Cherries vs Blueberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing cherries to blueberries, we picked the blueberries.
Why?
It was close! And blueberries only won by virtue of taking an average value for cherries; we could have (if you’ll pardon the phrase) cherry-picked tart cherries for extra benefits that’d put them ahead of blueberries. That’s how close it is.
In terms of macros, they are almost identical, so nothing to set them apart there.
In the category of vitamins, they are mostly comparable except that blueberries have a lot more vitamin K, and cherries have a lot more vitamin A. Since vitamin K is the vitamin that’s scarcer in general, we’ll call blueberries’ vitamin K content a win.
Blueberries do also have about 6x more vitamin E, with a cup of blueberries containing about 10% of the daily requirement (and cherries containing almost none). Another small win for blueberries.
When it comes to minerals, they are mostly comparable; the largest point of difference is that blueberries contain more manganese while cherries contain more copper; nothing to decide between them here.
We’re down to counting amino acids and antioxidants now, so blueberries have a lot more cystine and tyrosine. They also have slightly more of amino acids that they both only have trace amounts of. And as for antioxidants? Blueberries contain notably more quercetin.
So, blueberries win the day—but if we had specified tart cherries rather than taking an average, they could have come out on top. Enjoy both!
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Eat These 8 Anti-Inflammatory Foods for Healthy, Glowing Skin!
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Dr. Shereene Idriss, dermatologist, advises:
You are what you eat
Literally, what we eat is what is used to make the substance of our bodies. So, with that in mind, quality is important! Items that can be particularly good for skin health and more, include:
- Fatty fish: wild salmon, mackerel, sardines, and Arctic char are rich in omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA), which reduce inflammation and support skin, heart, and brain health—wild fish are preferred due to higher omega-3 and lower omega-6 content (as well as, importantly for other aspects of health, a much lower antibiotics content).
- Berries: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries contain anthocyanins, polyphenols, and vitamin C that help repair UV damage, boost collagen, and protect skin.
- Leafy greens: kale, spinach, and Swiss chard are packed with chlorophyll and vitamins A, C, E, and K, supporting cell turnover, wound healing, and improved blood circulation for brighter, healthier skin.
- Turmeric: contains curcumin, a potent anti-inflammatory compound that is best paired with black pepper (piperine) for the best absorption into the body.
- Green tea: loaded with polyphenols including EGCG, it reduces free radicals, prevents collagen breakdown, regulates oil production, and supports UV protection—also effective when used topically.
- Avocados: rich in monounsaturated fats, vitamin E, and glutathione, they strengthen the skin barrier, reduce hyperpigmentation, and protect against oxidative stress.
- Walnuts: a top plant source of omega-3 ALA, plus zinc, selenium, and vitamin E, all of which help reduce inflammation and support skin healing and repair.
- Sweet potatoes: high in beta-carotene, which converts to vitamin A (retinol) to promote collagen production, cell turnover, and a natural glow—best consumed with the skin for max nutrients (cook it first, though!).
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
The Best Foods For Collagen Production
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Pain In These 10 Areas? Here’s What Each Means
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As we get older, it’s easy to think of pain as an inevitability, and especially if it’s chronic, get in the habit of doing our best to ignore it. However, pain is first and foremost a messenger. Now, sometimes that message can be faulty, but it’s worth checking first whether your body’s “check engine” light is on because something actually needs your attention:
The ouch list
Notably, sometimes the pain is “referred”, meaning that it’s not located where the actual source of the problem is. There can be for various reasons, including the layout of our nerves, the layout of our fascia (one thing pulling on another in an odd way), and/or overcompensation causing a secondary problem. Here’s a checklist that’s worth understanding:
- Side of the hip: often not arthritis but Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome (GTPS); linked to weak glutes. Treatable with glute strengthening.
- Deep groin pain: common sign of hip arthritis; especially if leg rotation and dressing are difficult. Often manageable with mobility and strength work.
- Inside of the knee: likely a medial meniscus issue if tender to touch or twisting causes pain; often confused with arthritis.
- Thumb, forefinger, middle, and inside of fourth finger: indicates carpal tunnel syndrome (median nerve compression). A “prayer test” can help identify it (see video).
- Side of calf/into the foot: often caused by L5 nerve compression in the lower spine—a form of sciatica.
