Climate Change Threatens the Mental Well-Being of Youths. Here’s How To Help Them Cope.
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We’ve all read the stories and seen the images: The life-threatening heat waves. The wildfires of unprecedented ferocity. The record-breaking storms washing away entire neighborhoods. The melting glaciers, the rising sea levels, the coastal flooding.
As California wildfires stretch into the colder months and hurricane survivors sort through the ruins left by floodwaters, let’s talk about an underreported victim of climate change: the emotional well-being of young people.
A nascent but growing body of research shows that a large proportion of adolescents and young adults, in the United States and abroad, feel anxious and worried about the impact of an unstable climate in their lives today and in the future.
Abby Rafeek, 14, is disquieted by the ravages of climate change, both near her home and far away. “It’s definitely affecting my life, because it’s causing stress thinking about the future and how, if we’re not addressing the problem now as a society, our planet is going to get worse,” says Abby, a high school student who lives in Gardena, California, a city of 58,000 about 15 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.
She says wildfires are a particular worry for her. “That’s closer to where I live, so it’s a bigger problem for me personally, and it also causes a lot of damage to the surrounding areas,” she says. “And also, the air gets messed up.”
In April, Abby took a survey on climate change for kids ages 12-17 during a visit to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
Rammy Assaf, a pediatric emergency physician at the hospital, adapted the survey from one developed five years ago for adults. He administered his version last year to over 800 kids ages 12-17 and their caregivers. He says initial results show climate change is a serious cause of concern for the emotional security and well-being of young people.
Assaf has followed up with the kids to ask more open-ended questions, including whether they believe climate change will be solved in their lifetimes; how they feel when they read about extreme climate events; what they think about the future of the planet; and with whom they are able to discuss their concerns.
“When asked about their outlook for the future, the first words they will use are helpless, powerless, hopeless,” Assaf says. “These are very strong emotions.”
Assaf says he would like to see questions about climate change included in mental health screenings at pediatricians’ offices and in other settings where children get medical care. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that counseling on climate change be incorporated into the clinical practice of pediatricians and into medical school curriculums, but not with specific regard to mental health screening.
Assaf says anxiety about climate change intersects with the broader mental health crisis among youth, which has been marked by a rise in depression, loneliness, and suicide over the past decade, though there are recent signs it may be improving slightly.
A 2022 Harris Poll of 1,500 U.S. teenagers found that 89% of them regularly think about the environment, “with the majority feeling more worried than hopeful.” In addition, 69% said they feared they and their families would be affected by climate change in the near future. And 82% said they expected to have to make key life decisions — including where to live and whether to have children — based on the state of the environment.
And the impact is clearly not limited to the U.S. A 2021 survey of 10,000 16- to 25-year-olds across 10 countries found “59% were very or extremely worried and 84% were at least moderately worried” about climate change.
Susan Clayton, chair of the psychology department at the College of Wooster in Ohio, says climate change anxiety may be more pronounced among younger people than adults. “Older adults didn’t grow up being as aware of climate change or thinking about it very much, so there’s still a barrier to get over to accept it’s a real thing,” says Clayton, who co-created the adult climate change survey that Assaf adapted for younger people.
By contrast, “adolescents grew up with it as a real thing,” Clayton says. “Knowing you have the bulk of your life ahead of you gives you a very different view of what your life will be like.” She adds that younger people in particular feel betrayed by their government, which they don’t think is taking the problem seriously enough, and “this feeling of betrayal is associated with greater anxiety about the climate.”
Abby believes climate change is not being addressed with sufficient resolve. “I think if we figure out how to live on Mars and explore the deep sea, we could definitely figure out how to live here in a healthy environment,” she says.
If you are a parent whose children show signs of climate anxiety, you can help.
Louise Chawla, professor emerita in the environmental design program at the University of Colorado-Boulder, says the most important thing is to listen in an open-ended way. “Let there be space for kids to express their emotions. Just listen to them and let them know it’s safe to express these emotions,” says Chawla, who co-founded the nonprofit Growing Up Boulder, which works with the city’s schools to encourage kids to engage civically, including to help shape their local environment.
