Cabbage vs Leek – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing cabbage to leek, we picked the leek.
Why?
It was close!
In terms of macros; it’s much of a muchness: cabbage has slightly more fiber, while leek has slightly more protein and carbs, and the numbers are all close enough that we can most fairly call this round a tie.
In the category of vitamins, cabbage has more of vitamins B2, B5, C, and K, while leek has more of vitamins A, B3, B6, B9, and E, winning marginally.
Looking at minerals, we finally get something more decisive: cabbage has more zinc, while leek has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium, winning convincingly.
Adding up the sections gives us an overall win for leek, but by all means do enjoy either or both, as diversity is best!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain ← we couldn’t find comprehensive polyphenol data for leek to do a comparison in that regard, but we wouldn’t be surprised if leeks would have won that category too
Enjoy!
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Genetic Risk Factors For Long COVID
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Some people, after getting COVID, go on to have Long COVID. There are various contributing factors to this, including:
- Lifestyle factors that impact general disease-proneness
- Immune-specific factors such as being immunocompromised already
- Genetic factors
We looked at some modifiable factors to improve one’s disease-resistance, yesterday:
And we’ve taken a more big-picture look previously:
Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!
Along with some more systemic issues:
Why Some People Get Sick More (And How To Not Be One Of Them)
But, for when the “don’t get COVID” ship has sailed, one of the big remaining deciding factors with regard to whether one gets Long COVID or not, is genetic
The Long COVID Genes
For those with their 23andMe genetic data to hand…
❝Study findings revealed that three specific genetic loci, HLA-DQA1–HLA-DQB1, ABO, and BPTF–KPAN2–C17orf58, and three phenotypes were at significantly heightened risk, highlighting high-priority populations for interventions against this poorly understood disease.❞
For those who don’t, then first: you might consider getting that! Here’s why:
Genetic Testing: Health Benefits & Methods
But also, all is not lost meanwhile:
The same study also found that individuals with genetic predispositions to chronic fatigue, depression, and fibromyalgia, as well as other phenotypes such as autoimmune conditions and cardiometabolic conditions, are at significantly higher risk of long-COVID than individuals without these conditions.
Good news, bad news
Another finding was that women and non-smokers were more likely to get Long COVID, than men and smokers, respectively.
Does that mean that those things are protective against Long COVID, which would be very counterintuitive in the case of smoking?
Well, yes and no; it depends on whether you count “less likely to get Long COVID because of being more likely to just die” as protective against Long COVID.
(Incidentally, estrogen is moderately immune-enhancing, while testosterone is moderately immune-suppressing, so the sex thing was not too surprising. It’s also at least contributory to why women get more autoimmune disorders, while men get more respiratory infections such as colds and the like)
Want to know more?
You can read the paper itself, here:
*GWAS = Genome-Wide Association Study
Take care!
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Chili Chestnut, Sweet Apricot, & Whipped Feta Toasts
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.
This is a delightful breakfast or light lunch option, full of gut-healthy ingredients and a fair list of healthy polyphenols too.
You will need
- ½ baguette, sliced into ½” slices; if making your own, feel free to use our Delicious Quinoa Avocado Bread recipe. If buying shop-bought, a sourdough baguette will likely be the healthiest option, and tasty too.
- 4 oz feta cheese; if you are vegan, a plant-based version will work in culinary terms, but will have a different (less gut-healthy) nutritional profile, as plant-based cheeses generally use a lot of coconut oil and potato starch, and are not actually fermented.
- 1 tbsp yogurt; your preference what kind; live-cultured with minimal additives is of course best—and this time, plant-based is also just as good, healthwise, since they are fermented and contain more or less the same beneficial bacteria, and have a good macro profile too.
- 4 oz precooked chestnuts, finely chopped
- 6 dried apricots, finely chopped
- ¼ bulb garlic, grated
- 2 tsp harissa paste
- 1 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
- ¼ tsp MSG or ½ tsp low-sodium salt
- Extra virgin olive oil, for frying
- Optional garnish: finely chopped chives
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Combine the feta and yogurt in a small, high-speed blender and process into a smooth purée. If it isn’t working, add 1 tbsp kettle-hot water and try again.
2) Heat the oil in a skillet over a medium heat; add the garlic and when it starts to turn golden, add the chestnuts and harissa, as well as the black pepper and MSG/salt. Stir for about 2 minutes, and then stir in the apricots and take it off the heat.
3) Toast the baguette slices under the grill. If you’re feeling bold about the multitasking, you can start this while still doing the previous step, for optimal timing. If not, simply doing it in the order presented is fine.
4) Assemble: spread the whipped feta over the toast; add the apricot-chestnut mixture, followed by the finely chopped chives if using, and serve immediately:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
- Apricots vs Peaches – Which is Healthier?
- Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
- Capsaicin For Weight Loss And Against Inflammation
- The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
- Black Pepper’s Impressive Anti-Cancer Arsenal (And More)
- Sea Salt vs MSG – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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The Basics: 5 Exercises That Reverse Aging
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Your body neither knows nor cares how many times you’ve flown around the sun. It does know and care what you’ve done with it. And that’s how much of biological aging works. A lot of it is about mobility, strength, keeping your posture good and thus your organs safe.
