Benefits of Different Tropical Fruits
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
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
❝Would very much like your views of the benefits of different tropical fruits. I do find papaya is excellent for settling the digestion – but keen to know if others have remarkable qualities.❞
Definitely one for a main feature sometime soon! As a bonus while you wait, pineapple has some unique and powerful properties:
❝Its properties include: (1) interference with growth of malignant cells; (2) inhibition of platelet aggregation*; (3) fibrinolytic activity; (4) anti-inflammatory action; (5) skin debridement properties. These biological functions of bromelain, a non-toxic compound, have therapeutic values in modulating: (a) tumor growth; (b) blood coagulation; (c) inflammatory changes; (d) debridement of third degree burns; (e) enhancement of absorption of drugs.❞
*so do be aware of this if you are on blood thinners or otherwise have a bleeding disorder, as you might want to skip the pineapple in those cases!
Source: Bromelain, the enzyme complex of pineapple (Ananas comosus) and its clinical application. An update
Enjoy!
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Staying Healthy and Active After 60
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Questions and Answers at 10almonds
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
This newsletter has been growing a lot lately, and so have the questions/requests, and we love that! 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: How to be your best self after 60: Self motivation / Avoiding or limiting salt, sugar & alcohol: Alternatives / Ways to sneak in more movements/exercise
…and, from a different subscriber…
Q: Inflammation & over 60 weight loss. Thanks!
Here are some of our greatest hits on those topics:
- Where Nutrition Meets Habits ← focusing on food that’s all three of: healthy + easy + cheap
- How To Keep On Keeping On ← exercise tips for when the motivation wanes
- Keep Inflammation At Bay ← science-based tips and advice
Also, while we’ve recommended a couple of books on stopping (or reducing) drinking, we’ve not done a main feature on that, so we definitely will one of these days!
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The Mindful Body – by Dr. Ellen Langer
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Fear not, this is not a “think healing thoughts” New Age sort of book. In fact, it’s quite the contrary.
The most common negative reviews for this on Amazon are that it is too densely packed with scientific studies, and some readers found it hard to get through since they didn’t find it “light reading”.
Counterpoint: this reviewer found it very readable. A lot of it is as accessible as 10almonds content, and a lot is perhaps halfway between 10almonds content in readability, and the studies we cite. So if you’re at least somewhat comfortable reading academic literature, you should be fine.
The author, a professor of psychology (tenured at Harvard since 1981), examines a lot of psychosomatic effect. Psychosomatic effect is often dismissed as “it’s all in your head”, but it means: what’s in your head has an effect on your body, because your brain talks to the rest of the body and directs bodily responses and actions/reactions.
An obvious presentation of this in medicine is the placebo/nocebo effect, but Dr. Langer’s studies (indeed, many of the studies she cites are her own, from over the course of her 40-year career) take it further and deeper, including her famous “Counterclockwise” study in which many physiological markers of aging were changed (made younger) by changing the environment that people spent time in, to resemble their youth, and giving them instructions to act accordingly while there.
In the category of subjective criticism: the book is not exceptionally well-organized, but if you read for example a chapter a day, you’ll get all the ideas just fine.
Bottom line: if you want a straightforward hand-holding “how-to” guide, this isn’t it. But it is very much information-packed with a lot of ideas and high-quality science that’s easily applicable to any of us.
Click here to check out The Mindful Body, and indeed grow your chronic good health!
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Detox: What’s Real, What’s Not, What’s Useful, What’s Dangerous?
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Detox: What’s Real, What’s Not, What’s Useful, What’s Dangerous?
Out of the subscribers who engaged in the poll, it looks like we have a lot of confidence in at least some detox approaches being useful!
Celery juice is most people’s go-to, and indeed it was the only one to get mentioned in the comments added. So let’s take a look at that first…
Celery juice
Celery juice is enjoyed by many people, with many health benefits in mind, including to:
- reduce inflammation
- lower blood pressure
- heal the liver
- fight cancer
- reduce bloating
- support the digestive system
- increase energy
- support weight loss
- promote good mental health
An impressive list! With such an impressive list, we would hope for an impressive weight of evidence, so regular readers might be wondering why those bullet-pointed items aren’t all shiny hyperlinks to studies backing those claims. The reason is…
There aren’t any high-quality studies that back any of those claims.
