Canned Tuna vs Canned Sardines – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing canned tuna to canned sardines, we picked the sardines.
Why?
This comparison is unfair, but practical—because both are sold next to each other in the supermarket and often used for similar things.
It’s unfair because in a can of tuna, there is tuna meat, whereas in a can of sardines, there is sardine meat, skin, and bones.
Consequently, sardines outperform tuna in almost everything, because a lot of nutrients are in the skin and bones.
To be completely unambiguous:
Sardines have more vitamins and minerals by far (special shout-out to calcium, of which sardines contain 6000% more), and more choline (which is sometimes reckoned as a vitamin, sometimes not).
Tuna does have marginally more protein, and less fat. If you are trying to limit your cholesterol intake, then that could be an argument for choosing tuna over sardines.
All in all: the sardines are more nutrient dense by far, are good sources of vitamins and minerals that tuna contains less of (and in many cases only trace amounts of), and for most people this will more than offset the difference in cholesterol, especially if having not more than one can per day.
About that skin and bones…
That’s where the real benefit for your joints lies, by the way!
See: We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
Enjoy!
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The Natural Facelift – by Sophie Perry
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First, what this book isn’t: it’s mostly not about beauty, and it’s certainly not about ageist ideals of “hiding” aging.
The author herself discusses the privilege that is aging (not everyone gets to do it) and the importance of taking thankful pride in our lived-in bodies.
The title and blurb belie the contents of the book rather. Doubtlessly the publisher felt that extrinsic beauty would sell better than intrinsic wellbeing. As for what it’s actually more about…
Ever splashed your face in cold water to feel better? This book’s about revitalising the complex array of facial muscles (there are anatomical diagrams) and the often-tired and very diverse tissues that cover them, complete with the array of nerve endings very close to your CNS (not to mention the vagus nerve running just behind your jaw), and some of the most important blood vessels of your body, serving your brain.
With all that in mind, this book, full of useful therapeutic techniques, is a very, very far cry from “massage like this and you’ll look like you got photoshopped”.
The style varies, as some parts of explanation of principles, or anatomy, and others are hands-on (literally) guides to the exercises, but it is all very clear and easy to understand/follow.
Bottom line: aspects of conventional beauty may be a side-effect of applying the invigorating exercises described in this book. The real beauty is—literally—more than skin-deep.
Click here to check out The Natural Facelift, and order yours!
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Can You Reverse Gray Hair? A Dermatologist Explains
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Betteridge’s Law of Headlines states “any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no“—it’s not really a universal truth, but it’s true surprisingly often, and, as board certified dermatologist “The Beauty MD” Dr. Sam Ellis explains, it’s true in this case.
But, all is not lost.
Physiological Factors
Hair color is initially determined by genes and gene expression, instructing the body to color it with melanin (brown and black) and/or pheomelanin (blonde and red). If and when the body produces less of those pigments, our hair will go gray.
Factors that affect if/when our hair will go gray include:
- Genetics: primary determinant, essentially a programmed change
- Age: related to the above, but critically, the probability of going gray in any given year increases with age
- Ethnicity: the level of melanin in our skin is an indicator of how long we are likely to maintain melanin in our hair. Black people with the darkest skintones will thus generally go gray last, whereas white people with the lightest skintones will generally go gray first, and so on for a spectrum between the two.
- Medical conditions: immune conditions such as vitiligo, thyroid disease, and pernicious anemia promote an earlier loss of pigmentation
- Stress: oxidative stress, mainly, so factors like smoking will cause earlier graying. But yes, also chronic emotional stress does lead to oxidative stress too. Interestingly, this seems to be more about norepinephrine than cortisol, though.
