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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The Little-Known Truth…
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Myth-Buster, Myth-Buster, Bust Us A Myth (or three!)
Let’s can this myth for good
People think of “canned foods” as meaning “processed foods” and therefore bad. But the reality is it’s all dependent on what’s in the can (check the ingredients!). And as for nutrients?
Many canned fruits and vegetables contain more nutrients than fresh ones! This is because the way they’ve been stored preserves them better. For example:
- Canned tomatoes contain more bioavailable lycopene than fresh
- Canned spinach contains more bioavailable carotene than fresh
- Canned corn contains more bioavailable lutein than fresh
- The list goes on, but you get the idea!
Don’t Want To Take Our Word For It? Read The Scientific Paper Here!
Gaslight, Gymkeep, Girl-loss?
Many women and girls avoid doing weight-training as part of their exercise—or use only the smallest weights—to avoid “bulking up” and “looking like a man”.
Many men, meanwhile, wish it were that easy to bulk up!
The reality is that nobody, unless you have very rare genes, packs on a lot of muscle by accident. Even with the genes for it, it won’t happen unless you’re also eating for it!
Resistance-based strength training (such as lifting weights), is a great way for most people to look after an important part of their long-term health: bone density!
You can’t have strong muscles on weak bones, so strengthening the muscles cues the body to strengthen the bones. In short, your strength-training at age 45 or 55 (or earlier) could be what helps you avoid a broken hip at 65 or 75.
We’re Not Kidding, It Really Is That Important (Read The Study Here)!
Something doesn’t smell right about this
There’s been a big backlash against anti-perspirants and deodorants. The popular argument is that the aluminium in them causes cancer.
This led to many people buying “deodo-rocks”, crystal rocks that can be run under water and then rubbed on the armpits to deodorize “naturally”. But, those crystal rocks are actually alum crystals (guess what they contain…).
The belief that deodorants cause cancer came from studies done by applying deodorant to cells (like the canine kidney cells in this study) in petri dishes. So, assuming you don’t cut out your kidney and then spray it directly with the deodorant, the jury is still out!
A more recent systematic review sorted out quite clearly the ways in which aluminium was, or was not, harmful, and said:
❝Neither is there clear evidence to show use of Al-containing underarm antiperspirants or cosmetics increases the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease or breast cancer. Metallic Al, its oxides, and common Al salts have not been shown to be either genotoxic or carcinogenic.❞
Critical Reviews in Toxicology
…but also says that you should avoid eating aluminium while pregnant or breastfeeding. We hope you can resist the urge.
See The Summary For Yourself Here!
(actually the whole article is there, but we know you value condensed knowledge, so: the abstract at the top will probably tell you all you want to know!)
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Stop Checking Your Likes – by Susie Moore
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You might think this one’s advice is summed up sufficiently by the title, that there’s no need for a book! But…
There’s a lot more to this than “stop comparing the worst out-takes of your life to someone else’s highlight reel”, and there’s a lot more to this than “just unplug”.
Instead, Susie Moore discusses the serious underlying real emotional considerations of the need for approval (and even just acceptance) by our community, as well the fear of missing out.
It’s not just about how social media is designed to hijack various parts of our brain, or how The Alogorithm™ is out to personally drag your soul through Hell for a few more clicks; it’s also about the human element that would exist even without that. Who remembers MySpace? No algorithm in those days, but oh the drama potential for those “top 8 friends” places. And if you think that kind of problem is just for young people 20 years ago, you have mercifully missed the drama that older generations can get into on Facebook.
Along with the litany of evil, though, Moore also gives practical advice on how to overcome those things, how to “see the world through comedy-colored glasses”, how to ask “what’s missing, really?”, and how to make your social media experience work for you, rather than it merely using you as fuel. ← link is to our own related article!
Bottom line: if social media sucks a lot of your time, there may be more to it than just “social media sucks in general”, and there are ways to meet your emotional needs without playing by corporations’ rules to do so.
Click here to check out Stop Checking Your Likes, and breathe easy!
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We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
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Research Review: Collagen
For something that’s a very popular supplement, not many people understand what collagen is, where it comes from, or what it does.
