Carrot vs Turnip – 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 carrots to turnips, we picked the carrots.
Why?
In terms of macros, carrots have 50% more fiber, 50% more carbs, and approximately the same protein. All in all, that makes carrots the “more plant per plant” option in the macros category and thus the winner in this first round.
In the category of vitamins, carrots have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, E, and K, scoring especially highly in vitamins A, E, and K, while turnips are higher only in vitamin C. All in all, a clear second-round win for carrots.
Looking at minerals, carrots have more calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium, while turnips have more copper, selenium, and zinc, yielding a 5:3 win for carrots in this round.
In other considerations, they’re about equal on polyphenols, but carrots are (shocking nobody) higher in carotenoids, and score an extra point here.
Adding up the sections makes for a clear overall win for carrots, but by all means do enjoy either or both, as diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Enjoy!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Bok Choy vs Red Cabbage– 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 bok choy to red cabbage, we picked the bok choy.
Why?
It was close!
In terms of macros, the red cabbage has 2x the fiber as well as more carbs, scoring a first-round win.
In the category of vitamins, bok choy has more of vitamins A, B3, B7, B9, and K, while red cabbage has more of vitamins B1, B5, C, and E, yielding a 5:4 win to bok choy.
Looking at minerals, bok choy has more calcium, copper, magnesium, and phosphorus, and potassium, while red cabbage has more manganese, selenium, and zinc, giving bok choy a 5:3 win in this round.
Adding up the sections makes for an overall win for bok choy, but by all means do enjoy either or both, as diversity is best!
Want to learn more?
You might like:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Enjoy!
Share This Post
-
Astaxanthin: Super-Antioxidant & Neuroprotectant
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.
Think Pink For Brain Health!
Astaxanthin is a carotenoid that’s found in:
- certain marine microalgae
- tiny crustaceans that eat the algae
- fish (and flamingos!) that eat the crustaceans
Yes, it’s the one that makes things pink.
But it does a lot more than that…
Super-antioxidant
Move over, green tea! Astaxanthin has higher antioxidant activity than most carotenoids. For example, it is 2–5 times more effective than alpha-carotene, lutein, beta-carotene, and lycopene:
Antioxidant activities of astaxanthin and related carotenoids
We can’t claim credit for naming it a super-antioxidant though, because:
Astaxanthin: A super antioxidant from microalgae and its therapeutic potential
Grow new brain cells
Axtaxanthin is a neuroprotectant, but that’s to be expected from something with such a powerful antioxidant ability.
What’s more special to astaxanthin is that it assists continued adult neurogenesis (creation of new brain cells):
❝The unique chemical structure of astaxanthin enables it to cross the blood-brain barrier and easily reach the brain, where it may positively influence adult neurogenesis.
Furthermore, astaxanthin appears to modulate neuroinflammation by suppressing the NF-κB pathway, reducing the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and limiting neuroinflammation associated with aging and chronic microglial activation.
By modulating these pathways, along with its potent antioxidant properties, astaxanthin may contribute to the restoration of a healthy neurogenic microenvironment, thereby preserving the activity of neurogenic niches during both normal and pathological aging. ❞
That first part is very important, by the way! There are so many things that our brain needs, and we can eat, but the molecules are unable to pass the blood-brain barrier, meaning they either get wasted, or used elsewhere, or dismantled for their constituent parts. In this case, it zips straight into the brain instead.
See also:
How To Grow New Brain Cells (At Any Age)
(Probably) good for the joints, too
First, astaxanthin got a glowing report in a study we knew not to trust blindly:
…and breathe. What a title that was! But, did you catch why it’s not to be trusted blindly? It was down at the bottom…
❝Conflict of interest statement
NOVAREX Co., Ltd. funded the study. Valensa International provided the FlexPro MD® ingredients, and NOVAREX Co., Ltd. encapsulated the test products (e.g., both FlexPro MD® and placebo)❞
Studies where a supplement company funded the study are not necessarily corrupt, but they can certainly sway publication bias, i.e. the company funds a bunch of studies and then pulls funding from the ones that aren’t going the way it wants.
So instead let’s look at:
Astaxanthin attenuates joint inflammation induced by monosodium urate crystals
and
Astaxanthin ameliorates cartilage damage in experimental osteoarthritis
…which had no such conflicts of interest.
They agree that astaxanthin indeed does the things (attenuates joint inflammation & ameliorates cartilage damage).
However, they are animal studies (rats), so we’d like to see studies with humans to be able to say for sure how much it helps these things.
Summary of benefits
Based on the available research, astaxanthin…
- is indeed a super-antioxidant
- is a neuroprotective agent
- also assists adult neurogenesis
- is probablygood for joints too
How much do I take, and is it safe?