Chawla and others recommend family activities that reinforce a commitment to the environment. They can be as simple as walking or biking and participating in cleanup or recycling efforts. Also, encourage your children to join activities and advocacy efforts sponsored by environmental, civic, or religious organizations.
Working with others can help alleviate stress and feelings of powerlessness by reassuring kids they are not alone and that they can be proactive.
Worries about climate change should be seen as a learning opportunity that might even lead some kids to their life’s path, says Vickie Mays, professor of psychology and health policy at UCLA, who teaches a class on climate change and mental health — one of eight similar courses offered recently at UC campuses.
“We should get out of this habit of ‘everything’s a mental health problem,’” Mays says, “and understand that often a challenge, a stress, a worry can be turned into advocacy, activism, or a reach for new knowledge to change the situation.”
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
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.
This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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As Nuns Disappear, Many Catholic Hospitals Look More Like Megacorporations
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ST. LOUIS — Inside the more than 600 Catholic hospitals across the country, not a single nun can be found occupying a chief executive suite, according to the Catholic Health Association.
Nuns founded and led those hospitals in a mission to treat sick and poor people, but some were also shrewd business leaders. Sister Irene Kraus, a former chief executive of Daughters of Charity National Health System, was famous for coining the phrase “no margin, no mission.” It means hospitals must succeed — generating enough revenue to exceed expenses — to fulfill their original mission.
The Catholic Church still governs the care that can be delivered to millions in those hospitals each year, using religious directives to ban abortions and limit contraceptives, in vitro fertilization, and medical aid in dying.
But over time, that focus on margins led the hospitals to transform into behemoths that operate for-profit subsidiaries and pay their executives millions, according to hospital tax filings. These institutions, some of which are for-profit companies, now look more like other megacorporations than like the charities for the destitute of yesteryear.
The absence of nuns in the top roles raises the question, said M. Therese Lysaught, a Catholic moral theologist and professor at Loyola University Chicago: “What does it mean to be a Catholic hospital when the enterprise has been so deeply commodified?”
The St. Louis area serves as the de facto capital of Catholic hospital systems. Three of the largest are headquartered here, along with the Catholic hospital lobbying arm. Catholicism is deeply rooted in the region’s culture. During Pope John Paul II’s only U.S. stop in 1999, he led Mass downtown in a packed stadium of more than 100,000 people.
For a quarter century, Sister Mary Jean Ryan led SSM Health, one of those giant systems centered on St. Louis. Now retired, the 86-year-old said she was one of the last nuns in the nation to lead a Catholic hospital system.
Ryan grew up Catholic in Wisconsin and joined a convent while in nursing school in the 1960s, surprising her family. She admired the nuns she worked alongside and felt they were living out a higher purpose.
“They were very impressive,” she said. “Not that I necessarily liked all of them.”
Indeed, the nuns running hospitals defied the simplistic image often ascribed to them, wrote John Fialka in his book “Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America.”
“Their contributions to American culture are not small,” he wrote. “Ambitious women who had the skills and the stamina to build and run large institutions found the convent to be the first and, for a long time, the only outlet for their talents.”
This was certainly true for Ryan, who climbed the ranks, working her way from nurse to chief executive of SSM Health, which today has hospitals in Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.
The system was founded more than a century ago when five German nuns arrived in St. Louis with $5. Smallpox swept through the city and the Sisters of St. Mary walked the streets offering free care to the sick.
Their early foray grew into one of the largest Catholic health systems in the country, with annual revenue exceeding $10 billion, according to its 2023 audited financial report. SSM Health treats patients in 23 hospitals and co-owns a for-profit pharmacy benefit manager, Navitus, that coordinates prescriptions for 14 million people.
But Ryan, like many nuns in leadership roles in recent decades, found herself confronted with an existential crisis. As fewer women became nuns, she had to ensure the system’s future without them.
When Ron Levy, who is Jewish, started at SSM as an administrator, he declined to lead a prayer in a meeting, Ryan recounted in her book, “On Becoming Exceptional.”
“Ron, I’m not asking you to be Catholic,” she recalled telling him. “And I know you’ve only been here two weeks. So, if you’d like to make it three, I suggest you be prepared to pray the next time you’re asked.”