- Top of upper arm, below shoulder: suggests frozen shoulder, especially with stiffness and limited outward arm movement.
- Back of the head: could be a cervicogenic (Latin: “originating from the neck”) headache from neck issues; pain often radiates over the skull or around the ears.
- Under the heel: most likely plantar fasciitis; common with tight calves or weak hip/ankle muscles.
- Inside of the ankle: usually tibialis posterior tendinopathy; common in walkers/runners, due to tendon irritation or breakdown.
- Elbow pain:
- Outside: likely tennis elbow (wrist extensor tendon irritation) (does not require playing tennis).
- Inside: likely golfer’s elbow (wrist flexor tendon irritation) (does not require playing golf).
- Both: likely a result of wrist overuse; rehab should focus on the wrist.
For more on each of these plus some visual illustrations, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Fascia: Why (And How) You Should Take Care Of Yours
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Breaking The Age Code – by Dr. Becca Levy
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The author, a social psychologist, sets out to not only bust ageist expectations, but also boost life expectancy by 7.5 years.
How? By examining the extent to which how we think about our age affects our actual aging. Lest this sound wishy-washy, there are 52 pages of scientific references at the back.
We’ve written about this before at 10almonds, for example about the famous “Counterclockwise” study that saw reversals in biological markers of aging after a one-week intervention that consisted only of a (albeit rather intensive) mental reframe with regard to their age.
This book goes into such ideas much more than we can in a single article here, and in more ways, both on the personal level and the societal level.
The style is (despite its heavy leanings on hundreds of scientific studies) quite conversational in tone, with many personal anecdotes padding the pages a little, but it does get the message across and helps to illustrate things.
Bottom line: if you’d like a fresh take on aging, to make a big difference to yours, this book tackles that.
Click here to check out Breaking The Age Code, and break the age code!
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Acupressure Points To Lower Blood Pressure Instantly
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Yasuko Kawamura, acupressure therapist, explains:
As easy as 1-2-3
These techniques use your body’s natural responses to have an acute blood-pressure-lowering effect. To be clear, by “acute”, we mean that it’ll work quickly, but its effects will also be short-lived. Still, a useful tool or three for your toolbox:
Point 1: ST 9 (Stomach 9)
- Located on the side of the neck near the sternocleidomastoid muscle, next to the Adam’s apple*.
- Use two fingers (middle and index) to gently press toward the Adam’s Apple.
- Hold for 5 seconds, rest for 5 seconds, repeat 5 times on each side.
- Do not press hard—gentle touch only, especially if you feel a pulse.
- Breathe deeply and visualize blood vessels relaxing.
*And she notes in the video: yes, women do have this anatomical feature; it’s just less pronounced in most women than it is in most men, because of the larynx usually hanging lower in men.
Point 2: PC 6 (Pericardium 6)
- Located on the inner wrist, three fingers’ width from the wrist crease between two tendons.
- Press for 1 minute while breathing deeply.
- Helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system—ideal for stress-related high blood pressure.
- Repeat on both wrists.
Point 3: LV 3 (Liver 3)
- Found on the top of the foot, in the valley between the big toe and second toe bones.
- Press for 1 minute while breathing deeply and imagining relaxed blood vessels.
- Can do one foot at a time or both simultaneously.
- If hard to reach, use the back of a pen or rubber end of a pencil.
Note: with regard to where she says to visualize/imagine something, this may sound a little wishy-washy, but it involves leveraging biofeedback in a way that’s well-established to have an effect if done correctly.
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:
Curing Hiccups And Headaches At Home With Actual Science ← the headache hack explained here also works by creating a localized blood-pressure-lowering effect, in this case by confusing the homeostatic system into doing it for you.
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Don’t Get Caught Out By These “Nontraditional” Stroke Risk Factors
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Some stroke risk factors are modifiable (meaning: we can do something about them); others, not so much.
So let’s do a quick rundown of the main ones:
Modifiable risk factors
- High blood pressure (hypertension): the single most important risk factor for stroke.
- Smoking: bad for everything and this is no different; smoking damages blood vessels, which significantly increases stroke risk.
- Diabetes: high blood sugars can damage blood vessels too, cumulatively over time.