We found one case study (so, a study with a sample size of one; not amazing) that observed a blood pressure change in an elderly man after drinking celery juice.
Rather than trawl up half of PubMed to show the lacklustre results in a way more befitting of Research Review Monday, though, here’s a nice compact article detailing the litany of disappointment that is science’s observations regards celery juice:
Why Are People Juicing Their Celery? – by Allison Webster, PhD, RD
A key take-away is: juicing destroys the fiber that is celery’s biggest benefit, and its phytochemicals are largely unproven to be of use.
If you enjoy celery, great! It (when not juiced) is a great source of fiber and water. If you juice it, it’s a great source of water.
Activated Charcoal
Unlike a lot of greenery—whose “cleansing” benefits mostly come from fiber and disappear when juiced—activated charcoal has a very different way of operating.
Activated charcoal is negatively charged on a molecular level*, and that—along with its porous nature—traps toxins. It really is a superpowered detox that actually works very well indeed.
But…
It works very well indeed. It will draw out toxins so well, that it’s commonly used to treat poisonings. “Wait”, we hear you say, “why was that a but”?
It doesn’t know what a toxin is. It just draws out all of the things. You took medicine recently? Not any more you didn’t. You didn’t even take that medication orally, you took it some other way? Activated charcoal does not care:
- The effect of activated charcoal on drug exposure following intravenous administration: A meta-analysis
- Activated charcoal for acute overdose: a reappraisal
Does this mean that activated charcoal can be used to “undo” a night of heavy drinking?
Sadly not. That’s one of the few things it just doesn’t work for. It won’t work for alcohol, salts, or metals:
The Use of Activated Charcoal to Treat Intoxications
*Fun chemistry mnemonic about ions:
Cations are pussitive
Anions (by process of elimination) are negative
Onions taste good in salad (remember also: Cole’s Law)
Bottom line on detox foods/drinks:
- Fiber is great; juicing removes fiber. Eat your greens (don’t drink them)!
- Activated charcoal is the heavy artillery of detoxing
- Sometimes it will remove things you didn’t want removed, though
- It also won’t help against alcohol, sadly
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Why the WHO has recommended switching to a healthier salt alternative
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This week the World Health Organization (WHO) released new guidelines recommending people switch the regular salt they use at home for substitutes containing less sodium.
But what exactly are these salt alternatives? And why is the WHO recommending this? Let’s take a look.
goodbishop/Shutterstock A new solution to an old problem
Advice to eat less salt (sodium chloride) is not new. It has been part of international and Australian guidelines for decades. This is because evidence clearly shows the sodium in salt can harm our health when we eat too much of it.
Excess sodium increases the risk of high blood pressure, which affects millions of Australians (around one in three adults). High blood pressure (hypertension) in turn increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and kidney disease, among other conditions.
The WHO estimates 1.9 million deaths globally each year can be attributed to eating too much salt.
The WHO recommends consuming no more than 2g of sodium daily. However people eat on average more than double this, around 4.3g a day.
In 2013, WHO member states committed to reducing population sodium intake by 30% by 2025. But cutting salt intake has proved very hard. Most countries, including Australia, will not meet the WHO’s goal for reducing sodium intake by 2025. The WHO has since set the same target for 2030.
The difficulty is that eating less salt means accepting a less salty taste. It also requires changes to established ways of preparing food. This has proved too much to ask of people making food at home, and too much for the food industry.
There’s been little progress on efforts to cut sodium intake. snezhana k/Shutterstock Enter potassium-enriched salt
The main lower-sodium salt substitute is called potassium-enriched salt. This is salt where some of the sodium chloride has been replaced with potassium chloride.
Potassium is an essential mineral, playing a key role in all the body’s functions. The high potassium content of fresh fruit and vegetables is one of the main reasons they’re so good for you. While people are eating more sodium than they should, many don’t get enough potassium.
The WHO recommends a daily potassium intake of 3.5g, but on the whole, people in most countries consume significantly less than this.