In a nutshell:
Collagen is a kind of protein. Our bodies make it naturally, and we can also get more in our diet and/or take extra as a supplement.
Our bodies use collagen in connective tissue, skin, tendon, bone, and cartilage. It has many functions, but a broad description would be “holding things together”.
As we get older, our bodies produce less collagen. Signs of this include wrinkles, loss of skin hydration, and joint pain.
Quick test: pinch the skin on the middle of the back of one of your hands, and then watch what happens when you get low. How quickly and easily did your skin returns to its original shape?
If it was pretty much instantanous and flawless, congratulations, you have plenty of collagen (and also elastin). If you didn’t, you are probably low on both!
(they are quite similar proteins and are made from the same base “stuff”, so if you’re low on one, you’ll usually be low on both)
Quick note: A lot of research out there has been funded by beauty companies, so we had our work cut out for us today, and have highlighted where any research may be biased.
More than skin deep
While marketing for collagen is almost exclusively aimed at “reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging”, it does a lot more than that.
You remember we mentioned that many things from the bones outward are held together by collagen? We weren’t kidding…
Read: Osteoporosis, like skin ageing, is caused by collagen loss which is reversible
Taking extra collagen isn’t the only way
We can’t (yet!) completely halt the age-related loss of collagen, but we can slow it, with our lifestyle choices:
- Don’t smoke tobacco
- Drink only in moderation (or not at all)
- Avoid foods with added sugar, and high-processed foods in general
- Wear sunscreen when appropriate
Can I get collagen from food?
Yep! Just as collagen holds our bodies together, it holds the bodies of other animals together. And, just like collagen is found in most parts of our body but most plentifully in our skin and bones, that’s what to eat to get collagen from other animals, e.g:
- Chicken skin
- Fish skin
- Bone broth ← health benefits and recipes at this link!
What about vegans?
Yes, vegans are also held together by collagen! We do not, however, recommend eating their skin or boiling their bones into broth. Ethical considerations aside, cannibalism can give you CJD!
More seriously, if you’re vegan, you can’t get collagen from a plant-based diet, but you can get the stuff your body uses to make collagen. Basically, you want to make sure you get plenty of:
- Protein (beans, pulses, nuts, etc are all fine; it’s hard to go wrong with this)
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin D
- and Zinc
Just be sure to continue to remember to avoid highly-processed foods. So:
- Soy mince/chunks whose ingredients list reads: “soya”? Yes!
- The Incredible Burger or Linda McCartney’s Sausages? Sadly less healthy
Read: Advanced Glycation End Products in Foods and a Practical Guide to Their Reduction in the Diet
Meat-eaters might want to read that one too. By far the worst offenders for AGEs (Advanced Glycation End Products, which can not only cause collagen to stiffen, but also inactivate proteins responsible for collagen repair, along with doing much more serious damage to your body’s natural functions) include:
- Hot dogs
- Bacon
- Fried/roasted/grilled meats
Is it worth it as a supplement?
That depends on you, your age, and your lifestyle, but it’s generally considered safe*
*if you have a seafood allergy, be careful though, as many supplements are from fish or shellfish—you will need to find one that’s free from your allergen
Also, all collagen is animal-derived. So if you’re a vegan, decide for yourself whether this constitutes medicine and if so, whether that makes it ethically permissible to you.
With that out of the way:
What the science says on collagen supplementation
Collagen for skin
Read: Effects of collagen supplementation on skin aging (systematic review and meta-analysis)
The short version is that they selected 19 studies with over a thousand participants in total, and they found:
In the meta-analysis, a grouped analysis of studies showed favorable results of hydrolyzed collagen supplementation compared with placebo in terms of skin hydration, elasticity, and wrinkles.
The findings of improved hydration and elasticity were also confirmed in the subgroup meta-analysis.
Based on results, ingestion of hydrolyzed collagen for 90 days is effective in reducing skin aging, as it reduces wrinkles and improves skin elasticity and hydration.