- High cholesterol: commonly leads to plaque buildup in arteries (atherosclerosis), which then creates hypertension, which we mentioned up top.
- Obesity: increases the risks of hypertension and diabetes, thus indirectly increasing stroke risk.
- Physical inactivity: again increases the risks of hypertension and diabetes, thus indirectly increasing stroke risk.
- Excessive alcohol use: once again increases the risks of hypertension and diabetes, thus indirectly increasing stroke risk.
- Poor diet: increases the risk of all of the above except for smoking (yes, poor diet also increases the risk of physical inactivity, since one who does not eat well will rarely exercise well).
Non-modifiable risk factors
- Age: risk increases significantly after age 55. Technically avoidable by dying young, but we don’t recommend that.
- Sex*: men have a higher risk of having a stroke, but women are more likely to die from it. So, not easy to escape this one.
- Family history: inheritable genetic factors seem to play a part, though this is not yet well-explored (there is no established “stroke gene”, for example).
- Ethnicity: most non-white populations have an increased stroke risk compared to white people—since this is based on US data, though, it’s unclear how much of this is due to genetic factors, and how much is due to structural racism (including: disparity of generational wealth/poverty) resulting in worse medical care.
- Previous stroke or TIA (transient ischemic attack): strong predictor of future strokes. It may seem a bit of a statement of the obvious that “the kind of person who has a stroke is the kind of person who is likely to have a stroke”, but it’d be remiss to not mention it.
*Ok, since the risk factors for sex are predicted based on hormones (which affect cardiovascular disease risk and thus, indirectly, stroke risk), technically this is modifiable, but we’ll bet very few people are going to trans their gender just to get the opposite stroke risk!
So what’s this about nontraditional risk factors?
Recent research looked at over 1,000 Europeans aged 18–49, approximately half of whom (523, to be precise) had experienced a cryptogenic ischemic stroke (that’s a fancy way of saying an ischemic stroke with no clear cause).
Specifically, they looked at the following “nontraditional” risk factors:
- Chronic multisystem disorder
- Inflammatory bowel disease
- Chronic kidney disease
- Chronic liver disease
- Autoimmune disease
- Hematologic disease or thrombophilia
- History of venous thrombosis
- History of malignancy
- Migraine with aura
- Current illicit drug use
Even more specifically, they weighed these against having (or not having) a congenital heart defect, a patent foramen ovale (PFO), colloquially called a “hole in the heart“. They found:
- Nontraditional risks had the strongest association with stroke in people with a PFO.
- Nevertheless, for those without a PFO, each nontraditional factor increased stroke risk by 70%, compared to a 41% increase per traditional risk factor.
- Female-centric risks outside of hormones (e.g. pregnancy complications, gestational diabetes) raised stroke risk by 70%, independently of other factors.
- Migraine with aura was the top nontraditional risk, accounting for 46% of strokes in PFO patients and 23% in those without.
You can read the paper itself here: Burden of Modifiable Risk Factors in Young-Onset Cryptogenic Ischemic Stroke by High-Risk Patent Foramen Ovale
Since migraines themselves are much-misunderstood, you might want to check out:
Migraine Mythbusting ← which also includes resources for managing this condition
Chronic kidney disease was also a top contender for increasing stroke risk, so check out:
Are your Kidneys Ok? Detect Early To Protect Kidney Health (Here’s How)
…and also:
Keeping Your Kidneys Healthy (Especially After 60) ← it’s about a lot more than just hydration!
Want to learn more?
Check out:
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It’s On Me – by Dr. Sara Kuburic
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This isn’t about bootstrapping and nor is it a motivational pep talk. What it is, however, is a wake-up call for the wayward, and that doesn’t mean “disaffected youth” or such. Rather, therapist Dr. Sara Kuburic tackles the problem of self-loss.
It’s about when we get so caught up in what we need to do, should do, are expected to do, are in a rut of doing… That we forget to also live. After all, we only get one shot at life so far as we know, so we might as well live it in whatever way is right for us.
That probably doesn’t mean a life of going through the motions.
The writing style here is personal and direct, and it makes for quite compelling reading from start to finish.
Bottom line: if ever you find yourself errantly sleepwalking through life and would like to change that, this is a book for you.
Click here to check out It’s On Me, and take control of what’s yours!
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