A 2019 safety review concluded:
❝Recommended or approved doses varied in different countries and ranged between 2 and 24 mg.
We reviewed 87 human studies, none of which found safety concerns with natural astaxanthin supplementation, 35 with doses ≥12 mg/day.❞
Source: Astaxanthin: How much is too much? A safety review
In short: for most people, it’s very safe and well-tolerated. If you consume it to an extreme, you will likely turn pink, much as you would turn orange if you did the same thing with carrots. But aside from that, the risks appear to be minimal.
However! If you have a seafood allergy, please take care to get a supplement that’s made from microalgae, not one that’s made from krill or other crustaceans, or from other creatures that eat those.
Where can I get it?
We don’t sell it, but here’s an example product on Amazon, for your convenience
Enjoy!
Share This Post
-
The Lymphatic System Against Cancer & More
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.
Ask Not What Your Lymphatic System Can Do For You…
Just kidding; we’ll cover that first, as it’s definitely not talked about enough.
The lymphatic system is the system in the body that moves lymph around. It’s made of glands, nodes, and vessels:
- The glands (such as the tonsils and the adenoids) and nodes filter out bacteria and produce white blood cells. Specific functions may be, well, specialized—beyond the scope of today’s article—but that’s the broad function.
- The vessels are the tubes that allow those things to be moved around, suspended in lymph.
What’s lymph? It’s a colorless water-like liquid that transports immune cells, nutrients (and waste) around the body (through the lymphatic system).
Yes, it works alongside your vasculature; when white blood cells aren’t being deployed en masse into your bloodstream to deal with some threat, they’re waiting in the wings in the lymphatic system.
While your blood is pumped around by your heart, lymph moves based on a variety of factors, including contractions of small specialized lymphatic muscles, the pressure gradient created by the combination of those and gravity, and the movements of your body itself.
Here’s a larger article than we have room for, with diagrams we also don’t have room for:
Modelling the lymphatic system
To oversimplify it in few words for the sake of moving on: you can most of the time: think of it as an ancillary network supporting your circulatory system that unlike blood, doesn’t deal with oxygen or sugars, but does deal with a lot of other things, including:
- water and salt balance
- immune cells and other aspects of immune function
- transports fats (and any fat-soluble vitamins in them) into circulation
- cleans up stuff that gets stuck between cells
- general detoxification
There’s a lot that can go wrong if lymph isn’t flowing as it should
Too much to list here, but to give an idea:
- Arthritis and many autoimmune diseases
- Cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome
- Obesity, diabetes, and organ failure
- Alzheimer’s and other dementias
- Lymphadenitis, lymphangitis, and lymphedenopathy
- Lymphomas and Hodgkin’s disease (both are types of lymphatic cancer)
- Cancers of other kinds, because of things not being cleaned up where and when they should be
Yikes! That’s a lot of important things for a mostly-forgotten system to be taking care of protecting us from!
What you can do for your lymphatic system, to avoid those things!
Happily, there are easy things we can do to give our lymph some love, such as:
Massage therapy (and foam rolling)
This is the go-to that many people/publications recommend. It’s good! It’s certainly not the most important thing to do, but it’s good.
You can even use a simple gadget like this one to help move the lymph around, without needing to learn arcane massage techniques.
Exercise (move your body!)
This is a lot more important. The more we move our body, the more lymph moves around. The more lymph moves around today, the more easily it will move around tomorrow. A healthy constant movement of lymph throughout the lymphatic system is key to keeping everything running smoothly.
If you pick only one kind of exercise, make it High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT):
How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
If for some reason you really can’t do that, just spend as much of your waking time as reasonably possible, moving, per:
For ideas on how to do that, check out…
Get thee to a kitchen
This is about getting healthy food that gives your body’s clean-up crew (the lymphatic system) an easier time of it.
Rather than trying to “eat clean” which can be a very nebulous term and it’s often not at all clear (and/or hotly debated) what counts as “clean”, instead, stick to foods that constitute an anti-inflammatory diet:
Take care!
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
Top 10 Unhealthy Foods: How Many Do You Eat?
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.
The items on this list won’t come as a shocking surprise to you, but it can be a good opportunity to do a quick tally and see how many of these have snuck into your diet:
The things that take away health instead of adding it
Without further ado, they are…
- Alcohol: not only is it high in empty calories, but also it’s bad for pretty much everything, especially increasing the risks of liver disease, high blood pressure, and stroke.
- Processed snacks: low in nutrition; contain unhealthy fats, refined sugars, and artificial additives that often aren’t great.
- Potato chips: get their own category for being especially high in fat, sodium, and empty calories; contribute to heart disease and weight gain.
