Celery vs Lettuce – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing celery to lettuce, we picked the lettuce.

Why?

Let us consider the macros first: lettuce has 2x the protein, but of course the numbers are tiny and probably nobody is eating this for the protein. Both of these salad items are roughly comparable in terms of carbs and fiber, being both mostly water with just enough other stuff to hold their shape. Nominally this section is a slight win for lettuce on account of the protein, but in realistic practical terms, it’s a tie.

In terms of vitamins, celery has more of vitamins B5 and E, while lettuce has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B7, B9, C, K, and choline. An easy win for lettuce here.

In the category of minerals, celery has more calcium, copper, and potassium, while lettuce has more iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. So, a fair win for lettuce.

Adding up the sections makes for an overall win for lettuce; of course, enjoy both, though!

Want to learn more?

You might like to read:

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

Take care!

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  • Glucomannan For Weight Loss, Gut Health, & More

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    Glucomannan is a water-soluble dietary fiber found in the root of the konjac plant.

    If you’ve had konjac noodles, also called shirataki, that’s what those are mostly made of, and it’s why they have next-to-no calories.

    You may be wondering: if it’s water-soluble, how do the noodles not dissolve in water? And the answer is that the noodle-making process involves making a gel out of the fiber and water, which is then extruded into noodle shapes. In this gelatinous form, they’re fairly stable (it’s one of the most viscous dietary fibers), but yes, if you were to boil them for a long time, they would indeed turn the entire liquid contents of the saucepan into gel.

    How it works for weight loss

    Because of its viscosity, adding even a small amount of powdered* glucomannan to a glass of water will turn the whole thing into gel in seconds. This means that if you take glucomannan capsules with a glass of water, then so far as your stomach is concerned, you just ate a cup of gel, and the water is now processed as food, staying longer in the stomach than it otherwise would, and promoting feelings of fullness.

    *i.e. dry powder, not in a gelatinous form like the noodles

    As for its efficacy in weight loss, see for example:

    ❝Glucomannan was well-tolerated and resulted in significant weight loss in overweight and obese individuals❞

    Read more: Glucomannan and obesity: a critical review

    So, that covers the basic requirements, but may be wondering: does it have other benefits? And the answer is yes, it does:

    ❝Glucomannan appears to beneficially affect total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, body weight, and fasting blood glucose❞

    Read more: Effect of glucomannan on plasma lipid and glucose concentrations, body weight, and blood pressure: systematic review and meta-analysis

    To further corroborate that and comment on safety…

    ❝Results showed a significant mean weight loss using glucomannan over an eight-week period. Serum cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol were significantly reduced in the glucomannan treated group. No adverse reactions to glucomannan were reported.❞

    Read more: Effect of glucomannan on obese patients: a clinical study

    As to whether other gel-making agents work the same way, the answer is no, they don’t seem to:

    ❝Glucomannan induced body weight reduction in healthy overweight subjects, whereas the addition of guar gum and alginate did not seem to cause additional loss of weight❞

    Read more: Experiences with three different fiber supplements in weight reduction

    How it works for gut health

    In the words of Dr. Yu Li et al.,

    ❝Konjaku flour can achieve positive effects on treating obesity, which manifest on reducing BMI, fat mass, blood glucose, and blood lipid, improving hepatic function, and also regulating intestinal microfloral structure.

    Therefore, changes in gut microbiota may explain in part the effects of konjaku flour.❞

    Read in full: Effects of Konjaku Flour on the Gut Microbiota of Obese Patients

    This has extra positive knock-on effects too:

    Glucomannan promotes Bacteroides ovatus to improve intestinal barrier function and ameliorate insulin resistance

    Want to try some?

    We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience are example products on Amazon:

    Konjac noodles | Glucomannan capsules

    Enjoy!

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  • The Brain Fog Fix – by Dr. Mike Dow

    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 three weeks mentioned in the subtitle is in fact a week-by-week plan:

    1. Adjusting diet (inclusions and exclusions) and cognitive strategies
    2. Focusing on sleep, exercise, and memory-boosting “brain games”
    3. Bringing in the social aspect, and connection to something larger than oneself

    In this reviewer’s opinion, a week is too short a time to completely overhaul one’s diet; most changes need to be gradual, so doing several at once in a week is quite extreme. But, even if it takes a month for each stage instead of a week, the method is reasonable.