These exercises keep us young in those ways, while also providing modest metabolic benefits—slowing aging from the cellular level upwards:
The Core 5
Mobility coach Marina Sarenac recommends:
- Hanging: not by your neck (!), but rather, spinal decompression that restores posture, grip strength, and shoulder mobility by letting your arms stretch, activating your shoulder blades, and adding gentle side-to-side swings so the stretch travels from your hands through your ribs to your hips.
- Deep squatting: the natural resting position that rebuilds ankle mobility, hip rotation, pelvic health, knee resilience, and digestion, with support or heel elevation as needed and optional internal hip rotation while holding.
- Hip opening flows: restoring range lost from sitting using static shapes like a butterfly stretch or the 90:90 position, then progressing to controlled movements that signal safety to your nervous system and support posture, balance, and energy.
- Horse stance: a grounding hold that develops leg strength, balance, and endurance by bending your knees, opening your hips, breathing through the tremble, and progressively increasing hold time.
- Isometric core training: building a resilient, strong spine through controlled holds that reconnect your brain and body, emphasizing steady breathing, rib control, and deep core engagement over movement.
For more on each of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It? ← our mythbusting special on biological aging
Take care!
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What should I do if I can’t see a psychiatrist?
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.
People presenting at emergency with mental health concerns are experiencing the longest wait times in Australia for admission to a ward, according to a new report from the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine.
But with half of New South Wales’ public psychiatrists set to resign next week after ongoing pay disputes – and amid national shortages in the mental health workforce – Australians who rely on psychiatry support may be wondering where else to go.
If you can’t get in to see a psychiatrist and you need help, there are some other options. However in an emergency, you should call 000.
Why do people see a psychiatrist?
Psychiatrists are doctors who specialise in mental health and can prescribe medication.
People seek or require psychiatry support for many reasons. These may include:
- severe depression, including suicidal thoughts or behaviours
- severe anxiety, panic attacks or phobias
- post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia
- attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Psychiatrists complement other mental health clinicians by prescribing certain medications and making decisions about hospital admission. But when psychiatry support is not available a range of team members can contribute to a person’s mental health care.
Can my GP help?
Depending on your mental health concerns, your GP may be able to offer alternatives while you await formal psychiatry care.
GPs provide support for a range of mental health concerns, regardless of formal diagnosis. They can help address the causes and impact of issues including mental distress, changes in sleep, thinking, mood or behaviour.
The GP Psychiatry Support Line also provides doctors advice on care, prescription medication and how support can work.
It’s a good idea to book a long consult and consider taking a trusted person. Be explicit about how you’ve been feeling and what previous supports or medication you’ve accessed.
What about psychologists, counsellors or community services?
Your GP should also be aware of supports available locally and online.
For example, Head to Health is a government initiative, including information, a nationwide phone line, and in-person clinics in Victoria. It aims to improve mental health advice, assessment and access to treatment.
Medicare Mental Health Centres provide in-person care and are expanding across Australia.
There are also virtual care services in some areas. This includes advice on individualised assessment including whether to go to hospital.
Some community groups are led by peers rather than clinicians, such as Alternatives to Suicide.
How about if I’m rural or regional?
Accessing support in rural or regional areas is particularly tough.
Beyond helplines and formal supports, other options include local Suicide Prevention Networks and community initiatives such as ifarmwell and Men’s sheds.
Should I go to emergency?
As the new report shows, people who present at hospital emergency departments for mental health should expect long wait times before being admitted to a ward.
But going to a hospital emergency department will be essential for some who are experiencing a physical or mental health crisis.
Managing suicide-related distress
With the mass resignation of NSW psychiatrists looming, and amid shortages and blown-out emergency waiting times, people in suicide-related distress must receive the best available care and support.
Roughly nine Australians die by suicide each day. One in six have had thoughts of suicide at some point in their lives.
Suicidal thoughts can pass. There are evidence-based strategies people can immediately turn to when distressed and in need of ongoing care.
Safety planning is a popular suicide prevention strategy to help you stay safe.
What is a safety plan?
This is a personalised, step-by-step plan to remain safe during the onset or worsening of suicidal urges.
You can develop a safety plan collaboratively with a clinician and/or peer worker, or with loved ones. You can also make one on your own – many people like to use the Beyond Now app.
Safety plans usually include:
- recognising personal warning signs of a crisis (for example, feeling like a burden)
- identifying and using internal coping strategies (such as distracting yourself by listening to favourite music)
- seeking social supports for distraction (for example, visiting your local library)
- letting trusted family or friends know how you’re feeling – ideally, they should know they’re in your safety plan
- knowing contact details of specific mental health services (your GP, mental health supports, local hospital)
- making the environment safer by removing or limiting access to lethal means
- identifying specific and personalised reasons for living.