- Processed cheese: some kinds of cheese are gut-healthy in moderation, but this isn’t. Instead, it’s just loaded with saturated fats, sodium, and sugars, and is pretty much heart disease in a slice.
- Donuts: deep-fried, sugary, and made with refined flour; cause blood sugar spikes and crashes, and what’s bad for your blood sugars is bad for almost everything else.
- French fries & similar deep-fried foods: high in saturated fats and sodium; contribute to obesity and heart issues, are not great for blood sugars either.
- White bread: made with refined flour; cause blood sugar spikes and metabolic woes.
- Sodas: high in sugar or artificial sweeteners; can easily lead to weight gain, diabetes, and tooth decay.
- Processed meats: high in calories and salt; strongly associated with heart disease and cancer.
- Hot dogs & fast food burgers: get their own category for being the absolute worst of the above-mentioned processed meats.
This writer scored: no / rarely / no / no / no / rarely / rarely / rarely / no / no
How about you?
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Eat To Beat Hyperthyroidism!
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.
It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
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 love to see more on eating vegan. I am allergic to soy in any form which seems to be in everything❞
There is a lot of it about, isn’t there? Happily, these days, a lot of meat and dairy alternatives are also made from other sources, for example pea protein is getting used a lot more nowadays in meat substitutes, and there are many kinds of alternatives to dairy (e.g. nut milks, oat milk, hemp milk, and—which is a branding nightmare but very healthy—pea milk).
You might like these previous main features of ours:
- Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy?
- The Whys and Hows of Cutting Down Meat Consumption
- Plant-Based Milks—What’s Best?
Also, if doing a whole foods plant-based diet, lentils (especially brown lentils) can be used as a great substitute for minced beef/lamb in recipes that call for such.
Boil the lentils (a liter of water to a cup of lentils is great; use a rice cooker if you have one!) along with the seasonings you will use (herbs appropriate to your dish, and then: black pepper is always good; you shouldn’t need to add salt; a teaspoon of low-sodium yeast extract is great though, or to really get the best nutritional benefits, nooch).
When it is done, you shouldn’t have excess water now, so just use as is, or if you want a slightly fatty kick, fry briefly in a little extra virgin olive oil, before using it however you were planning to use it.
Enjoy!
❝What foods should I eat for hyperthyroidism? My doctor tells me what foods to avoid, but not what to eat❞
Great question! We’ll have to do a main feature on hyperthyroidism one of these days, as so far we’ve only done features on hypothyroidism:
As for hyperthyroidism…
Depending on your medications, your doctor might recommend a low iodine diet. If so, then you might want to check out:
American Thyroid Association | Low Iodine Diet Plan
…for recommendations.
But in a way, that’s still a manner of “what to avoid” (iodine) and then the foods to eat to avoid that.
You may be wondering: is there any food that actively helps against hyperthyroidism, as opposed to merely does not cause problems?
And the answer is: yes!
Cruciferous vegetables (e.g. cabbage, sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, etc) contain goitrin, which in immoderate quantities can cause problems for people with hypothyroidism because it can reduce thyroid hormone synthesis. If you have hyperthyroidism, however, this can work in your favor.
Read more: The role of micronutrients in thyroid dysfunction
The above paper focuses on children, but it was the paper we found that explains it most clearly while showing good science. However, the same holds true for adults:
Notwithstanding that the title comes from the angle of examining hypothyroidism, the mechanism of action makes clear its beneficence in the case of hyperthyroidism.
Selenium is also a great nutrient in the case of autoimmune hyperthyroidism, because it is needed to metabolize thyroid hormone (if you don’t metabolize it, it’ll just build up):
Selenium and Thyroid Disease: From Pathophysiology to Treatment
The absolute top best dietary source of selenium is Brazil nuts, to the point that people without hyperthyroidism have to take care to not eat more than a few per day (because too much selenium could then cause problems):
NIH | Selenium Fact Sheet for Health Professionals
(this contains information on the recommended amount, the upper limit amount, how much is in Brazil nuts and other foods, and what happens if you get too much or too little)
Note: after Brazil nuts (which are about 5 times more rich in selenium than the next highest source), the other “good” sources of selenium—mostly various kinds of fish—are also “good” source of iodine, so you might want to skip those.
Want more ideas?
You might like this from LivHealth:
Hyperthyroidism Diet: 9 Foods To Ease Symptoms
Enjoy!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs linked to rare but serious eye conditions
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.
Drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro (known as semaglutide and tirzepatide) have changed the way clinicians manage diabetes and obesity around the world.
Collectively known as GLP-1 agonists, these drugs mimic the hormone GLP-1. This limits both hunger and interest in food, helping users lose weight, and helps control blood sugar levels.