- Nutrient deficiencies: the body can make a lot of things, but it needs the raw ingredients. Not having the right amounts of important vitamins and minerals will result in a loss of pigmentation (amongst other more serious problems). Vitamins B6, B9, and B12 are talked about in the video, as are iron and zinc. Copper is also needed for some hair colors. Selenium is needed for good hair health in general (but not too much, as an excess of selenium paradoxically causes hair loss), and many related things will stop working properly without adequate magnesium. Hair health will also benefit a lot from plenty of vitamin B7.
So, managing the above factors (where possible; obviously some of the above aren’t things we can influence) will result in maintaining one’s hair pigment for longer. As for texture, by the way, the reason gray hair tends to have a rougher texture is not for the lack of pigment itself, but is due to decreased sebum production. Judicious use of exogenous hair oils (e.g. argan oil, coconut oil, or whatever your preference may be) is a fine way to keep your grays conditioned.
However, once your hair has gone gray, there is no definitive treatment with good evidence for reversing that, at present. Dye it if you want to, or don’t. Many people (including this writer, who has just a couple of streaks of gray herself) find gray hair gives a distinguished look, and such harmless signs of age are a privilege not everyone gets to reach, and thus may be reasonably considered a cause for celebration
For more on all of the above, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Take care!
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Migraine Mythbusting
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Migraine: When Headaches Are The Tip Of The Neurological Iceberg
Yesterday, we asked you “What is a migraine?” and got the above-depicted, below-described spread of responses:
- Just under 46% said “a headache, but above a certain level of severity”
- Just under 23% said “a headache, but caused by a neurological disorder”
- Just over 21% said “a neurological disorder that can cause headaches”
- Just under 10% said “a headache, but with an attention-grabbing name”
So… What does the science say?
A migraine is a headache, but above a certain level of severity: True or False?
While that’s usually a very noticeable part of it… That’s only one part of it, and not a required diagnostic criterion. So, in terms of defining what a migraine is, False.
Indeed, migraine may occur without any headache, let alone a severe one, for example: Abdominal Migraine—though this is much less well-researched than the more common with-headache varieties.
Here are the defining characteristics of a migraine, with the handy mnemonic 5-4-3-2-1:
- 5 or more attacks
- 4 hours to 3 days in duration
- 2 or more of the following:
- Unilateral (affects only one side of the head)
- Pulsating
- Moderate or severe pain intensity
- Worsened by or causing avoidance of routine physical activity
- 1 or more of the following:
- Nausea and/or vomiting
- Sensitivity to both light and sound
Source: Cephalalgia | ICHD-II Classification: Parts 1–3: Primary, Secondary and Other
As one of our subscribers wrote:
❝I have chronic migraine, and it is NOT fun. It takes away from my enjoyment of family activities, time with friends, and even enjoying alone time. Anyone who says a migraine is just a bad headache has not had to deal with vertigo, nausea, loss of balance, photophobia, light sensitivity, or a host of other symptoms.❞
Migraine is a neurological disorder: True or False?
True! While the underlying causes aren’t known, what is known is that there are genetic and neurological factors at play.
❝Migraine is a recurrent, disabling neurological disorder. The World Health Organization ranks migraine as the most prevalent, disabling, long-term neurological condition when taking into account years lost due to disability.
Considerable progress has been made in elucidating the pathophysiological mechanisms of migraine, associated genetic factors that may influence susceptibility to the disease❞
Source: JHP | Mechanisms of migraine as a chronic evolutive condition
Migraine is just a headache with a more attention-grabbing name: True or False?
Clearly, False.
As we’ve already covered why above, we’ll just close today with a nod to an old joke amongst people with chronic illnesses in general:
“Are you just saying that because you want attention?”
“Yes… Medical attention!”
Want to learn more?
You can find a lot of resources at…
NIH | National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke | Migraine
and…
The Migraine Trust ← helpfully, this one has a “Calm mode” to tone down the colorscheme of the website!
Particularly useful from the above site are its pages:
Take care!
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What’s Your Personal Life Expectancy?
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Tick Tock… Goes the Death Clock?