    The nutritional advice is good, and consistent with current best science on the topic. There’s a lot about keeping even blood sugars and improving insulin sensitivity, as well as doing what is best for the heart and blood in general (e.g. fiber, managing triglycerides, doing the right kinds of exercise, etc).

    As a psychotherapist, he also talks a fair bit about neurotransmitters, and making sure one’s gut and brain are fed appropriately to keep the correct balance (remembering for example that serotonin is made in the gut, and dopamine is made in the brain). Unlike many of his colleagues, he’s not a fan of medicating beyond absolute necessity.

    The style is a little salesy for this reviewer’s personal taste—but then again, perhaps he made the reasonable assumption that a person reading a book entitled “the brain fog fix” needs their attention grabbing and re-grabbing every paragraph or so. As such, maybe it’s not a bad call.

    Bottom line: if you have brain fog and would like to not have brain fog, this book offers a scientifically sound, evidence-based, holistic approach that can certainly improve things.

    Click here to check out The Brain Fog Fix, and fix your brain fog!

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  • The Age-Proof Brain – by Dr. Marc Milstein

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    Biological aging is not truly just one thing, but rather the amalgam of many things intersecting—and most of them are modifiable. The cells of your body neither know nor care how many times you have flown around the sun; they just respond to the stimuli they’re given.

    Which is what fuels this book. The idea is to have a brain that is less-assailed by the things that would make it age, and more rejuvenated by the things that can make it biologically younger.

    Dr. Milstein doesn’t neglect the rest of the body, and indeed notes the brain’s connections with the immune system, the heart, the gut, and more. But everything in this book is done with the brain in mind and its good health as the top priority outcome of all the things he advises.

    On which note, yes, there is plenty of practical, implementable advice here. For a book that is consistently full of study paper citations, he does take care to make everything useful to the reader, and makes everything as easy as possible for the layperson along the way.

    Bottom line: if you would like your brain to age less, this is an excellent, very evidence-based, guidebook.

    Click here to check out The Age-Proof Brain, and age-proof your brain!

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Related Posts

  • Apples vs Oranges – Which is Healthier?
  • Mammography AI Can Cost Patients Extra. Is It Worth It?

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    As I checked in at a Manhattan radiology clinic for my annual mammogram in November, the front desk staffer reviewing my paperwork asked an unexpected question: Would I like to spend $40 for an artificial intelligence analysis of my mammogram? It’s not covered by insurance, she added.

    I had no idea how to evaluate that offer. Feeling upsold, I said no. But it got me thinking: Is this something I should add to my regular screening routine? Is my regular mammogram not accurate enough? If this AI analysis is so great, why doesn’t insurance cover it?

    I’m not the only person posing such questions. The mother of a colleague had a similar experience when she went for a mammogram recently at a suburban Baltimore clinic. She was given a pink pamphlet that said: “You Deserve More. More Accuracy. More Confidence. More power with artificial intelligence behind your mammogram.” The price tag was the same: $40. She also declined.

    In recent years, AI software that helps radiologists detect problems or diagnose cancer using mammography has been moving into clinical use. The software can store and evaluate large datasets of images and identify patterns and abnormalities that human radiologists might miss. It typically highlights potential problem areas in an image and assesses any likely malignancies. This extra review has enormous potential to improve the detection of suspicious breast masses and lead to earlier diagnoses of breast cancer.

    While studies showing better detection rates are extremely encouraging, some radiologists say, more research and evaluation are needed before drawing conclusions about the value of the routine use of these tools in regular clinical practice.

    “I see the promise and I hope it will help us,” said Etta Pisano, a radiologist who is chief research officer at the American College of Radiology, a professional group for radiologists. However, “it really is ambiguous at this point whether it will benefit an individual woman,” she said. “We do need more information.”

    The radiology clinics that my colleague’s mother and I visited are both part of RadNet, a company with a network of more than 350 imaging centers around the country. RadNet introduced its AI product for mammography in New York and New Jersey last February and has since rolled it out in several other states, according to Gregory Sorensen, the company’s chief science officer.

