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 😎

❝In the this or that article, you said kampeferol was a famously good flavonol on a par with quercetin, does it do the same thing or does it do something different, and is it worth supplementing?❞

So, this will be in reference to a This-or-That from last week:

Cantaloupe vs Cucumber – Which is Healthier?

Let’s break down your question into parts:

• Is it comparable to quercetin?
• Does it have special properties of its own?
• Is it worth supplementing?

Is it comparable to quercetin?

They are both flavonols, and potent ones at that. Similarities include that they’re found in many of the same plants, and that (like most if not all polyphenols) they have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits, which in turn usually translate to anti-aging and anticancer benefits too.

You can read more about quercetin here: Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin

You can read more about polyphenols in general here: 21 Most Beneficial Polyphenols & What Foods Have Them ← quercetin and kaempferol are #1 and #2 on this list, respectively

Does it have special properties of its own?

Yes it does!

❝Epidemiological studies have shown an inverse relationship between kaempferol intake and cancer.

Kaempferol may help by augmenting the body’s antioxidant defense against free radicals, which promote the development of cancer.

At the molecular level, kaempferol has been reported to modulate a number of key elements in cellular signal transduction pathways linked to apoptosis, angiogenesis, inflammation, and metastasis.

Significantly, kaempferol inhibits cancer cell growth and angiognesis and induces cancer cell apoptosis, but on the other hand, kaempferol appears to preserve normal cell viability, in some cases exerting a protective effect.❞

Read in full: A review of the dietary flavonoid, kaempferol on human health and cancer chemoprevention

It is also particularly good for the gut:

❝Most recently, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated the significance of kaempferol in the regulation of intestinal function and the mitigation of intestinal inflammation❞

Read in full: A Critical Review of Kaempferol in Intestinal Health and Diseases

This also means it is particularly efficacious against food allergies:

❝we screened food ingredients with the expectation of finding dietary compounds that exert beneficial effects on intestinal immune tolerance and identified kaempferol, a flavonoid, as the compound that most effectively increased Aldh1a2 mRNA levels❞

(that’s good)

Read in full: Kaempferol Exerts Anti-Inflammatory Effects by Accelerating Treg Development via Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor-Mediated and PU.1/IRF4-Dependent Transactivation of the Aldh1a2/Raldh2 Gene in Dendritic Cells

That one’s a bit scientifically denser than we usually try to find when citing sources here, so here’s a pop-science article about the same thing, which explains in more words than we have room to here:

Flavonoid kaempferol could offer natural relief for food allergies ← much lighter reading, but still very informative

Kaempferol (like quercetin, granted) is also a potent neuroprotective agent, not least of all because its anti-inflammatory powers extend to reducing neuroinflammation (not everything does, because not everything we ingest can pass the blood-brain barrier to affect what goes on in the brain):

Kaempferol, a potential neuroprotective agent in neurodegenerative diseases: From chemistry to medicine

…and more:

❝it may be used to treat numerous acute and chronic inflammation-induced diseases, including intervertebral disc degeneration and colitis, as well as post-menopausal bone loss and acute lung injury. In addition, it has beneficial effects against cancer, liver injury, obesity and diabetes, inhibits vascular endothelial inflammation, protects the cranial nerve and heart function, and may be used for treating fibroproliferative disorders, including hypertrophic scar.❞

Read in full: Recent progress regarding kaempferol for the treatment of various diseases

Is it worth supplementing?

If you eat a lot of leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, and/or citrus fruits, and/or drink tea (true teas from tea plants, not miscellaneous herbal infusions), then you probably get a good dose of kaempferol already.

However, if you want to supplement, hawthorn berry is not a bad one to go with, like this example product on Amazon 😎

We wrote about this before, here: Hawthorn For The Heart (& More)

As for teas, if you’re wondering about the merits of black, white, green or red, check out:

Black, White, Green, Red: Which Kind Of Tea Is Best For The Health, According To Science? ← this covers many factors

Enjoy!

It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small

❝My BMI is fine, but my waist is too big. What do I do about that? I am 5′ 5″ tall and 128 pounds and 72 years old.❞

It’s hard to say without knowing about your lifestyle (and hormones, for that matter)! But, extra weight around the middle in particular is often correlated with high levels of cortisol, so you might find this of benefit:

Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)

From Cucumbers To Kindles

Q: Where do I get cucumber extract?