Levy went on to serve SSM for more than 30 years — praying from then on, Ryan wrote.
In Catholic hospitals, meetings are still likely to start with a prayer. Crucifixes often adorn buildings and patient rooms. Mission statements on the walls of SSM facilities remind patients: “We reveal the healing presence of God.”
Above all else, the Catholic faith calls on its hospitals to treat everyone regardless of race, religion, or ability to pay, said Diarmuid Rooney, a vice president of the Catholic Health Association. No nuns run the trade group’s member hospitals, according to the lobbying group. But the mission that compelled the nuns is “what compels us now,” Rooney said. “It’s not just words on a wall.”
The Catholic Health Association urges its hospitals to evaluate themselves every three years on whether they’re living up to Catholic teachings. It created a tool that weighs seven criteria, including how a hospital acts as an extension of the church and cares for poor and marginalized patients.
“We’re not relying on hearsay that the Catholic identity is alive and well in our facilities and hospitals,” Rooney said. “We can actually see on a scale where they are at.”
The association does not share the results with the public.
At SSM Health, “our Catholic identity is deeply and structurally ingrained” even with no nun at the helm, spokesperson Patrick Kampert said. The system reports to two boards. One functions as a typical business board of directors while the other ensures the system abides by the rules of the Catholic Church. The church requires the majority of that nine-member board to be Catholic. Three nuns currently serve on it; one is the chair.
Separately, SSM also is required to file an annual report with the Vatican detailing the ways, Kampert said, “we deepen our Catholic identity and further the healing ministry of Jesus.” SSM declined to provide copies of those reports.
From a business perspective, though, it’s hard to distinguish a Catholic hospital system like SSM from a secular one, said Ruth Hollenbeck, a former Anthem insurance executive who retired in 2018 after negotiating Missouri hospital contracts. In the contracts, she said, the difference amounted to a single paragraph stating that Catholic hospitals wouldn’t do anything contrary to the church’s directives.
To retain tax-exempt status under Internal Revenue Service rules, all nonprofit hospitals must provide a “benefit” to their communities such as free or reduced-price care for patients with low incomes. But the IRS provides a broad definition of what constitutes a community benefit, which gives hospitals wide latitude to justify not needing to pay taxes.
On average, the nation’s nonprofit hospitals reported that 15.5% of their total annual expenses were for community benefits in 2020, the latest figure available from the American Hospital Association.
SSM Health, including all of its subsidiaries, spent proportionately far less than the association’s average for individual hospitals, allocating roughly the same share of its annual expenses to community efforts over three years: 5.1% in 2020, 4.5% in 2021, and 4.9% in 2022, according to a KFF Health News analysis of its most recent publicly available IRS filings and audited financial statements.
A separate analysis from the Lown Institute think tank placed five Catholic systems — including the St. Louis region’s Ascension — on its list of the 10 health systems with the largest “fair share” deficits, which means receiving more in tax breaks than what they spent on the community. And Lown said three St. Louis-area Catholic health systems — Ascension, SSM Health, and Mercy — had fair share deficits of $614 million, $235 million, and $92 million, respectively, in the 2021 fiscal year.
Ascension, Mercy, and SSM disputed Lown’s methodology, arguing it doesn’t take into account the gap between the payments they receive for Medicaid patients and the cost of delivering their care. The IRS filings do.
But, Kampert said, many of the benefits SSM provides aren’t reflected in its IRS filings either. The forms reflect “very simplistic calculations” and do not accurately represent the health system’s true impact on the community, he said.
Today, SSM Health is led by longtime business executive Laura Kaiser. Her compensation in 2022 totaled $8.4 million, including deferred payments, according to its IRS filing. Kampert defended the amount as necessary “to retain and attract the most qualified” candidate.
By contrast, SSM never paid Ryan a salary, giving instead an annual contribution to her convent of less than $2 million a year, according to some tax filings from her long tenure. “I didn’t join the convent to earn money,” Ryan said.
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.
This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mythbusting The Big O
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“Early To Bed…”
In yesterday’s newsletter, we asked you for your (health-related) views on orgasms.
But what does the science say?
Orgasms are essential to good health: True or False?
