The Best Kind Of Fiber For Overall Health?

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The Fiber Of Good Health

We’ve written before about how most people in industrialized nations in general, and N. America in particular, do not get nearly enough fiber:

Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)

Fiber’s important for many aspects of health, not least of all the heart:

What Matters Most For Your Heart? Eat More (Of This) For Lower Blood Pressure

As well, of course, as being critical for gut health:

Gut Health 101: Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)

But is all fiber “prebiotic fiber”, and/or are some better than others?

Beta-glucan

A recent study (it’s a mouse study, but promising in its applicability for humans) examined the health impacts of 5 different fiber types:

  • pectin
  • β-glucan
  • wheat dextrin
  • resistant starch
  • cellulose (control)

As for health metrics, they measured:

  • body weight
  • adiposity
  • indirect calorimetry
  • glucose tolerance
  • gut microbiota
  • metabolites thereof

What they found was…

❝Only β-glucan supplementation during HFD-feeding decreased adiposity and body weight gain and improved glucose tolerance compared with HFD-cellulose, whereas all other fibers had no effect. This was associated with increased energy expenditure and locomotor activity in mice compared with HFD-cellulose.

All fibers supplemented into an HFD uniquely shifted the intestinal microbiota and cecal short-chain fatty acids; however, only β-glucan supplementation increased cecal butyrate concentrations. Lastly, all fibers altered the small-intestinal microbiota and portal bile acid composition. ❞

~ Dr. Elizabeth Howard et al.

If you’d like to read more, the study itself is here:

Impact of Plant-Based Dietary Fibers on Metabolic Homeostasis in High-Fat Diet Mice via Alterations in the Gut Microbiota and Metabolites

If you’d like to read less, the short version is that they are all good but β-glucan scored best in several metrics.

It also acts indirectly as a GLP-1 agonist, by the way:

The right fiber may help you lose weight

You may be wondering: what is β-glucan found in?

It’s found in many (non-animal product) foods, but oats, barley, mushrooms, and yeasts are all good sources.

Is it available as a supplement?

More or less; there are supplements that contain it generously, here’s an example product on Amazon, a cordyceps extract, of which >30% is β-glucan.

As an aside, cordyceps itself has many other healthful properties too:

Cordyceps: Friend Or Foe? ← the answer is, it depends! If you’re human, it’s a friend.

Enjoy!

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  • Every Body Should Know This – by Dr. Federica Amati

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    This book is very much a primer on how to eat healthily. The science is high-quality (the author is the head nutritionist at ZOE) and well-explained, and the advice is reasonable.

    Limitations: this book is not very deep, which we might expect from a book with this title. So, if you’ve been a long-time 10almonds reader, you might not learn a lot here, and this book might make a better gift for someone else.

    In particular, the book may be well-suited for someone who is thinking of having children soon, as there is an unusual amount of focus on fertility and young motherhood—perhaps because the author herself has young children and so was preoccupied with this when writing. For those of us who are definitely not having any more children, the focus on young motherhood is a little superfluous.

    The writing style is very readable pop-science, and nobody who is able to read English is likely to struggle with this one. It’s also quite conversational in parts, as the author discusses her own experiences with implementing the science at hand.

    Bottom line: if you want a good, solid, primer of how to eat well for a lifetime of health, especially if you are (or are thinking of becoming) a young mother, then this is a very good book. Otherwise, it’s probably a better to give it as a gift.

    Click here to check out Every Body Should Know This, and know the things!

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  • Hair Growth: Caffeine and Minoxidil Strategies

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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

    Hair growth strategies for men combing caffeine and minoxidil?

    Well, the strategy for that is to use caffeine and minoxidil! Some more specific tips, though:

    • Both of those things need to be massaged (gently!) into your scalp especially around your hairline.
      • In the case of caffeine, that boosts hair growth. No extra thought or care needed for that one.
      • In the case of minoxidil, it reboots the hair growth cycle, so if you’ve only recently started, don’t be surprised (or worried) if you see more shedding in the first three months. It’s jettisoning your old hairs because new ones were just prompted (by the minoxidil) to start growing behind them. So: it will get briefly worse before it gets better, but then it’ll stay better… provided you keep using it.
    • If you’d like other options besides minoxidil, finasteride is a commonly prescribed oral drug that blocks the conversion of testosterone to DHT, which latter is what tells your hairline to recede.
    • If you’d like other options besides prescription drugs, saw palmetto performs comparably to finasteride (and works the same way).
      • You may also want to consider biotin supplementation if you don’t already enjoy that
    • Consider also using a dermaroller on your scalp. If you’re unfamiliar, this is a device that looks like a tiny lawn aerator, with many tiny needles, and you roll it gently across your skin.
      • It can be used for promoting hair growth, as well as for reducing wrinkles and (more slowly) healing scars.
      • It works by breaking up the sebum that may be blocking new hair growth, and also makes the skin healthier by stimulating production of collagen and elastin (in response to the thousands of microscopic wounds that the needles make).
      • Sounds drastic, but it doesn’t hurt and doesn’t leave any visible marks—the needles are that tiny. Still, practise good sterilization and ensure your skin is clean when using it.