    Sorensen pointed to research the company conducted with 18 radiologists, some of whom were specialists in breast mammography and some of whom were generalists who spent less than 75% of their time reading mammograms. The doctors were asked to find the cancers in 240 images, with and without AI. Every doctor’s performance improved using AI, Sorensen said.

    Among all radiologists, “not every doctor is equally good,” Sorensen said. With RadNet’s AI tool, “it’s as if all patients get the benefit of our very top performer.”

    But is the tech analysis worth the extra cost to patients? There’s no easy answer.

    “Some people are always going to be more anxious about their mammograms, and using AI may give them more reassurance,” said Laura Heacock, a breast imaging specialist at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center in New York. The health system has developed AI models and is testing the technology with mammograms but doesn’t yet offer it to patients, she said.

    Still, Heacock said, women shouldn’t worry that they need to get an additional AI analysis if it’s offered.

    “At the end of the day, you still have an expert breast imager interpreting your mammogram, and that is the standard of care,” she said.

    About 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime, and regular screening mammograms are recommended to help identify cancerous tumors early. But mammograms are hardly foolproof: They miss about 20% of breast cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute.

    The FDA has authorized roughly two dozen AI products to help detect and diagnose cancer from mammograms. However, there are currently no billing codes radiologists can use to charge health plans for the use of AI to interpret mammograms. Typically, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would introduce new billing codes and private health plans would follow their lead for payment. But that hasn’t happened in this field yet and it’s unclear when or if it will.

    CMS didn’t respond to requests for comment.

    Thirty-five percent of women who visit a RadNet facility for mammograms pay for the additional AI review, Sorensen said.

    Radiology practices don’t handle payment for AI mammography all in the same way.

    The practices affiliated with Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital don’t charge patients for the AI analysis, said Constance Lehman, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School who is co-director of the Breast Imaging Research Center at Mass General.

    Asking patients to pay “isn’t a model that will support equity,” Lehman said, since only patients who can afford the extra charge will get the enhanced analysis. She said she believes many radiologists would never agree to post a sign listing a charge for AI analysis because it would be off-putting to low-income patients.

    Sorensen said RadNet’s goal is to stop charging patients once health plans realize the value of the screening and start paying for it.

    Some large trials are underway in the United States, though much of the published research on AI and mammography to date has been done in Europe. There, the standard practice is for two radiologists to read a mammogram, whereas in the States only one radiologist typically evaluates a screening test.

    Interim results from the highly regarded MASAI randomized controlled trial of 80,000 women in Sweden found that cancer detection rates were 20% higher in women whose mammograms were read by a radiologist using AI compared with women whose mammograms were read by two radiologists without any AI intervention, which is the standard of care there.

    “The MASAI trial was great, but will that generalize to the U.S.? We can’t say,” Lehman said.

    In addition, there is a need for “more diverse training and testing sets for AI algorithm development and refinement” across different races and ethnicities, said Christoph Lee, director of the Northwest Screening and Cancer Outcomes Research Enterprise at the University of Washington School of Medicine. 

    The long shadow of an earlier and largely unsuccessful type of computer-assisted mammography hangs over the adoption of newer AI tools. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, “computer-assisted detection” software promised to improve breast cancer detection. Then the studies started coming in, and the results were often far from encouraging. Using CAD at best provided no benefit, and at worst reduced the accuracy of radiologists’ interpretations, resulting in higher rates of recalls and biopsies.

    “CAD was not that sophisticated,” said Robert Smith, senior vice president of early cancer detection science at the American Cancer Society. Artificial intelligence tools today are a whole different ballgame, he said. “You can train the algorithm to pick up things, or it learns on its own.”

    Smith said he found it “troubling” that radiologists would charge for the AI analysis.

    “There are too many women who can’t afford any out-of-pocket cost” for a mammogram, Smith said. “If we’re not going to increase the number of radiologists we use for mammograms, then these new AI tools are going to be very useful, and I don’t think we can defend charging women extra for them.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • The Glucose Goddess Method – by Jessie Inchausspé

    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.