But two new studies published today show that people taking these drugs may have a small increased risk of serious eye conditions and vision loss.
Here’s what you need to know if you’re taking or considering these medications.
What damage can occur?
Non-arteritic anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, is a rare but devastating eye condition that occurs when blood flow to the optic nerve is suddenly reduced or blocked. It’s also called an “eye stroke”.
The exact cause of NAION remains unclear and there are no current treatments available. People with diabetes are at increased risk of developing NAION.
Unlike other eye conditions that develop gradually, NAION causes a sudden, painless loss of vision. Patients typically notice the condition when they wake up and discover they’ve lost vision in one eye.
Vision tends to worsen over a couple of weeks and slowly stabilises. Recovery of vision is variable, but around 70% of people do not experience improvement in their vision.
What has previous research shown?
A previous study from 2024 found participants prescribed semaglutide for diabetes were four times more likely to develop NAION. For those taking it for weight loss, the risk was almost eight times higher.
In June, the European Medicines Agency concluded NAION represented a “very rare” side effect of semaglutide medications: a one in 10,000 chance. In a first for medicines regulators, the agency now requires product labels to include NAION as a documented risk.
However the recent studies suggest the risks may be lower than we first thought.
In addition to NAION, there is also evidence to suggest GLP-1 drugs can worsen diabetic eye disease, also known as diabetic retinopathy. This occurs when high blood sugar levels damage the small blood vessels in the retina, which can lead to vision loss.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but rapid blood sugar reductions can also destabilise the fragile blood vessels in the retina and lead to bleeding.
What do the new studies say?
Two newly published studies investigated people with type 2 diabetes living in the United States over two years. The studies looked at the medical records of 159,000 to 185,000 people.
One study found semaglutide or tirzepatide was associated with a more modest risk of developing NAION than previously thought. Of 159,000 people with type 2 diabetes who were taking these drugs, 35 people (0.04%) developed NAION, compared with 19 patients (0.02%) in the comparison group.
The researchers also found an increased risk of developing “other optic nerve disorders”. However, it’s unclear what kind of optic nerve disorders this includes, as the medical record codes used didn’t specify.
Counter to this, the second study did not find an increased risk of NAION among those taking GLP-1 drugs.
However, the researchers found a small increase in the number of people developing diabetic retinopathy in those prescribed GLP-1 drugs.
But overall, participants on GLP-1 drugs experienced fewer sight-threatening complications related to their diabetic retinopathy and required less invasive eye treatments compared to the group taking other diabetes medications.
Further studies are still needed to understand how GLP-1 drugs can lead to eye complications. A current, five-year clinical trial is studying the long-term effects of semaglutides and diabetic eye disease in 1,500 people, which should tell us more about the ocular risks in the future.
What does this mean for people taking GLP-1 drugs?
NAION is a serious condition. But we need to strike a balance between these (and other) risks and the benefits of GLP-1 medications in diabetes care, obesity treatment, reducing heart attack risks and extending lives.
The key lies in informed decision-making and identifying different levels of risk.
People with multiple NAION risk factors – such as sleep apnoea, high blood pressure and diabetes – should undergo careful consideration with their treating doctor before starting these medications.
“Crowded” optic nerve heads are also a risk factor for NAION. This is an anatomical feature where blood vessels at the optic nerve head are tightly packed together. People with crowded optic nerve heads should also undergo careful consideration before starting GLP-1 medications.
Although NAION can strike without warning, regular comprehensive eye examinations with your optometrist or ophthalmologist still serve important purposes. They can detect other drug-related eye problems, including worsening diabetic retinopathy, and can identify patients with crowded optic nerve heads. It’s also important to tell them if you are taking GLP-1 medications so they can keep a close watch on your eye health.
Emerging research also suggests that improving your heart health might help reduce risks of developing NAION. This includes proper management of high blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol – all conditions that compromise the small blood vessels feeding the optic nerve.
Studies also show patients with heart conditions who better adhere to their medication prescriptions have lower risks of NAION than those who don’t.
Doctors should discuss NAION risks during prescribing decisions and work with eye care providers to monitor regularly for diabetic eye disease. Patients need clear instructions to seek immediate medical attention for sudden vision loss and the need for regular eye examinations.
Aggressive treatment of sleep apnoea and other heart conditions may also help reduce NAION risks. But for now, there remains an ongoing need for more research to understand how GLP-1 medications can affect the eye.
Flora Hui, Research Fellow, Centre for Eye Research Australia and Honorary Fellow, Department of Surgery (Ophthalmology), The University of Melbourne and Pete A Williams, Ulla and Ingemar Dahlberg Professor in Vision Science, Research Group Leader, Karolinska Institutet
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