A: You can buy it from BulkSupplements.com (who, despite their name, start at 100g packs)

Alternatively: you want it as a topical ointment (for skin health) rather than as a dietary supplement (for bone and joint health), you can extract it yourself! No, it’s not “just juice cucumbers”, but it’s also not too tricky.

Click Here For A Quick How-To Guide!

Q: Tips for reading more and managing time for it?

A: We talked about this a little bit in yesterday’s edition, so you may have seen that, but aside from that:

• If you don’t already have one, consider getting a Kindle or similar e-reader. They’re very convenient, and also very light and ergonomic—no more wrist strain as can occur with physical books. No more eye-strain, either!
• Consider making reading a specific part of your daily routine. A chapter before bed can be a nice wind-down, for instance! What’s important is it’s a part of your day that’ll always, or at least almost always, allow you to do a little reading.
• If you drive, walk, run, or similar each day, a lot of people find that’s a great time to listen to an audiobook. Please be safe, though!
• If your lifestyle permits such, a “reading retreat” can be a wonderful vacation! Even if you only “retreat” to your bedroom, the point is that it’s a weekend (or more!) that you block off from all other commitments, and curl up with the book(s) of your choice.

Q: Any study tips as we approach exam season? A lot of the productivity stuff is based on working life, but I can’t be the only student!

A: We’ve got you covered:

• Be passionate about your subject! We know of no greater study tip than that.
• Find a willing person and lecture them on your subject. When one teaches, two learn!
• Your mileage may vary depending on your subject, but, find a way of studying that’s fun to you!
• If you can get past papers, get as many as you can, and use those as your “last minute” studying in the week before your exam(s). This will prime you for answering exam-style questions (and leverage state-dependent memory). As a bonus, it’ll also help ease any anxiety, because by the time of your exam it’ll be “same old, same old”!

Q: Energy drinks for biohacking, yea or nay?

A: This is definitely one of those “the dose makes the poison” things!

• Caffeine, in and of itself, can be healthy in moderation for most people.
• Taurine has assorted benefits at safe dosages:
  • Prevents age-dependent decline of cognitive functions
  • Can improve endurance
  • Positive effect on study attitude
  • May help against neurological disorders
• Other ingredients often have health benefits too.

But… The generally agreed safe dose of taurine is around 3g/day for most people; a standard Red Bull contains 1g.

That math would be simple, but… if you eat meat (including poultry or fish), that can also contain 10–950mg per 100g. For example, tuna is at the high end of that scale, with a standard 12oz (340g) tin already containing up to 3.23g of taurine!

And sweetened carbonated beverages in general have so many health issues that it’d take us a full article to cover them.

Short version? Enjoy in moderation if you must, but there are definitely better ways of getting the benefits they may offer.

Q: Best morning routine?

A: The best morning routine is whatever makes you feel most ready to take on your day!

This one’s going to vary a lot—one person’s morning run could be another person’s morning coffee and newspaper, for example.

In a nutshell, though, ask yourself these questions:

• How long does it take me to fully wake up in the morning, and what helps or hinders that?
• When I get out of bed, what do I really need before I can take on my day?
• If I could have the perfect morning, what would it look like?
• What can evening me do, to look after morning me’s best interests? (Semi-prepare breakfast ready? Lay out clothes ready? Running shoes? To-Do list?)

Q: I’m curious how much of these things you actually use yourselves, and are there any disagreements in the team? In a lot of places things can get pretty heated when it’s paleo vs vegan / health benefits of tea/coffee vs caffeine-abstainers / you need this much sleep vs rise and grinders, etc?

A: We are indeed genuinely enthusiastic about health and productivity, and that definitely includes our own! We may or may not all do everything, but between us, we probably have it all covered. As for disagreements, we’ve not done a survey, but if you take an evidence-based approach, any conflict will tend to be minimized. Plus, sometimes you can have the best of both!

• You could have a vegan paleo diet (you’d better love coconut if you do, though!
• There is decaffeinated coffee and tea (your taste may vary)
• You can get plenty of sleep and rise early (so long as an “early to bed, early to rise” schedule suits you!)

Interesting note: humans are social creatures on an evolutionary level. Evolution has resulted in half of us being “night owls” and the other half “morning larks”, the better to keep each other safe while sleeping. Alas, modern life doesn’t always allow us to have the sleep schedule that’d suit each of us best individually!

Have a question you’d like answered? Reply to this email, or use the feedback widget at the bottom! We always love to hear from you