Our research shows safety planning is linked to reduced suicidal thoughts and behaviour, as well as feelings of depression and hopelessness, among adults.
Evidence from people with lived experience shows safety planning helps people to understand their warning signs and practice coping strategies.
Sharing your safety plan with loved ones may help understand warning signs of a crisis. Dragana Gordic/Shutterstock Are there helplines I can call?
There are people ready to listen, by phone or online chat, Australia-wide. You can try any of the following (most are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week):
Suicide helplines:
- Lifeline 13 11 14
- Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467
There is also specialised support:
- for men: MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78
- children and young people: Kids’ Helpline 1800 55 1800
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: 13YARN 13 92 76
- veterans and their families: Open Arms 1800 011 046
- LGBTQIA+ community: QLife 1300 184 527
- new and expecting parents: PANDA 1300 726 306
- people experiencing eating disorders: Butterfly Foundation 1800 33 4673.
Additionally, each state and territory will have its own list of mental health resources.
With uncertain access to services, it’s helpful to remember that there are people who care. You don’t have to go it alone.
Monika Ferguson, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health, University of South Australia and Nicholas Procter, Professor and Chair: Mental Health Nursing, University of South Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Coca-Cola vs Diet Coke – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing Coca-Cola to Diet Coke, we picked the Diet Coke.
Why?
While the Diet Coke is bad, the Coca-Cola has mostly the same problems plus sugar.
The sugar in a can of Coca-Cola is 39g high-fructose corn syrup (the worst kind of sugar yet known to humanity), and of course it’s being delivered in liquid form (the most bioavailable way to get, which in this case, is bad).
To put those 39g into perspective, the daily recommended amount of sugar is 36g for men or 25g for women, according to the AHA.
The sweetener in Diet Coke is aspartame, which has had a lot of health risk accusations made against it, most of which have not stood up to scrutiny, and the main risk it does have is “it mimics sugar too well” and it can increase cravings for sweetness, and therefore higher consumption of sugars in other products. For this reason, the World Health Organization has recommended to simply reduce sugar intake without looking to artificial sweeteners to help.
Nevertheless, aspartame has been found safe (in moderate doses; the upper tolerance level would equate to more than 20 cans of diet coke per day) by food safety agencies ranging from the FDA to the EFSA, based on a large body of science.
Other problems that Diet Coke has are present in Coca-Cola too, such as its acidic nature (bad for tooth enamel) and gassy nature (messes with leptin/ghrelin balance).
Summary: the Diet Coke is relatively less unhealthy, but is still bad in numerous ways, and remains best avoided.
Read more:
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Are You A “Weekend Warrior”?
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First, let’s define the term: for our purposes today (and indeed, for the science we will discuss), a “weekend warrior” is someone who gets in 150 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous exercise in just one or two sessions per week.
Some more parameters for our discussion today:
- a “regularly active” person also does 150 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous exercise, but spread over three or more sessions
- an “inactive” person is someone who does under 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per week.
You can probably guess already that the “inactive” person is going to be less healthy, and if you guessed that, then you guessed correctly.
But, what about the other two?
Head to head
Researchers (Dr. Zhiyuan Wu et al.) looked at 51,650 US adults with type 2 diabetes, found that both weekend warrior and regular exercise patterns (per the above definitions) reduced risk of death.
Compared to inactive people…
- weekend warriors had a 21% lower all-cause mortality risk
- regularly active people had a 17% lower all-cause mortality risk
Not only that, but when we look at cardiovascular mortality specifically, the gap widens, and…
- weekend warriors had a 33% lower cardiovascular death risk
- regularly active people had a 19% lower cardiovascular death risk
You can read the paper in full, here: Association of Weekend Warrior and Other Physical Activity Patterns With Mortality Among Adults With Diabetes: A Cohort Study
Why does this happen? What happened to advice such as that from The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More?
It’s unclear, but the researchers hypothesize that weekend activities may be longer, more social, outdoors, or higher intensity compared with weekday gym workouts—all of which can make a difference.
We at 10almonds would also not that the limitations listed in the paper,
❝Physical activity was self-reported and assessed at a single time point❞
…may play a part too. The kind of person who spends their weekends mountain-biking may well say “No, I don’t really do any exercise in the rest of the week” because, comparatively to the weekend, they’re not—even if in fact, due in part to their extra fitness, they’re quite possibly moving more than their non-weekend-warrioring counterparts who, not having the weekend of mountain-biking to point to, start totting up all the other things they do during the week, that the weekend warriors also did but left unmentioned as superfluous. But this too is just a hypothesis, to be clear.
What is clear, and is not hypothetical, is that both exercise patterns significantly reduce all-cause mortality.
In short, it is best to go with which ever works for you and your preferred lifestyle, because ultimately, the best exercise is the exercise that you’ll actually do.
For example:
- How Useful Is “Exercise Snacking”, Really? ← for light bites
- How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body) ← for getting intense
Want to learn more?
If you don’t love organized, intentional workouts, then consider:
No-Exercise Exercise! ← for how to get in a lot of exercise without it feeling like it
Enjoy!
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