False, in the most literal sense. One certainly won’t die without them. Anorgasmia (the inability to orgasm) is a condition that affects many postmenopausal women, some younger women, and some men. And importantly, it isn’t fatal—just generally considered unfortunate:
Anorgasmia Might Explain Why You’re Not Orgasming When You Want To
That article focuses on women; here’s a paper focusing on men:
Orgasms are good for the health, but marginally: True or False?
True! They have a wide array of benefits, depending on various factors (including, of course, one’s own sex). That said, the benefits are so marginal that we don’t have a flock of studies to cite, and are reduced to pop-science sources that verbally cite studies that are, alas, nowhere to be found, for example:
- For women: 9 Orgasm Benefits That Might Surprise You
- For men: 9 Ways Orgasms May Benefit Your Health
Doubtlessly the studies do exist, but are sparse enough that finding them is a nightmare as the keywords for them will bring up a lot of studies about orgasms and health that aren’t answering the above question (usually: health’s affect on orgasms, rather than the other way around).
There is some good science for post-menopausal women, though! Here it is:
Misconceptions About Sexual Health in Older Women
(if you have the time to read this, this also covers many very avoidable things that can disrupt sexual function, in ways that people will errantly chalk up to old age, not knowing that they are missing out needlessly)
Orgasms are good or bad, depending on being male or female: True or False
False, broadly. The health benefits are extant and marginal for almost everyone, as indicated above.
What’s that “almost” about, then?
There are a very few* people (usually men) for whom it doesn’t go well. In such cases, they have a chronic and lifelong problem whereby orgasm is followed by 2–7 days of flu-like and allergic symptoms. Little is known about it, but it appears to be some sort of autoimmune disorder.
Read more: Post-orgasmic illness syndrome: history and current perspectives
*It’s hard to say for sure how few though, as it is surely under-reported and thus under-diagnosed; likely even misdiagnosed if the patient doesn’t realize that orgasms are the trigger for such episodes, and the doctor doesn’t think to ask. Instead, they will be busy trying to eliminate foods from the diet, things like that, while missing this cause.
Orgasms are better avoided for optimal health: True or False?
Aside from the above, False. There is a common myth for men of health benefits of “semen retention”, but it is not based in science, just tradition. You can read a little about it here:
The short version is: do it if you want; don’t if you don’t; the body will compensate either way so it won’t make a meaningful difference to anything for most people, healthwise.
Small counterpoint: while withholding orgasm (and ejaculation) is not harmful to health, what does physiologically need draining sometimes is prostate fluid. But that can also be achieved mechanically through prostate milking, or left to fend for itself (as it will in nocturnal emissions, popularly called wet dreams). However, if you have problems with an enlarged prostate, it may not be a bad idea to take matters into your own hands, so to speak. As ever, do check with your doctor if you have (or think you may have) a condition that might affect this.
One final word…
We’re done with mythbusting for today, but we wanted to share this study that we came across (so to speak) while researching, as it’s very interesting:
On which note: if you haven’t already, consider getting a “magic wand” style vibe; you can thank us later (this writer’s opinion: everyone should have one!).
Top tip: do get the kind that plugs into the wall, not rechargeable. The plug-into-the-wall kind are more powerful, and last much longer (both “in the moment”, and in terms of how long the device itself lasts).
Enjoy!
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Wrong Arm Position = Wrong Measurement Of Blood Pressure
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This is especially important to know if you measure your own blood pressure at home.
Even if you don’t, it’s still good to know this as healthcare providers also can (and often will) do it wrong, especially if they are under time pressure (e.g. they need to get you out of their office and the next person in):
From the heart
Many things can change our blood pressure, and even gravity changes (considerably!) our blood pressure locally.
For example, even with good circulation, so long as we are in the Earth’s gravity under normal conditions (e.g. not skydiving, not riding a rollercoaster, etc), our blood pressure will always be higher below our heart, and lower above it, because gravity is pulling our blood downwards; this is also why if your circulation is not good, you may feel light-headed upon sitting up or standing up, as the bloodstream takes a moment to win a battle against gravity. This is also why blood rushes to your head if you are hanging upside down—increasing the local blood pressure in your head, which unlike your feet, isn’t used to it, so you feel it, and the effect may be visible from the outside, too.
