Breadfruit vs Custard Apple – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing breadfruit to custard apple, we picked the breadfruit.
Why?
Today in “fruits pretending to be less healthy things than they are”, both are great, but one of these fruits just edges out the other in all categories. This is quite simple today:
In terms of macros, being fruits they’re both fairly high in carbs and fiber, however the carbs are close to equal and breadfruit has nearly 2x the fiber.
This also means that breadfruit has the lower glycemic index, but they’re both medium-low GI foods with a low insulin index.
When it comes to vitamins, breadfruit has more of vitamins B1, B3, B5, and C, while custard apple has more of vitamins A, B2, and B6. So, a 4:3 win for breadfruit.
In the category of minerals, breadfruit has more copper, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while custard apple has more calcium and iron.
In short, enjoy both, but if you’re going just for one, breadfruit is the healthiest.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
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I’ve been sick. When can I start exercising again?
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You’ve had a cold or the flu and your symptoms have begun to subside. Your nose has stopped dripping, your cough is clearing and your head and muscles no longer ache.
You’re ready to get off the couch. But is it too early to go for a run? Here’s what to consider when getting back to exercising after illness.
Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels Exercise can boost your immune system – but not always
Exercise reduces the chance of getting respiratory infections by increasing your immune function and the ability to fight off viruses.
However, an acute bout of endurance exercise may temporarily increase your susceptibility to upper respiratory infections, such as colds and the flu, via the short-term suppression of your immune system. This is known as the “open window” theory.
A study from 2010 examined changes in trained cyclists’ immune systems up to eight hours after two-hour high-intensity cycling. It found important immune functions were suppressed, resulting in an increased rate of upper respiratory infections after the intense endurance exercise.
So, we have to be more careful after performing harder exercises than normal.
Can you exercise when you’re sick?
This depends on the severity of your symptoms and the intensity of exercise.
Mild to moderate exercise (reducing the intensity and length of workout) may be OK if your symptoms are a runny nose, nasal congestion, sneezing and minor sore throat, without a fever.
Exercise may help you feel better by opening your nasal passages and temporarily relieving nasal congestion.
If you have a runny or blocked nose and no fever, low-intensity movement such as a walk might help. Laker/Pexels However, if you try to exercise at your normal intensity when you are sick, you risk injury or more serious illness. So it’s important to listen to your body.
If your symptoms include chest congestion, a cough, upset stomach, fever, fatigue or widespread muscle aches, avoid exercising. Exercising when you have these symptoms may worsen the symptoms and prolong the recovery time.
If you’ve had the flu or another respiratory illness that caused a high fever, make sure your temperature is back to normal before getting back to exercise. Exercising raises your body temperature, so if you already have a fever, your temperature will become high quicker, which makes you sicker.
If you have COVID or other contagious illnesses, stay at home, rest and isolate yourself from others.
When you’re sick and feel weak, don’t force yourself to exercise. Focus instead on getting plenty of rest. This may actually shorten the time it takes to recover and resume your normal workout routine.
I’ve been sick for a few weeks. What has happened to my strength and fitness?
You may think taking two weeks off from training is disastrous, and worry you’ll lose the gains you’ve made in your previous workouts. But it could be just what the body needs.
It’s true that almost all training benefits are reversible to some degree. This means the physical fitness that you have built up over time can be lost without regular exercise.
To study the effects of de-training on our body functions, researchers have undertaken “bed rest” studies, where healthy volunteers spend up to 70 days in bed. They found that V̇O₂max (the maximum amount of oxygen a person can use during maximal exercise, which is a measure of aerobic fitness) declines 0.3–0.4% a day. And the higher pre-bed-rest V̇O₂max levels, the larger the declines.
In terms of skeletal muscles, upper thigh muscles become smaller by 2% after five days of bed rest, 5% at 14 days, and 12% at 35 days of bed rest.
Muscle strength declines more than muscle mass: knee extensor muscle strength gets weaker by 8% at five days, 12% at 14 days and more than 20% after around 35 days of bed rest.
This is why it feels harder to do the same exercises after resting for even five days.
In bed rest studies, participants don’t get up. But they do in real life. Olly/Pexels But in bed rest studies, physical activities are strictly limited, and even standing up from a bed is prohibited during the whole length of a study. When we’re sick in bed, we have some physical activities such as sitting on a bed, standing up and walking to the toilet. These activities could reduce the rate of decreases in our physical functions compared with study participants.
How to ease back into exercise
Start with a lower-intensity workout initially, such as going for a walk instead of a run. Your first workout back should be light so you don’t get out of breath. Go low (intensity) and go slow.