Potassium-enriched salt benefits our health by cutting the amount of sodium we consume, and increasing the amount of potassium in our diets. Both help to lower blood pressure.
Switching regular salt for potassium-enriched salt has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and premature death in large trials around the world.
Modelling studies have projected that population-wide switches to potassium-enriched salt use would prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths from cardiovascular disease (such as heart attack and stroke) each year in China and India alone.
The key advantage of switching rather than cutting salt intake is that potassium-enriched salt can be used as a direct one-for-one swap for regular salt. It looks the same, works for seasoning and in recipes, and most people don’t notice any important difference in taste.
In the largest trial of potassium-enriched salt to date, more than 90% of people were still using the product after five years.
Excess sodium intake increases the risk of high blood pressure, which can cause a range of health problems. PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock Making the switch: some challenges
If fully implemented, this could be one of the most consequential pieces of advice the WHO has ever provided.
Millions of strokes and heart attacks could be prevented worldwide each year with a simple switch to the way we prepare foods. But there are some obstacles to overcome before we get to this point.
First, it will be important to balance the benefits and the risks. For example, people with advanced kidney disease don’t handle potassium well and so these products are not suitable for them. This is only a small proportion of the population, but we need to ensure potassium-enriched salt products are labelled with appropriate warnings.
A key challenge will be making potassium-enriched salt more affordable and accessible. Potassium chloride is more expensive to produce than sodium chloride, and at present, potassium-enriched salt is mostly sold as a niche health product at a premium price.
If you’re looking for it, salt substitutes may also be called low-sodium salt, potassium salt, heart salt, mineral salt, or sodium-reduced salt.
A review published in 2021 found low sodium salts were marketed in only 47 countries, mostly high-income ones. Prices ranged from the same as regular salt to almost 15 times higher.
An expanded supply chain that produces much more food-grade potassium chloride will be needed to enable wider availability of the product. And we’ll need to see potassium-enriched salt on the shelves next to regular salt so it’s easy for people to find.
In countries like Australia, about 80% of the salt we eat comes from processed foods. The WHO guideline falls short by not explicitly prioritising a switch for the salt used in food manufacturing.
Stakeholders working with government to encourage food industry uptake will be essential for maximising the health benefits.
Xiaoyue (Luna) Xu, Scientia Lecturer, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney and Bruce Neal, Executive Director, George Institute Australia, George Institute for Global Health
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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We created a VR tool to test brain function. It could one day help diagnose dementia
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If you or a loved one have noticed changes in your memory or thinking as you’ve grown older, this could reflect typical changes that occur with ageing. In some cases though, it might suggest something more, such as the onset of dementia.
The best thing to do if you have concerns is to make an appointment with your GP, who will probably run some tests. Assessment is important because if there is something more going on, early diagnosis can enable prompt access to the right interventions, supports and care.
But current methods of dementia screening have limitations, and testing can be daunting for patients.
Our research suggests virtual reality (VR) could be a useful cognitive screening tool, and mitigate some of the challenges associated with current testing methods, opening up the possibility it may one day play a role in dementia diagnosis.
Where current testing is falling short
If someone is worried about their memory and thinking, their GP might ask them to complete a series of quick tasks that check things like the ability to follow simple instructions, basic arithmetic, memory and orientation.
These sorts of screening tools are really good at confirming cognitive problems that may already be very apparent. But commonly used screening tests are not always so good at detecting early and more subtle difficulties with memory and thinking, meaning such changes could be missed until they get worse.
A clinical neuropsychological assessment is better equipped to detect early changes. This involves a comprehensive review of a patient’s personal and medical history, and detailed assessment of cognitive functions, including attention, language, memory, executive functioning, mood factors and more. However, this can be costly and the testing can take several hours.
Testing is also somewhat removed from everyday experience, not directly tapping into activities of daily living.
Enter virtual reality
VR technology uses computer-generated environments to create immersive experiences that feel like real life. While VR is often used for entertainment, it has increasingly found applications in health care, including in rehabilitation and falls prevention.
Using VR for cognitive screening is still a new area. VR-based cognitive tests generally create a scenario such as shopping at a supermarket or driving around a city to ascertain how a person would perform in these situations.