    See: How To Use A Dermaroller ← also explains more of the science of it

    PS: this question was asked in the context of men, but the information goes the same for women suffering from androgenic alepoceia—which is a lot more common than most people think!

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  • Psychology Sunday: Family Estrangment & How To Fix It

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    Estrangement, And How To Heal It

    We’ve written before about how deleterious to the health loneliness and isolation can be, and what things can be done about it. Today, we’re tackling a related but different topic.

    We recently had a request to write about…

    ❝Reconciliation of relationships in particular estrangement mother adult daughter❞

    And, this is not only an interesting topic, but a very specific one that affects more people than is commonly realized!

    In fact, a recent 800-person study found that more than 43% of people experienced family estrangement of one sort or another, and a more specific study of more than 2,000 mother-child pairs found that more than 11% of mothers were estranged from at least one adult child.

    So, if you think of the ten or so houses nearest to you, probably at least one of them contains a parent estranged from at least one adult child. Maybe it’s yours. Either way, we hope this article will give you some pause for thought.

    Which way around?

    It makes a difference to the usefulness of this article whether any given reader experiencing estrangement is the parent or the adult child. We’re going to assume the reader is the parent. It also makes a difference who did the estranging. That’s usually the adult child.

    So, we’re broadly going to write with that expectation.

    Why does it happen?

    When our kids are small, we as parents hold all the cards. It may not always feel that way, but we do. We control our kids’ environment, we influence their learning, we buy the food they eat and the clothes they wear. If they want to go somewhere, we probably have to take them. We can even set and enforce rules on a whim.

    As they grow, so too does their independence, and it can be difficult for us as parents to relinquish control, but we’re going to have to at some point. Assuming we are good parents, we just hope we’ve prepared them well enough for the world.

    Once they’ve flown the nest and are living their own adult lives, there’s an element of inversion. They used to be dependent on us; now, not only do they not need us (this is a feature not a bug! If we have been good parents, they will be strong without us, and in all likelihood one day, they’re going to have to be), but also…

    We’re more likely to need them, now. Not just in the “oh if we have kids they can look after us when we’re old” sense, but in that their social lives are growing as ours are often shrinking, their family growing, while ours, well, it’s the same family but they’re the gatekeepers to that now.

    If we have a good relationship, this goes fine. However, it might only take one big argument, one big transgression, or one “final straw”, when the adult child decides the parent is more trouble than they’re worth.

    And, obviously, that’s going to hurt. But it’s pretty much how it pans out, according to studies:

    Here be science: Tensions in the Parent and Adult Child Relationship: Links to Solidarity and Ambivalence

    How to fix it, step one

    First, figure out what went wrong.

    Resist any urge to protect your own feelings with a defensive knee-jerk “I don’t know; I was a good, loving parent”. That’s a very natural and reasonable urge and you’re quite possibly correct, but it won’t help you here.

    Something pushed them away. And, it will almost certainly have been a push factor from you, not a pull factor from whoever is in their life now. It’s easy to put the blame externally, but that won’t fix anything.

    And, be honest with yourself; this isn’t a job interview where we have to present a strength dressed up as a “greatest weakness” for show.

    You can start there, though! If you think “I was too loving”, then ok, how did you show that love? Could it have felt stifling to them? Controlling? Were you critical of their decisions?

    It doesn’t matter who was right or wrong, or even whether or not their response was reasonable. It matters that you know what pushed them away.

    How to fix it, step two

    Take responsibility, and apologize. We’re going to assume that your estrangement is such that you can, at least, still get a letter to them, for example. Resist the urge to argue your case.

    Here’s a very good format for an apology; please consider using this template:

    The 10-step (!) apology that’s so good, you’ll want to make a note of it

    You may have to do some soul-searching to find how you will avoid making the same mistake in the future, that you did in the past.

    If you feel it’s something you “can’t change”, then you must decide what is more important to you. Only you can make that choice, but you cannot expect them to meet you halfway. They already made their choice. In the category of negotiation, they hold all the cards now.

    How to fix it, step three

    Now, just wait.

    Maybe they will reply, forgiving you. If they do, celebrate!

    Just be aware that once you reconnect is not the time to now get around to arguing your case from before. It will never be the time to get around to arguing your case from before. Let it go.

    Nor should you try to exact any sort of apology from them for estranging you, or they will at best feel resentful, wonder if they made a mistake in reconnecting, and withdraw.

    Instead, just enjoy what you have. Many people don’t get that.

    If they reply with anger, maybe it will be a chance to reopen a dialogue. If so, family therapy could be an approach useful for all concerned, if they are willing. Chances are, you all have things that you’d all benefit from talking about in a calm, professional, moderated, neutral environment.

    You might also benefit from a book we reviewed previously, “Parent Effectiveness Training”. This may seem like “shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted”, but in fact it’s a very good guide to relationship dynamics in general, and extensively covers relations between parents and adult children.