Gradually increase the volume and intensity to the previous level. It may take the same number of days or weeks you rested to get back to where you were. If you were absent from an exercise routine for two weeks, for example, it may require two weeks for your fitness to return to the same level.
If you feel exhausted after exercising, take an extra day off before working out again. A day or two off from exercising shouldn’t affect your performance very much.
Ken Nosaka, Professor of Exercise and Sports Science, Edith Cowan University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down – by Haemin Sunim
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First, what this one’s not about: noticing raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.
That’s great too, though. This writer particularly loves the cute faces of baby jumping spiders. Sounds unlikely, but have you seen them?
What it’s rather about: noticing what’s between your ears, and paying closer attention to that, so that we can go about our business more mindfully.
This is, fundamentally, a book about living a happier life, whatever the potentially crazy circumstances of the hustle and bustle around us. Not because of disinterest; quite the opposite. Sunim bids us ask the question of ourselves, what are we really doing and why?
The writing style is very light and easy, while being heavy-hitting in terms of the ideas it brings. Little wonder that this one is so highly-rated on Amazon, with more than 5,000 ratings.
Bottom line: if sometimes you feel like the world is a little hectic and all that is around you is out of your control, this is a great book for you.
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Could not getting enough sleep increase your risk of type 2 diabetes?
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Not getting enough sleep is a common affliction in the modern age. If you don’t always get as many hours of shut-eye as you’d like, perhaps you were concerned by news of a recent study that found people who sleep less than six hours a night are at higher risk of type 2 diabetes.
So what can we make of these findings? It turns out the relationship between sleep and diabetes is complex.
The study
Researchers analysed data from the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database which serves as a global resource for health and medical research. They looked at information from 247,867 adults, following their health outcomes for more than a decade.
The researchers wanted to understand the associations between sleep duration and type 2 diabetes, and whether a healthy diet reduced the effects of short sleep on diabetes risk.
As part of their involvement in the UK Biobank, participants had been asked roughly how much sleep they get in 24 hours. Seven to eight hours was the average and considered normal sleep. Short sleep duration was broken up into three categories: mild (six hours), moderate (five hours) and extreme (three to four hours). The researchers analysed sleep data alongside information about people’s diets.
Some 3.2% of participants were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes during the follow-up period. Although healthy eating habits were associated with a lower overall risk of diabetes, when people ate healthily but slept less than six hours a day, their risk of type 2 diabetes increased compared to people in the normal sleep category.
The researchers found sleep duration of five hours was linked with a 16% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, while the risk for people who slept three to four hours was 41% higher, compared to people who slept seven to eight hours.
One limitation is the study defined a healthy diet based on the number of servings of fruit, vegetables, red meat and fish a person consumed over a day or a week. In doing so, it didn’t consider how dietary patterns such as time-restricted eating or the Mediterranean diet may modify the risk of diabetes among those who slept less.
Also, information on participants’ sleep quantity and diet was only captured at recruitment and may have changed over the course of the study. The authors acknowledge these limitations.
Why might short sleep increase diabetes risk?
In people with type 2 diabetes, the body becomes resistant to the effects of a hormone called insulin, and slowly loses the capacity to produce enough of it in the pancreas. Insulin is important because it regulates glucose (sugar) in our blood that comes from the food we eat by helping move it to cells throughout the body.
We don’t know the precise reasons why people who sleep less may be at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. But previous research has shown sleep-deprived people often have increased inflammatory markers and free fatty acids in their blood, which impair insulin sensitivity, leading to insulin resistance. This means the body struggles to use insulin properly to regulate blood glucose levels, and therefore increases the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Further, people who don’t sleep enough, as well as people who sleep in irregular patterns (such as shift workers), experience disruptions to their body’s natural rhythm, known as the circadian rhythm.
This can interfere with the release of hormones like cortisol, glucagon and growth hormones. These hormones are released through the day to meet the body’s changing energy needs, and normally keep blood glucose levels nicely balanced. If they’re compromised, this may reduce the body’s ability to handle glucose as the day progresses.
These factors, and others, may contribute to the increased risk of type 2 diabetes seen among people sleeping less than six hours.
Millions of people around the world have diabetes. WESTOCK PRODUCTIONS/Shutterstock While this study primarily focused on people who sleep eight hours or less, it’s possible longer sleepers may also face an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
Research has previously shown a U-shaped correlation between sleep duration and type 2 diabetes risk. A review of multiple studies found getting between seven to eight hours of sleep daily was associated with the lowest risk. When people got less than seven hours sleep, or more than eight hours, the risk began to increase.