    We’ve previously reviewed Inchausspé’s excellent book “Glucose Revolution”. So what does this book add?

    This book is for those who found that book a little dense. While this one still gives the same ten “hacks”, she focuses on the four that have the biggest effect, and walks the reader by the hand through a four-week programme of implementing them.

    The claim of 100+ recipes is a little bold, as some of the recipes are things like vinegar, vinegar+water, vinegar+water but now we’re it’s in a restaurant, lemon+water, lemon+water but now it’s in a bottle, etc. However, there are legitimately a lot of actual recipes too.

    Where this book’s greatest strength lies is in making everything super easy, and motivating. It’s a fine choice for being up-and-running quickly and easily without wading through the 300-odd pages of science in her previous book.

    Bottom line: if you’ve already happily and sustainably implemented everything from her previous book, you can probably skip this one. However, if you’d like an easier method to implement the changes that have the biggest effect, then this is the book for you.

    Click here to check out The Glucose Goddess Method, and build it into your life the easy way!

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  • Early Detection May Help Kentucky Tamp Down Its Lung Cancer Crisis

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    Anthony Stumbo’s heart sank after the doctor shared his mother’s chest X-ray.

    “I remember that drive home, bringing her back home, and we basically cried,” said the internal medicine physician, who had started practicing in eastern Kentucky near his childhood home shortly before his mother began feeling ill. “Nobody wants to get told they’ve got inoperable lung cancer. I cried because I knew what this meant for her.”

    Now Stumbo, whose mother died the following year, in 1997, is among a group of Kentucky clinicians and researchers determined to rewrite the script for other families by promoting training and boosting awareness about early detection in the state with the highest lung cancer death rate. For the past decade, Kentucky researchers have promoted lung cancer screening, first recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in 2013. These days the Bluegrass State screens more residents who are at high risk of developing lung cancer than any state except Massachusetts — 10.6% of eligible residents in 2022, more than double the national rate of 4.5% — according to the most recent American Lung Association analysis.

    The effort has been driven by a research initiative called the Kentucky LEADS (Lung Cancer Education, Awareness, Detection, and Survivorship) Collaborative, which in 2014 launched to improve screening and prevention, to identify more tumors earlier, when survival odds are far better. The group has worked with clinicians and hospital administrators statewide to boost screening rates both in urban areas and regions far removed from academic medical centers, such as rural Appalachia. But, a decade into the program, the researchers face an ongoing challenge as they encourage more people to get tested, namely the fear and stigma that swirl around smoking and lung cancer.

    Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other malignancy, and the death rates are worst in a swath of states including Kentucky and its neighbors Tennessee and West Virginia, and stretching south to Mississippi and Louisiana, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    It’s a bit early to see the impact on lung cancer deaths because people may still live for years with a malignancy, LEADS researchers said. Plus, treatment improvements and other factors may also help reduce death rates along with increased screening. Still, data already shows that more cancers in Kentucky are being detected before they become advanced, and thus more difficult to treat, they said. Of total lung cancer cases statewide, the percentage of advanced cases — defined as cancers that had spread to the lymph nodes or beyond — hovered near 81% between 2000 and 2014, according to Kentucky Cancer Registry data. By 2020, that number had declined to 72%, according to the most recent data available.

    “We are changing the story of families. And there is hope where there has not been hope before,” said Jennifer Knight, a LEADS principal investigator.

    Older adults in their 60s and 70s can hold a particularly bleak view of their mortality odds, given what their loved ones experienced before screening became available, said Ashley Shemwell, a nurse navigator for the lung cancer screening program at Owensboro Health, a nonprofit health system that serves Kentucky and Indiana.

    “A lot of them will say, ‘It doesn’t matter if I get lung cancer or not because it’s going to kill me. So I don’t want to know,’” said Shemwell. “With that generation, they saw a lot of lung cancers and a lot of deaths. And it was terrible deaths because they were stage 4 lung cancers.” But she reminds them that lung cancer is much more treatable if caught before it spreads.

    The collaborative works with several partners, including the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville, and GO2 for Lung Cancer, and has received grant funding from the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation. Leaders have provided training and other support to 10 hospital-based screening programs, including a stipend to pay for resources such as educational materials or a nurse navigator, Knight said. In 2022, state lawmakers established a statewide lung cancer screening program based in part on the group’s work.