When it comes to having your arm above or below your heart, the difference is less pronounced as it’s only a small change, but that small change can make a big difference:
- If the cuff is above heart level → Lower blood pressure reading.
- If the cuff is below heart level → Higher blood pressure reading.
- Every 1-inch difference causes a 2 mmHg change in readings.
For the reading to be accurate, the blood pressure cuff therefore needs to be at the same height as your heart.
You may be thinking: “my heart is bigger than an inch; do I aim for the middle?”
And the answer is: ideally the cuff should be at the same height as the right atrium of the heart, which is under the midpoint of the sternum.
However, your arm needs to be supported at that height, because if you have to keep it there using your own power, that will mean a tensing of your muscles, and increase in both heart rate and blood pressure. In fact, studies cited in the video found:
- Unsupported arm, in healthy patients → Systolic +8 mmHg, Diastolic +7 mmHg.
- Unsupported arm, in high blood pressure patients → Systolic +23 mmHg, Diastolic +10 mmHg.
Some other considerations; firstly, correct sitting posture:
- Sit upright with back support
- Feet flat on the floor, legs uncrossed
- Arm should be outward from the body and, as per the above explanation, supported (armrest, table, etc.)
And finally, you should be relaxed and at rest.
For example, your writer here is due for a regular checkup in a couple of weeks, and usually when I go there, I will have walked a couple of miles to get there, then bounced cheerfully up 6 flights of stairs. However, for this appointment, I will need to make sure to arrive early, so that I have time for my (so far as I know, happy and healthy) heart to return to its resting pulse and blood pressure.
Also, if you are anything like this writer, the blood pressure cuff activating is not a relaxing experience (and so invites a higher pulse and blood pressure), so it’s better to take three readings and then discard the first one, and record the average of the second two (I do it this way at home).
Similarly, if a medical environment in general is stressful for you, then taking two minutes to do a little mindfulness meditation, or even just breathing exercises, can be good.
For more on all of these, plus also comments on issues such as correct cuff size and tightness, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Common Hospital Blood Pressure Mistake (Don’t Let This Happen To You Or A Loved One)
Take care!
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Kava vs Anxiety
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Kava, sometimes also called “kava kava” but we’re just going to call it kava once for the sake of brevity, is a heart-shaped herb that
bestows the powers of the Black Pantheris popularly enjoyed for its anxiolytic (anxiety-reducing) effects. Despite the similarity of the name in many languages, it is unrelated to coffee (except insofar as they are both plants), and its botanical name is Piper methysticum.Does it work?
Yes! At least in the short-term; more on that later.
Firstly, you may be wondering how it works; it works by its potentiation of GABA receptors in the brain. GABA (or gamma-aminobutyric acid, to give it its full name), as you may recall, is a neurotransmitter that is associated with feelings of calm; we wrote about it here:
So, what does “potentiation of GABA receptors” mean? It means… Scientists don’t for 100% sure know how it works yet, but it does make GABA receptors fire more. It’s possible that to some degree GABA fits the “molecular lock” of the receptors and causes them to say “GABA is here”; it’s also possible that they just make them more sensitive to the real GABA that is there, or there could be another explanation as yet undiscovered. Either way, it means that taking kava has a similar effect to having increased GABA levels in the brain:
As for how much to use, 20–300mg appears to be an effective dose, and most sources recommend 80–250mg:
Kava as a Clinical Nutrient: Promises and Challenges
This review of clinical trials found that it was more effective than placebo in only 3 of 7 trials; specifically, it was beneficial in the short-term and not in the long-term. For these reasons, the researchers concluded:
❝Kava Kava appears to be a short-term treatment for anxiety, but not a replacement for prolonged anti-anxiety use. Although not witnessed in this review, liver toxicity is especially possible if taken longer than 8 weeks.❞
Another review of clinical trials found better results over the course of 11 clinical trials, though again, short-term treatment only was considered to be where the “safe and effective” claim can be placed:
❝Compared with placebo, kava extract appears to be an effective symptomatic treatment option for anxiety. The data available from the reviewed studies suggest that kava is relatively safe for short-term treatment (1 to 24 weeks), although more information is required. Further rigorous investigations, particularly into the long-term safety profile of kava are warrant❞
Source: Kava extract for treating anxiety
Is it safe?