The reason sleeping longer is associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes may be linked to weight gain, which is also correlated with longer sleep. Likewise, people who don’t sleep enough are more likely to be overweight or obese.
Good sleep, healthy diet
Getting enough sleep is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Based on this study and other evidence, it seems that when it comes to diabetes risk, seven to eight hours of sleep may be the sweet spot. However, other factors could influence the relationship between sleep duration and diabetes risk, such as individual differences in sleep quality and lifestyle.
While this study’s findings question whether a healthy diet can mitigate the effects of a lack of sleep on diabetes risk, a wide range of evidence points to the benefits of healthy eating for overall health.
The authors of the study acknowledge it’s not always possible to get enough sleep, and suggest doing high-intensity interval exercise during the day may offset some of the potential effects of short sleep on diabetes risk.
In fact, exercise at any intensity can improve blood glucose levels.
Giuliana Murfet, Casual Academic, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney and ShanShan Lin, Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, University of Technology Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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How much does your phone’s blue light really delay your sleep? Relax, it’s just 2.7 minutes
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It’s one of the most pervasive messages about technology and sleep. We’re told bright, blue light from screens prevents us falling asleep easily. We’re told to avoid scrolling on our phones before bedtime or while in bed. We’re sold glasses to help filter out blue light. We put our phones on “night mode” to minimise exposure to blue light.
But what does the science actually tell us about the impact of bright, blue light and sleep? When our group of sleep experts from Sweden, Australia and Israel compared scientific studies that directly tested this, we found the overall impact was close to meaningless. Sleep was disrupted, on average, by less than three minutes.
We showed the message that blue light from screens stops you from falling asleep is essentially a myth, albeit a very convincing one.
Instead, we found a more nuanced picture about technology and sleep.
Mangostar/Shutterstock What we did
We gathered evidence from 73 independent studies with a total of 113,370 participants of all ages examining various factors that connect technology use and sleep.
We did indeed find a link between technology use and sleep, but not necessarily what you’d think.
We found that sometimes technology use can lead to poor sleep and sometimes poor sleep can lead to more technology use. In other words, the relationship between technology and sleep is complex and can go both ways.
How is technology supposed to harm sleep?
Technology is proposed to harm our sleep in a number of ways. But here’s what we found when we looked at the evidence:
- bright screen light – across 11 experimental studies, people who used a bright screen emitting blue light before bedtime fell asleep an average of only 2.7 minutes later. In some studies, people slept better after using a bright screen. When we were invited to write about this evidence further, we showed there is still no meaningful impact of bright screen light on other sleep characteristics including the total amount or quality of sleep
- arousal is a measure of whether people become more alert depending on what they’re doing on their device. Across seven studies, people who engaged in more alerting or “exciting” content (for example, video games) lost an average of only about 3.5 minutes of sleep compared to those who engaged in something less exciting (for example, TV). This tells us the content of technology alone doesn’t affect sleep as much as we think
- we found sleep disruption at night (for example, being awoken by text messages) and sleep displacement (using technology past the time that we could be sleeping) can lead to sleep loss. So while technology use was linked to less sleep in these instances, this was unrelated to being exposed to bright, blue light from screens before bedtime.
Which factors encourage more technology use?
Research we reviewed suggests people tend to use more technology at bedtime for two main reasons:
- to “fill the time” when they’re not yet sleepy. This is common for teenagers, who have a biological shift in their sleep patterns that leads to later sleep times, independent of technology use.
- to calm down negative emotions and thoughts at bedtime, for apparent stress reduction and to provide comfort.
There are also a few things that might make people more vulnerable to using technology late into the night and losing sleep.
We found people who are risk-takers or who lose track of time easily may turn off devices later and sacrifice sleep. Fear of missing out and social pressures can also encourage young people in particular to stay up later on technology.
What helps us use technology sensibly?
Last of all, we looked at protective factors, ones that can help people use technology more sensibly before bed.
The two main things we found that helped were self-control, which helps resist the short-term rewards of clicking and scrolling, and having a parent or loved one to help set bedtimes.
We found having a parent or loved one to help set bedtimes encourages sensible use of technology. fast-stock/Shutterstock Why do we blame blue light?
The blue light theory involves melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep. During the day, we are exposed to bright, natural light that contains a high amount of blue light. This bright, blue light activates certain cells at the back of our eyes, which send signals to our brain that it’s time to be alert. But as light decreases at night, our brain starts to produce melatonin, making us feel sleepy.