    If they don’t reply, then, you did your part. Take solace in knowing that much.

    Some final thoughts:

    At the end of the day, as parents, our kids living well is (hopefully) testament to that we prepared them well for life, and sometimes, being a parent is a thankless task.

    But, we (hopefully) didn’t become parents for the plaudits, after all.

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    An Ancient Sports Drink & Healing Potion, Now With Modern Science?

    Ginseng has many health benefits, we talked about 8 of them in this previous edition of 10almonds:

    Ginseng, Dopamine, & Exercise

    …but we’ve somehow never yet done a Monday’s Research Review for it! We must do one, one of these days. For now though, it’s Saturday’s Life Hacks, and we’re here with…

    Speeding up recovery after muscle damage

    We talked about this topic before too:

    Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise

    …which gives very good advice (including some supplements that help), but was published before the latest science that we’re going to talk about today:

    A team of researchers all so very recently found that ginseng also reduces muscular fatigue and, importantly, hastens recovery of muscle damage caused by exercise.

    And that’s not all…

    ❝It should also be noted that, by reducing fatigue, taking ginseng on a regular basis may also help reduce the risk of injury, particularly in the case of muscles or ligaments, which can in turn improve athletic performance.❞

    This means that it can be taken regularly and prophylactically, as they found:

    ❝taking ginseng systematically for a long time can mitigate the response of the biological markers, mainly creatine kinase (CK) and interleukin 6 (IL-6), responsible for exercise-induced muscle damage and inflammation.❞

    You may be thinking “isn’t creatine good?” and yes, yes it is:

    Creatine: Very Different For Young & Old People

    …however, creatine kinase is not creatine. Creatine kinase (CK) is an enzyme that affects the creatine (to put it in few words, without getting into the fascinating biochemistry of this). Now, it’s necessary for us to have some CK (or else we wouldn’t be able to do what we need to with the creatine), but elevated levels often indicate some sort of problem going on:

    Approach to asymptomatic creatine kinase elevation

    …so ginseng keeping those things balanced is a good thing.

    The study

    We’ve talked a lot about the findings and what they mean, but if you’d like to read the paper for yourself, you can read it here:

    Effect of Ginseng Intake on Muscle Damage Induced by Exercise in Healthy Adults

    Where to get ginseng

    If you’d like to take ginseng as a supplement, then there are many ways to do so, with the most common being capsules or ginseng tea, which has an interesting and distinctive taste, and is very refreshing. Here are examples on Amazon, for your convenience:

    Enjoy!

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  • The Pegan Diet – by Dr. Mark Hyman

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    First things first: the title of the book is a little misleading. “Pegan” is a portmanteau of “paleo” and “vegan”, making it sound like it will be appropriate for both of those dietary practices. Instead:

    • Dr. Hyman offers advice about eating the right grains and legumes (inappropriate for a paleo diet)
    • He also offers such advice as “be picky about poultry, eggs, and fish”, and “avoid dairy—mostly” (inappropriate for a vegan diet).

    So, since his paleo vegan diet is neither paleo nor vegan, what actually is it?

    It’s a whole foods diet that encourages the enjoyment of a lot of plants, and discretion with regard to the quality of animal products.

    It’s a very respectable approach to eating, even if it didn’t live up to the title.

    The style is somewhat sensationalist, while nevertheless including plenty of actual science in there too—so the content is good, even if the presentation isn’t what this reviewer would prefer.

    He has recipes; they can be a little fancy (e.g. “matcha poppy bread with rose water glaze”) which may not be to everyone’s taste, but they are healthy.

    Bottom line: the content is good; the style you may love or hate, and again, don’t be misled by the title.

    Click here to check out The Pegan Diet, if you want to be healthy and/but eat neither paleo nor vegan!

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  • Retrain Your Brain – by Dr. Seth Gillihan

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    15-Minute Arabic”, “Sharpen Your Chess Tactics in 24 Hours”, “Change Your Life in 7 Days”, “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 weeks”—all real books from this reviewer’s shelves.

    The thing with books with these sorts of time periods in the titles is that the time period in the title often bears little relation to how long it takes to get through the book. So what’s the case here?

    You’ll probably get through it in more like 7 days, but the pacing is more important than the pace. By that we mean:

    Dr. Gillihan starts by assuming the reader is at best “in a rut”, and needs to first pick a direction to head in (the first “week”) and then start getting one’s life on track (the second “week”).

    He then gives us, one by one, an array of tools and power-ups to do increasingly better. These tools aren’t just CBT, though of course that features prominently. There’s also mindfulness exercises, and holistic / somatic therapy too, for a real “bringing it all together” feel.

    And that’s where this book excels—at no point is the reader left adrift with potential stumbling-blocks left unexamined. It’s a “whole course”.

    Bottom line: whether it takes you 7 hours or 7 months, “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks” is a CBT-and-more course for people who like courses to work through. It’ll get you where you’re going… Wherever you want that to be for you!

    Click here to check out “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks” on Amazon and start learning today!

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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