This fun little test will ask a few questions about you and your lifestyle, and then make a prediction of your personal life expectancy, based on global statistics from the World Health Organisation.
And then the countdown starts… Literally, it generates a clock for you to see your life-seconds ticking away—this may or may not delight you, but it sure is a curiosity.
Their “Letters” page has a lot of reactions from people who just got their results (spoiler: people’s perspectives on life vary a lot)
Who mostly uses this service? According to their stats page, it’s mostly curious under-45s, with gradually less interest in knowing about it from 45 onwards… until the age of 70, when suddenly everyone wants to know about it again!
So Is It Possible To Pause The Clock On Aging? – Q&A Spotlight Interview
Life extension is sometimes viewed as the domain of the super-rich, and with less than half of Millennials (and almost none of Gen-Z) having retirement plans, often those of us who aren’t super-rich have more mundane (and immediate!) goals than living to 120.
And yet…
Middle class and working class life-extensionists do exist, even if not garnering the same media attention. We think that’s strange—after all, while the whimsies of the super-rich may be entertaining to read about, it’s not nearly as applicable to most people as more relatable stories:
- The twenty-something who gives up smoking and adds (healthier!) years to their life
- The thirty-something who adopts a plant-based diet and is less likely to die of heart disease
- The forty-something who stops drinking, and avoids health conditions and mishaps alike
- The fifty-something who reconsiders their health plan in light of their changing body
- The sixty-something who takes up yoga, or chess, or salsa dancing
- The seventy-something who gets asked what their secret is
- …and so on
But these are ideas, textbook examples. What if we make it more personal?
We interviewed 10 Almonds subscriber and longevity enthusiast Anastasia S., and here’s what she had to say:
Q: What does life extension mean to you, in your life?
A: To me, the key is healthy life extension. People often joke “I don’t want to live longer; the last years are the worst!” but they’re missing the point that after a certain age, those difficulties are coming whether they come at 50 or 70 or 90. Personally, I’d rather keep them at bay if I can.
Q: How do you do that?
A: Firstly, which won’t be a shock: good diet and exercise. Those two things are possibly the biggest active influences on my longevity. I’m vegan, which I don’t think is outright necessary for good health but done right, it can certainly be good. In this house we eat a lot of whole grains, beans, lentils, vegetables in general, nuts too. As for exercise, I do 30–60 minutes of Pilates daily; it’s nothing fancy and it’s just me in my pajamas at home, but it keeps me strong and fit and supple. I also walk everywhere; I don’t even own a car. Beyond that… I don’t drink or smoke (probably the biggest passive influences on my longevity, i.e., things that aren’t there to make it shorter), and I try to take my sleep seriously, making sure to schedule enough time and prepare properly for it.
Q: Take your sleep seriously? How so?
A: Good “sleep hygiene” as some call it—I schedule a little wind-down time before sleep, with no glaring screens or main lights, making a space between my busy day and restful sleep, kicking anything requiring brainpower to the morning, and making a conscious choice not to think more about those things in the meantime. I take care to make my sleeping environment as conducive as possible to good sleep too; I have a good mattress and pillows, I make sure the temperature is cool but cosy. I have a pot of herbal tea on my bedside table—I hydrate a lot.
Q: Do you take any supplements?
A: I do! They’re mostly quite general though, just “covering my bases”, so to speak. I take a daily nootropic stack (a collection of supplements specifically for brain health), too. I buy them in bulk, so they don’t cost so much.
Q: This seems quite a healthy lifestyle! Do you have any vices at all?
A: I definitely drink more coffee than I probably should! But hey, nobody’s perfect. I do love coffee, though, and as vices go, it’s probably not too bad.
Q: How’s it all working out for you? Do you feel younger?