It’s logical to think that artificial light from devices could interfere with the production of melatonin and so affect our sleep. But studies show it would require light levels of about 1,000-2,000 lux (a measure of the intensity of light) to have a significant impact.
Device screens emit only about 80-100 lux. At the other end of the scale, natural sunlight on a sunny day provides about 100,000 lux.
What’s the take-home message?
We know that bright light does affect sleep and alertness. However our research indicates the light from devices such as smartphones and laptops is nowhere near bright or blue enough to disrupt sleep.
There are many factors that can affect sleep, and bright, blue screen light likely isn’t one of them.
The take-home message is to understand your own sleep needs and how technology affects you. Maybe reading an e-book or scrolling on socials is fine for you, or maybe you’re too often putting the phone down way too late. Listen to your body and when you feel sleepy, turn off your device.
Chelsea Reynolds, Casual Academic/Clinical Educator and Clinical Psychologist, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Brown Rice vs Russet Potatoes – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing brown rice to russet potatoes, we picked the rice.
Why?
First we’ll note: for brevity and to avoid undue repetitiveness, we’re henceforth going to just say “rice” and “potato”, respectively, but values and conclusions are still for brown rice and russet potatoes. Also, we are including the flesh and skin into the metrics for the potato (without the skin, many nutrients are no longer present).
In terms of macros, the rice has more fiber, carbs, and protein. It’s difficult to compare glycemic indices in this case, because they both need cooking before eating, and how one cooks them (and whether one cools them) along with other preparatory methods will change the GI considerably. Thus, we’ll simply go with the more nutritionally dense option, and that’s the rice.
In the category of vitamins, the rice has much more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, E, and choline, while the potato has more of vitamins C and K. A clear win for rice (and by the way, that’s 60x the vitamin E, but as potatoes don’t have much vitamin E, in practical terms, it’s actually the B-vitamins where rice’s strengths really show, as potatoes aren’t a bad source but rice is amazing).
When it comes to minerals, rice has a lot more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc, while potato has more calcium and potassium. Another easy win for rice.
You may be wondering about phytic acid: brown rice contains this by default, and it is something of an antinutrient (i.e., if left as-is, it reduces the bioavailability of other nutrients), and/but the phytic acid content is reduced to negligible by two things: soaking and heating (especially if those two things are combined) ← doing this the way described results in bioavailability of nutrients that’s even better than if there were just no phytic acid, albeit it requires you having the time to soak, and do so at temperature.
All in all, adding up the sections makes for an overall win for brown rice, but by all means enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
Carb-Strong or Carb-Wrong? Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?
Enjoy!
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Sunflower Oil vs Canola Oil – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing sunflower oil to canola oil, we picked the sunflower oil.
Why?
They’re both terrible! But canola oil is worse. Sunflower oil is marketed as being higher in polyunsaturated fats, which it is, albeit not by much.
Canola oil is very bad for the heart, and sunflower oil is only moderately bad for the heart, to the point that it can be heart-neutral if used sparingly.
As seed oils, they are both sources of vitamin E, but you’d need to drink a cup of oil to get your daily dose, so please just eat some seeds (or nuts, or fruit, or something) instead. It can even be sunflower seeds if you like! Rapeseed* itself (the seed that canola oil is made from) isn’t really sold as a foodstuff, so that one’s less of an option.
*Fun fact: if you’re N. American and wondering what this “rapeseed” is, know that most of the rest of the Anglosphere calls canola oil “rapeseed oil”, as it’s made from rapeseed, which comes from a plant called rape, whose name is unrelated to the crime of the same name, and comes from rāpa, the Latin word for turnip. Anyway, “canola” is a portmanteau of “Canadian” and “Ola” meaning oil, and is a trademark that has made its way into generic use throughout N. America, as a less alarming name.
Back to health matters: while sunflower seeds are healthy in moderation, the ultraprocessed and refined sunflower and canola oils are not.
Canola oil has also been found to be implicated in age-related cognitive decline, whereas sunflower oil has had mixed results in that regard.
In summary
Sunflower oil is relatively, and we stress relatively, healthier than canola oil. Please use a healthier oil than either if you can. Olive oil is good for most things, and if you need something with a higher smoke point (and/or less distinctive flavor), consider avocado oil, which is also very healthy and whose smoke point is even higher than the seed oils we’ve been discussing today.
Want to know more?
Check out:
Avocado Oil vs Olive Oil – Which is Healthier?
Enjoy!
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