Caveat: while that systematic review had no conflicts of interests, at least some of the 19 studies will have been funded by beauty companies. Here are two, so that you know what that looks like:
Funded by Quiris to investigate their own supplement, Elasten®:
A Collagen Supplement Improves Skin Hydration, Elasticity, Roughness, and Density
Funded by BioCell to investigate their own supplement, BioCell Collagen:
The Effects of Skin Aging Associated with the Use of BioCell Collagen
A note on funding bias: to be clear, the issue is not that the researchers might be corrupt (though that could happen).
The issue is more that sometimes companies will hire ten labs to do ten research studies… and then pull funding from ones whose results aren’t going the way they’d like.
So the “best” (for them) study is the one that gets published.
Here’s another systematic review—like the one at the top of this section—that found the same, with doses ranging from 2.5g–15g per day for 8 weeks or longer:
Read: Oral Collagen Supplementation: A Systematic Review of Dermatological Applications
Again, some of those studies will have been funded by beauty companies. The general weight of evidence does seem clear and favorable, though.
Collagen for bones
Here, we encountered a lot less in the way of potential bias, because this is simply marketed a lot less. Despite being arguably far more important!
We found a high quality multi-vector randomized controlled study with a sample size of 131 postmenopausal women. They had these women take 5g collagen supplement (or placebo), and studied the results over the course of a year.
They found:
- The intake of the supplement increased bone mineral density (BMD)
- Supplementation was also associated with a favorable shift in bone markers, indicating:
- increased bone formation
- reduced bone degradation
Read: Specific Collagen Peptides Improve Bone Mineral Density and Bone Markers in Postmenopausal Wome
A follow-up study with 31 of these women found that taking 5 grams of collagen daily for a total of 4 years was associated with a progressive increase in BMD.
You might be wondering if collagen also helps against osteoarthritis.
The answer is: yes, it does (at least, it significantly reduces the symptoms)
Read: Effect of collagen supplementation on osteoarthritis symptoms
In summary:
- You need collagen for health skin, bones, joints, and more
- Your body makes collagen from your food
- You can help it by getting plenty of protein, vitamins, and minerals
- You can also help it by not doing the usual Bad Things™ (smoking, drinking, eating processed foods, especially processed meats)
- You can also eat collagen directly in the form of other animals’ skin and bones
- You can also buy collagen supplements (but watch out for allergens)
Want to try collagen supplementation?
We don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience…
Check it out: Hydrolyzed Collagen Peptides (the same as in most of the above studies), 90 days supply at 5g/day
We selected this one because it’s the same kind used in many of the studies, and it doesn’t contain any known allergens.
It’s bovine collagen, meaning it’s from cows, so it’s not vegan, and also some subscribers may want to abstain for religious reasons. We respect that, and/but make our recommendations based solely on the science of health and productivity.
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When Carbs, Proteins, & Fats Switch Metabolic Roles
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Strange Things Happening In The Islets Of Langerhans
It is generally known and widely accepted that carbs have the biggest effect on blood sugar levels (and thus insulin response), fats less so, and protein least of all.
And yet, there was a groundbreaking study published yesterday which found:
❝Glucose is the well-known driver of insulin, but we were surprised to see such high variability, with some individuals showing a strong response to proteins, and others to fats, which had never been characterized before.
Insulin plays a major role in human health, in everything from diabetes, where it is too low*, to obesity, weight gain and even some forms of cancer, where it is too high.
These findings lay the groundwork for personalized nutrition that could transform how we treat and manage a range of conditions.❞
*saying ”too low” here is potentially misleading without clarification; yes, Type 1 Diabetics will have too little [endogenous] insulin (because the pancreas is at war with itself and thus isn’t producing useful quantities of insulin, if any). Type 2, however, is more a case of acquired insulin insensitivity, because of having too much at once too often, thus the body stops listening to it, “boy who cried wolf”-style, and the pancreas also starts to get fatigued from producing so much insulin that’s often getting ignored, and does eventually produce less and less while needing more and more insulin to get the same response, so it can be legitimately said “there’s not enough”, but that’s more of a subjective outcome than an objective cause.
