science fiction, meme-ified in the mundane (“but first, coffee”), and reframed entirely, (“exercise is the best nootropic”).
So, clearly, “nootropics” can mean a lot of different things. Let’s look at some of the main categories…
The neurochemical modulators
These are what often get called “smart drugs”. They are literally drugs (have a chemical effect on the body that isn’t found in our diet), and they affect the levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain, such as by:
- Adding more of that neurotransmitter (simple enough)
- Decreasing the rate at which we lose that neurotransmitter (re-uptake inhibitors)
- Antagonizing an unhelpful neurotransmitter (doing the opposite thing to it)
- Blocking an unhelpful neurotransmitter (stopping the receptors from receiving it)
“Unhelpful” here is relative and subjective, of course. We need all the neurotransmitters that are in our brain, after all, we just don’t need all of them all the time.
Examples: modafinil, a dopamine re-uptake inhibitor (mostly prescribed for sleep disorders), reduces the rate at which our brains scrub dopamine, resulting in a gradual build-up of dopamine that we naturally produced, so we get to enjoy that dopamine for longer. This will tend to promote wakefulness, and may also help with problem-solving and language faculties—as well as giving a mood boost. In other words, all things that dopamine is used for. Mirtazaрine, an adrenoreceptor agonist (mostly prescribed as an antidepressant), increases noradrenergic neurotransmission, thus giving many other brain functions a boost.
Why it works: our brains need healthy levels of neurotransmitters, in order to function well. Those levels are normally self-regulating, but can become depleted in times of stress or fatigue, for example.
The metabolic brain boosters
These are the kind of things that get included in nootropic stacks (stack = a collection of supplements and/or drugs that complement each other and are taken together—for example, a multivitamin tablet could be described as a vitamin stack) even though they have nothing specifically relating them to brain function. Why are they included?
The brain needs so much fuel. Metabolically speaking, it’s a gas-guzzler. It’s the single most resource-intensive organ of our body, by far. So, metabolic brain boosters tend to:
- Increase blood flow
- Increase blood oxygenation
- Increase blood general health
- Improve blood pressure (this is relative and subjective, since very obviously there’s a sweet spot)
Examples: B-vitamins. Yep, it can be that simple. A less obvious example might be Co-enzyme Q10, which supports energy production on a cellular level, and good cardiovascular health.
Why it works: you can’t have a healthy brain without a healthy heart!
We are such stuff as brains are made of
Our brains are made of mostly fat, water, and protein. But, not just any old fat and protein—we’re at least a little bit special! So, brain-food foods tend to:
- Give the brain the fats and proteins it’s made of
- Give the brain the stuff to make the fats and proteins it’s made of (simpler fats, and amino acids)
- Give the brain hydration! Just having water, and electrolytes as appropriate, does this
Examples: healthy fats from nuts, seeds, and seafood; also, a lot of phytonutrients from greens and certain fruits. Long-time subscribers may remember our article “Brain Food: The Eyes Have It!” on the importance of dietary lutein in reducing Alzheimer’s risk, for example
Why it works: this is matter of structural upkeep and maintenance—our brains don’t work fabulously if deprived of the very stuff they’re made of! Especially hydration is seriously underrated as a nootropic factor, by the way. Most people are dehydrated most of the time, and the brain dehydrates quickly. Fortunately, it rehydrates quickly as well when we take hydrating liquids.
Weird things that sound like ingredients in a witch’s potion
These are too numerous and too varied in how they work to cover here, but they do appear a lot in nootropic stacks and in popular literature on the subject.
Often they work by one of the mechanisms described above; sometimes we’re not entirely sure how they work, and have only measured their effects sufficiently to know that, somehow, they do work.
Examples: panax ginseng is one of the best-studied examples that still remains quite mysterious in many aspects of its mechanism. Lion’s Mane (the mushroom, not the jellyfish or the big cat hairstyle), meanwhile, is known to contain specific compounds that stimulate healthy brain cell growth.
Why it works: as we say, it varies so much from on ingredient to another in this category, so… Watch out for our Research Review Monday features, as we’ll be covering some of these in the coming weeks!
(PS, if there’s any you’d like us to focus on, let us know! We always love to hear from you. You can hit reply to any of our emails, or use the handy feedback widget at the bottom)
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Fat’s Real Barriers To Health
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Fat Justice In Healthcare
This is Aubrey Gordon, an author, podcaster, and fat justice activist. What does that mean?
When it comes to healthcare, we previously covered some ideas very similar to her work, such as how…
There’s a lot of discrimination in healthcare settings
In this case, it often happens that a thin person goes in with a medical problem and gets treated for that, while a fat person can go in with the same medical problem and be told “you should try losing some weight”.
Top tip if this happens to you… Ask: “what would you advise/prescribe to a thin person with my same symptoms?”
Other things may be more systemic, for example:
When a thin person goes to get their blood pressure taken, and that goes smoothly, while a fat person goes to get their blood pressure taken, and there’s not a blood pressure cuff to fit them, is the problem the size of the person or the size of the cuff? It all depends on perspective, in a world built around thin people.
That’s a trivial-seeming example, but the same principle has far-reaching (and harmful) implications in healthcare in general, e.g:
- Surgeons being untrained (and/or unwilling) to operate on fat people
- Getting a one-size-fits-all dose that was calculated using average weight, and now doesn’t work
- MRI machines are famously claustrophobia-inducing for thin people; now try not fitting in it in the first place
…and so forth. So oftentimes, obesity will be correlated with a poor healthcare outcome, where the problem is not actually the obesity itself, but rather the system having been set up with thin people in mind.
It would be like saying “Having O- blood type results in higher risks when receiving blood transfusions”, while omitting to add “…because we didn’t stock O- blood”.
Read more on this topic: Shedding Some Obesity Myths
Does she have practical advice about this?
If she could have you understand one thing, it would be:
You deserve better.
Or if you are not fat: your fat friends deserve better.
How this becomes useful is: do not accept being treated as the problem!
Demand better!
If you meekly accept that you “just need to lose weight” and that thus you are the problem, you take away any responsibility from your healthcare provider(s) to actually do their jobs and provide healthcare.
See also Gordon’s book, which we’ve not reviewed yet but probably will one of these days:
“You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People – by Aubrey Gordon
Are you saying fat people don’t need to lose weight?
That’s a little like asking “would you say office workers don’t need to exercise more?”; there are implicit assumptions built into the question that are going unaddressed.
Rather: some people might benefit healthwise from losing weight, some might not.
In fact, over the age of 65, being what is nominally considered “overweight” reduces all-cause mortality risk.
For details of that and more, see: When BMI Doesn’t Measure Up
But what if I do want/need to lose weight?
Gordon’s not interested in helping with that, but we at 10almonds are, so…
Check out: Lose Weight, But Healthily
Where can I find more from Aubrey Gordon?
You might enjoy her blog:
Aubrey Gordon | Your Fat Friend
Or her other book, which we reviewed previously:
What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat – by Aubrey Gordon
Enjoy!
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