Notably, they engage various senses and cognitive processes such as sight, sound and spatial awareness in immersive ways. All this may reveal subtle impairments which can be missed by standard methods.
VR assessments are also often more engaging and enjoyable, potentially reducing anxiety for those who may feel uneasy in traditional testing environments, and improving compliance compared to standard assessments.
Millions of people around the world have dementia.
pikselstock/ShutterstockMost studies of VR-based cognitive tests have explored their capacity to pick up impairments in spatial memory (the ability to remember where something is located and how to get there), and the results have been promising.
Given VR’s potential for assisting with diagnosis of cognitive impairment and dementia remains largely untapped, our team developed an online computerised game (referred to as semi-immersive VR) to see how well a person can remember, recall and complete everyday tasks. In our VR game, which lasts about 20 minutes, the user role plays a waiter in a cafe and receives a score on their performance.
To assess its potential, we enlisted more than 140 people to play the game and provide feedback. The results of this research are published across three recent papers.
Testing our VR tool
In our most recently published study, we wanted to verify the accuracy and sensitivity of our VR game to assess cognitive abilities.
We compared our test to an existing screening tool (called the TICS-M) in more than 130 adults. We found our VR task was able to capture meaningful aspects of cognitive function, including recalling food items and spatial memory.
We also found younger adults performed better in the game than older adults, which echoes the pattern commonly seen in regular memory tests.
Adults of a range of ages tried our computerised game.
pikselstock/ShutterstockIn a separate study, we followed ten adults aged over 65 while they completed the game, and interviewed them afterwards. We wanted to understand how this group – who the tool would target – perceived the task.
These seniors told us they found the game user-friendly and believed it was a promising tool for screening memory. They described the game as engaging and immersive, expressing enthusiasm to continue playing. They didn’t find the task created anxiety.
For a third study, we spoke to seven health-care professionals about the tool. Overall they gave positive feedback, and noted its dynamic approach to age-old diagnostic challenges.
However, they did flag some concerns and potential barriers to implementing this sort of tool. These included resource constraints in clinical practice (such as time and space to carry out the assessment) and whether it would be accessible for people with limited technological skills. There was also some scepticism about whether the tool would be an accurate method to assist with dementia diagnosis.
While our initial research suggests this tool could be a promising way to assess cognitive performance, this is not the same as diagnosing dementia. To improve the test’s ability to accurately detect those who likely have dementia, we’ll need to make it more specific for that purpose, and carry out further research to validate its effectiveness.
We’ll be conducting more testing of the game soon. Anyone interested in giving it a go to help with our research can register on our team’s website.
Joyce Siette, Research Theme Fellow in Health and Wellbeing, Western Sydney University and Paul Strutt, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Western Sydney University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Random Acts of Medicine – by Dr. Anupam Jena & Dr. Christopher Worsham
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We talked recently of small things that can change how productive your doctor’s appointment is, and this book is a more scientific version of that, and on a grander scale.
The author use what they call “natural experiments”, essentially observational studies, to determine what factors beyond the obvious affect health outcomes. With this approach, they address such questions as why kids with summer birthdays are more likely to get the flu, and why heart attack outcomes improve when there’s a cardiologists’ convention elsewhere. And many more such things that can seem like non-causal correlation, until one examines the causative factors, and controls (in the statistical analysis; remember this is still entirely observational, so no interventions are made) for other potential confounding factors.
They also look at what factors influence doctors’ decisions in ways they certainly shouldn’t, but they do, because doctors are as prone to biases as everyone else. And, for that matter, what factors influence patients’ decisions in ways they certainly shouldn’t—for the same reason. The authors acknowledge that they themselves are not immune, and you, dear reader, are not immune either.
Nevertheless, the practical value in this book comes from trying to at least be more aware of such things, the better to either leverage them, or at least ensure you don’t fall foul of them.
The style is conversational pop-science, making for quite light reading, albeit with many footnotes and a respectable bibliography.
Bottom line: if you’d like to understand more about the machinations that decide who lives and who dies (especially when sometimes it will be you or a loved one who lives or dies), then this is a fascinating book that that delves deeply into that.
Click here to check out Random Acts Of Medicine, and be aware!
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