Back to the study itself, though…
What they found, and how they found it
Researchers took pancreatic islets from 140 heterogenous donors (varied in age and sex; ostensibly mostly non-diabetic donors, but they acknowledge type 2 diabetes could potentially have gone undiagnosed in some donors*) and tested cell cultures from each with various carbs, proteins, and fats.
They found the expected results in most of the cases, but around 9% responded more strongly to the fats than the carbs (even more strongly than to glucose specifically), and even more surprisingly 8% responded more strongly to the proteins.
*there were also some known type 2 diabetics amongst the donors; as expected, those had a poor insulin response to glucose, but their insulin response to proteins and fats were largely unaffected.
What this means
While this is, in essence, a pilot study (the researchers called for larger and more varied studies, as well as in vivo human studies), the implications so far are important:
It appears that, for a minority of people, a lot of (generally considered very good) antidiabetic advice may not be working in the way previously understood. They’re going to (for example) put fat on their carbs to reduce the blood sugar spike, which will technically still work, but the insulin response is going to be briefly spiked anyway, because of the fats, which very insulin response is what will lower the blood sugars.
In practical terms, there’s not a lot we can do about this at home just yet—even continuous glucose monitors won’t tell us precisely, because they’re monitoring glucose, not the insulin response. We could probably measure everything and do some math and work out what our insulin response has been like based on the pace of change in blood sugar levels (which won’t decrease without insulin to allow such), but even that is at best grounds for a hypothesis for now.
Hopefully, more publicly-available tests will be developed soon, enabling us all to know our “insulin response type” per the proteome predictors discovered in this study, rather than having to just blindly bet on it being “normal”.
Ironically, this very response may have hidden itself for a while—if taking fats raised insulin response without raising blood sugar levels, then if blood sugar levels are the only thing being measured, all we’ll see is “took fats at dinner; blood sugars returned to normal more quickly than when taking carbs without fats”.
You can read the study in full here:
Proteomic predictors of individualized nutrient-specific insulin secretion in health and disease
Want to know more about blood sugar management?
You might like to catch up on:
- 10 Ways To Balance Your Blood Sugars
- Track Your Blood Sugars For Better Personalized Health
- How To Turn Back The Clock On Insulin Resistance
Take care!
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The Good Life – by Robert Waldinger, MD, and Marc Schulz, PhD
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For any who have thought “there must be some middle-ground between entirely subjective self-help books advising how to feel better, and sifting through clinical data on what actually affects people’s moods“, this book is exactly that middle-ground!
Drs. Waldinger and Schultz went through the 80-year-long Harvard Study of Adult Development with a fine-toothed comb, and this book details—more readably—what they found.
There are frequent references to data from the study. Not just numbers, though, people’s answers to questions, too. And how different factors about people’s lives affected their answers to the same questions.
We hear from all ages, from young adults to octagenarians, and learn how attitudes (including: of the same people) change over time. Not because people are fickle, but because people grow… or become disillusioned. Or sometimes, both.
We learn about the importance of money… And where that importance ends.
We learn importance of relationships of various kinds, and this is certainly a recurring theme throughout the study—and thus, throughout the book.
The book doesn’t just present data, though, it also presents actionable insights along the way.
Bottom line: the combined wisdom and life-experiences of a lot of people provide a very “big picture” view of life, and what makes us happy, really. We highly recommend it!
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Getting Things Done – by David Allen
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Our “to-do” lists are usually hopelessly tangled:
“To do thing x needs thing y doing first but that can only be done with information that I must get by doing thing z”, and so on.
Suddenly that two-minute task is looking like half an hour, which is making our overall to-do list look gargantuan. Tackling tiny parts of tasks seems useless; tackling large tasks seems overwhelming. What a headache!
Getting Things Done (“GTD”, to its friends) shows us how to gather all our to-dos, and then use the quickest ways to break down a task (in reality, often a mini-project) into its constituent parts and which things can be done next, and what order to do them in (or defer, or delegate, or ditch).
In a nutshell: The GTD system aims to make all your tasks comprehensible and manageable, for stress-free productivity. No need to strategize everything every time; you have a system now, and always know where to begin.
And by popular accounts, it delivers—many put this book in the “life-changing” category.
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