A: I’m 38 and sometimes I feel like a teenager; sometimes I feel like an old lady. But the latter is usually for social reasons, not health-related reasons. I do have streaks of gray in my hair though, and I love that! If people don’t notice my grays, then they often think I’m in my 20s, rather than pushing 40. A little while back, I was stopped in the street by someone wanting to sell me a change of household utilities provider, then she stopped herself mid-sentence and said “Oh but wait, you look a bit too young, never mind”. Most general metrics of health would put me in my 20s.
Q: That’s interesting that you love your gray hairs, for someone who wants to stay young; is it an exception?
A: It’s more that I want to minimize the problems that come with age, and not everything’s a problem. Gray hairs are cool; joint pain, not so much. A long life rich with experiences is cool; memory loss, not so much. So, I try to keep healthy, and wear my years as best I can.
Q: Sounds good to us; good luck with it!
A: Thank you; I do my best!
Here at 10 Almonds, we love featuring what our readers are doing to improve their health; if you’re willing to be featured in our newsletter, let us know by replying to this email (where an actual human will read it, we promise!)
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Hormone Replacement
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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
❝I cant believe 10 Almonds addresses questions. Thanks. I see the word symptoms for menopause. I don’t know what word should replace it but maybe one should be used or is symptom accurate? And I recently read that there was a great disservice for women in my era as they were denied/scared of hormones replacement. Unnecessarily❞
You’d better believe it! In fact we love questions; they give us things to research and write about.
“Symptom” is indeed an entirely justified word to use, being:
- General: any phenomenon or circumstance accompanying something and serving as evidence of it.
- Medical: any phenomenon that arises from and accompanies a particular disease or disorder and serves as an indication of it.
If the question is more whether the menopause can be considered a disease/disorder, well, it’s a naturally occurring and ultimately inevitable change, yes, but then, so is cancer (it’s in the simple mathematics of DNA replication and mutation that, unless a cure for cancer is found, we will always eventually get cancer, if nothing else kills us first).
So, something being natural/inevitable isn’t a reason to not consider it a disease/disorder, nor a reason to not treat it as appropriate if it is causing us harm/discomfort that can be safely alleviated.
Moreover, and semantics aside, it is medical convention to consider menopause to be a medical condition, that has symptoms. Indeed, for example, the US’s NIH (and its constituent NIA, the National Institute of Aging) and the UK’s NHS, both list the menopause’s symptoms, using that word:
- NIA (NIH): What are the signs and symptoms of menopause?
- NHS: Common symptoms of menopause and perimenopause
With regard to fearmongering around HRT, certainly that has been rife, and there were some very flawed (and later soundly refuted) studies a while back that prompted this—and even those flawed studies were not about the same (bioidentical) hormones available today, in any case. So even if they had been correct (they weren’t), it still wouldn’t be a reason to not get treatment nowadays, if appropriate!
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50 Ways To Rewire Your Anxious Brain – by Dr. Catherine Pittman & Dr. Maha Zayed-Hoffman
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The book is divided into sections:
- Calming the amygdala
- Rewiring the amygdala
- Calming the cortex
- Resisting cortex traps
…each with a dozen or so ways to do exactly what it says in the title: rewire your anxious brain.
The authors take the stance that since our brain is changing all the time, we might as well choose the direction we prefer. They then set out to provide the tools for the lay reader to do that, and (in that fourth section we mentioned) how to avoid accidentally doing the opposite, no matter how tempting doing the opposite may be.
For a book written by two PhD scientists where a large portion of it is about neuroscience, the style is very light pop science (just a few in-line citations every few pages, where they couldn’t resist the urge), and the focus is on being useful to the reader throughout. This all makes for reassuringly science-based but accessibly readable book.
The fact that the main material comes in the form of 50 very short chapters also makes it a lot more readable for those for whom sitting down to read a lot at a time can be off-putting.
Bottom line: if you experience anxiety and would like to experience it less, this book will guide you through how to get there.
Click here to check out 50 Ways To Rewire Your Anxious Brain, and rewire your anxious brain!
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