Nope! It has been associated with liver damage:
The likely main mechanism of toxicity is that it simply monopolizes the liver’s metabolic abilities, meaning that while it’s metabolizing the kava, it’s not metabolizing other things (such as alcohol or other medications), which will then build up, and potentially overwhelm the liver:
Constituents in kava extracts potentially involved in hepatotoxicity: a review
However, traditionally-prepared kava has not had the same effect as modern extracts; at first it seemed the difference was the traditional aqueous extracts vs modern acetonic/ethanolic extracts, but eventually that was found not to be the case, as toxicity occurred with industrial aqueous extracts too. The conclusion so far is that it is about the quality of the source ingredients, and the problems inherent to mass-production:
Meanwhile, short-term use doesn’t seem to have this problem, if you’re not drinking alcohol or taking medications that affect the liver:
Mechanisms/risk factors – kava-associated hepatotoxicity ← you’ll need to scroll down to 4.2.4 to read about this
Want to try it?
If the potential for hepatotoxicity doesn’t put you off, here’s an example product on Amazon ← we do not recommend it, but we are not the boss of you, and maybe you’re confident about your liver and want to use it only very short-term?
Take care!
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Get The Right Help For Your Pain
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How Much Does It Hurt?
Sometimes, a medical professional will ask us to “rate your pain on a scale of 1–10”.
It can be tempting to avoid rating one’s pain too highly, because if we say “10” then where can we go from there? There is always a way to make pain worse, after all.
But that kind of thinking, however logical, is folly—from a practical point of view. Instead of risking having to give an 11 later, you have now understated your level-10 pain as a “7” and the doctor thinks “ok, I’ll give Tylenol instead of morphine”.
A more useful scale
First, know this:
Zero is not “this is the lowest level of pain I get to”.
Zero is “no pain”.
As for the rest…
- My pain is hardly noticeable.
- I have a low level of pain; I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.
- My pain bothers me, but I can ignore it most of the time.
- I am constantly aware of my pain, but can continue most activities.
- I think about my pain most of the time; I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.
- I think about my pain all of the time; I give up many activities because of my pain.
- I am in pain all of the time; It keeps me from doing most activities.
- My pain is so severe that it is difficult to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.
- My pain is all that I can think about; I can barely move or talk because of my pain.
- I am in bed and I can’t move due to my pain; I need someone to take me to the emergency room because of my pain.
10almonds tip: are you reading this on your phone? Screenshot the above, and keep it for when you need it!
One extra thing to bear in mind…
Medical staff will be more likely to believe a pain is being overstated, on a like-for-like basis, if you are a woman, or not white, or both.
There are some efforts to compensate for this:
A new government inquiry will examine women’s pain and treatment. How and why is it different?
Some other resources of ours:
- The 7 Approaches To Pain Management ← a pain specialist discusses the options available
- Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!) ← when there’s no quick fix, but these things can buy you some hours’ relief at least / stop the pain from getting worse in the moment
- Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief ← for when you’re maxxed out on painkillers, and need something more/different, these are the things the science says will work
Take care!
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Plum vs Nectarine – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing plums to nectarines, we picked the nectarines.
Why?
Both are great! But nectarines win at least marginally in each category we look at.
In terms of macros, plums have more carbs while nectarines have more fiber, resulting of course in a lower glycemic index. Plums do have a low GI also; just, nectarines have it better.
When it comes to vitamins, plums have more of vitamins A, B6, C, and K, while nectarines have more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, E, and choline.
In the category of minerals, plums are great but not higher in any mineral than nectarines; nectarines meanwhile have more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc.
All in all, enjoy both. And if having dried fruit, then prunes (dried plums) are generally more widely available than dried nectarines. But if you’re choosing one fruit or the other, nectarine is the way to go.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)
- Replacing Sugar: Top 10 Anti-Inflammatory Sweet Foods
- Top 8 Fruits That Prevent & Kill Cancer
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
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