    Jacob Sands, a lung cancer physician at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, credits the LEADS collaborative with encouraging patients to return for annual screening and follow-up testing for any suspicious nodules. “What the Kentucky LEADS program is doing is fantastic, and that is how you really move the needle in implementing lung screening on a larger scale,” said Sands, who isn’t affiliated with the Kentucky program and serves as a volunteer spokesperson for the American Lung Association.

    In 2014, Kentucky expanded Medicaid, increasing the number of lower-income people who qualified for lung cancer screening and any related treatment. Adults 50 to 80 years old are advised to get a CT scan every year if they have accumulated at least 20 pack years and still smoke or have quit within the past 15 years, according to the latest task force recommendation, which widened the pool of eligible adults. (To calculate pack years, multiply the packs of cigarettes smoked daily by years of smoking.) The lung association offers an online quiz, called “Saved By The Scan,” to figure out likely eligibility for insurance coverage.

    Half of U.S. patients aren’t diagnosed until their cancer has spread beyond the lungs and lymph nodes to elsewhere in the body. By then, the five-year survival rate is 8.2%.

    But regular screening boosts those odds. When a CT scan detects lung cancer early, patients have an 81% chance of living at least 20 years, according to data published in November in the journal Radiology.

    Some adults, like Lisa Ayers, didn’t realize lung cancer screening was an option. Her family doctor recommended a CT scan last year after she reported breathing difficulties. Ayers, who lives in Ohio near the Kentucky border, got screened at UK King’s Daughters, a hospital in far eastern Kentucky. The scan didn’t take much time, and she didn’t have to undress, the 57-year-old said. “It took me longer to park,” she quipped.

    She was diagnosed with a lung carcinoid tumor, a type of neuroendocrine cancer that can grow in various parts of the body. Her cancer was considered too risky for surgery, Ayers said. A biopsy showed the cancer was slow-growing, and her doctors said they would monitor it closely.

    Ayers, a lifelong smoker, recalled her doctor said that her type of cancer isn’t typically linked to smoking. But she quit anyway, feeling like she’d been given a second chance to avoid developing a smoking-related cancer. “It was a big wake-up call for me.”

    Adults with a smoking history often report being treated poorly by medical professionals, said Jamie Studts, a health psychologist and a LEADS principal investigator, who has been involved with the research from the start. The goal is to avoid stigmatizing people and instead to build rapport, meeting them where they are that day, he said.

    “If someone tells us that they’re not ready to quit smoking but they want to have lung cancer screening, awesome; we’d love to help,” Studts said. “You know what? You actually develop a relationship with an individual by accepting, ‘No.’”

    Nationally, screening rates vary widely. Massachusetts reaches 11.9% of eligible residents, while California ranks last, screening just 0.7%, according to the lung association analysis.

    That data likely doesn’t capture all California screenings, as it may not include CT scans done through large managed care organizations, said Raquel Arias, a Los Angeles-based associate director of state partnerships at the American Cancer Society. She cited other 2022 data for California, looking at lung cancer screening for eligible Medicare fee-for-service patients, which found a screening rate of 1%-2% in that population.

    But, Arias said, the state’s effort is “nowhere near what it needs to be.”

    The low smoking rate in California, along with its image as a healthy state, “seems to have come with the unintended consequence of further stigmatizing people who smoke,” said Arias, citing one of the findings from a 2022 report looking at lung cancer screening barriers. For instance, eligible patients may be reluctant to share prior smoking habits with their health provider, she said.

    Meanwhile, Kentucky screening efforts progress, scan by scan.

    At Appalachian Regional Healthcare, 3,071 patients were screened in 2023, compared with 372 in 2017. “We’re just scratching the surface of the potential lives that we can have an effect on,” said Stumbo, a lung cancer screening champion at the health system, which includes 14 hospitals, most located in eastern Kentucky.

    The doctor hasn’t shed his own grief about what his family missed after his mother died at age 51, long before annual screening was recommended. “Knowing that my children were born, and never knowing their grandmother,” he said, “just how sad is that?”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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