
Goji Berries: Which Benefits Do They Really Have?
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Are Goji Berries Really A Superfood?
Goji berries are popularly considered a superfood, and sold for everything from anti-aging effects, to exciting benefits* that would get this email directed to your spam folder if we described them.
*We searched so you don’t have to: there doesn’t seem to be much research to back [that claim that we can’t mention], but we did find one paper on its “invigorating” benefits for elderly male rats. We prefer to stick to human studies where we can!
So how does the science stack up for the more mainstream claims?
Antioxidant effects
First and most obvious for this fruit that’s full of helpful polysaccharides, carotenoids, phenolic acids, and flavonoids, yes, they really do have strong antioxidant properties:
Immune benefits
Things that are antioxidant are generally also anti-inflammatory, and often have knock-on benefits for the immune system. That appears to be the case here.
For example, in this small-but-statistically-significant study (n=60) in healthy adults (aged 55–72 years)
❝The GoChi group showed a statistically significant increase in the number of lymphocytes and levels of interleukin-2 and immunoglobulin G compared to pre-intervention and the placebo group, whereas the number of CD4, CD8, and natural killer cells or levels of interleukin-4 and immunoglobulin A were not significantly altered. The placebo group showed no significant changes in any immune measures.
Whereas the GoChi group showed a significant increase in general feelings of well-being, such as fatigue and sleep, and showed a tendency for increased short-term memory and focus between pre- and post-intervention, the placebo group showed no significant positive changes in these measures.❞
“GoChi” here is a brand name for goji berries, and it’s not clear from the abstract whether the company funded the study:
Here’s another study, this time n=150, and ages 65–70 years old. This time it’s with a different brand (“Lacto-Wolfberry”, a milk-with-goji supplement drink) and it’s also unclear whether the company funded the study. However, taking the data at face value:
❝In conclusion, long-term dietary supplementation with Lacto-Wolfberry in elderly subjects enhances their capacity to respond to antigenic challenge without overaffecting their immune system, supporting a contribution to reinforcing immune defense in this population. ❞
In other words: it allowed those who took it to get measurably more benefit from the flu vaccinations that they received, without any ill effects.
Anticancer potential
This one’s less contentious (the immune benefits seemed very credible; we’d just like to see more transparent research to say for sure), so in the more clearly-evidenced case against cancer we’ll just drop a few quick studies, clipped for brevity:
- Goji berry (Lycium barbarum) inhibits the proliferation, adhesion, and migration of oral cancer cells
- A closer look at immunomodulatory properties of goji berries extract in human colon cancer cells
- Lycium barbarum polysaccharides induce apoptosis in human prostate cancer cells and inhibits prostate cancer growth
- Identification of goji berry cyclic peptides and anticervical carcinoma activity
- Antiproliferative effects of Lycium barbarum’s (goji berry) fractions on breast cancer Cell Lines
You get the idea: it helps!
Bonus benefit for the eyes
Goji berries also help against age-related macular degeneration. The research for this is in large part secondary, i.e. goji berries contain things x, y, and z, and then separate studies say that those things help against age-related macular degeneration.
We did find some goji-specific studies though! One of them was for our old friends the “Lacto-Wolfberry” people and again, wasn’t very transparent, so we’ll not take up extra time/space with that one here.
Instead, here’s a much clearer, transparent, and well-referenced study with no conflicts of interest, that found:
❝Overall, daily supplementation with Goji berry for 90d improves MPOD by increasing serum Z levels rather than serum L levels in early AMD patients. Goji berry may be an effective therapeutic intervention for preventing the progression of early AMD.❞
- MPOD = Macular Pigment Optical Density, a standard diagnostic tool for age-related macular degeneration
- AMD = Age-related Macular Degeneration
(that whole paper is very compelling reading, if you have time)
If you want a quicker read, we offer:
How To Avoid Age-Related Macular Degeneration
and also…
Where to get goji berries?
You can probably find them at your local health food store, if not the supermarket. However, if you’d like to buy them online, here’s an example product on Amazon for your convenience
Enjoy!
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What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast – by Laura Vanderkram
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First, what this is not:this is not a rehash of “The 5AM Club”, and nor is it a rehash of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”.
What it is: packed with tips about time management for real people operating here in the real world. The kind of people who have non-negotiable time-specific responsibilities, and frequent unavoidable interruptions. The kind of people who have partners, families, and personal goals and aspirations too.
The “two other short guides” mentioned in the subtitle are her other books, whose titles start the same but instead of “…before Breakfast”, substitute:
- …on the Weekend
- …at Work
However, if you’re retired (we know many of our subscribers are), this still applies to you:
- The “weekend” book is about getting the most out of one’s leisure time, and we hope you have that too!
- The “work” book is about not getting lost in the nitty-gritty of the daily grind, and instead making sure to keep track of the big picture. You probably have this in your personal projects, too!
Bottom line: if, in the mornings, it sometimes seems like your get-up-and-go has got up and gone without you, then you will surely benefit from this book that outstrips its competitors in usefulness and applicability.
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Spoon-Fed – by Dr. Tim Spector
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Dr. Spector looks at widespread beliefs about food, and where those often scientifically disproven beliefs come from. Hint, there’s usually some manner of “follow the money”.
From calorie-counting to cholesterol content, from fish to bottled water, to why of all the people who self-report having an allergy, only around half turn out to actually have one when tested, Dr. Spector sets the record straight.
The style is as very down-to-earth and not at all self-aggrandizing; the author acknowledges his own mistakes and limitations along the way. In terms of pushing any particular agenda, his only agenda is clear: inform the public about bad science, so that we demand better science going forwards. Along the way, he gives us lots of information that can inform our personal health choices based on better science than indiscriminate headlines wildly (and sometimes intentionally) misinterpreting results.
Read this book, and you may find yourself clicking through to read the studies for yourself, next time you see a bold headline.
Bottom line: this book looks at a lot of what’s wrong with what a lot of people believe about healthy eating. Regular 10almonds readers might not find a lot that’s new here, but it could be a great gift for a would-be health-conscious friend or relative
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The Exercise That Protects Your Brain
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The Neuroscientist In The Gym
This is Dr. Wendy Suzuki. She’s a neuroscientist, and an expert in the neurobiology of memory, as well as neuroplasticity, and the role of exercise in neuroprotection.
We’ve sneakily semi-featured her before when we shared her Big Think talk:
Brain Benefits In Three Months… Through Walking?
Today we’re going to expand on that a little!
A Quick Recap
To share the absolute key points of that already fairly streamlined rundown:
- Exercise boosts levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin (and, which wasn’t mentioned there, noradrenaline)
- These are responsible for motivation, happiness, and focus (amongst other things)
- Persistent exercise boosts certain regions of the brain in particular, most notably the pre-frontal cortex and the hippocampi*
- These are responsible for planning and memory (amongst other things)
Dr. Suzuki advocates for stepping up your exercise routine if you can, with more exercise generally being better than less (unless you have some special medical reason why that’s not the case for you).
*often referred to in the singular as the hippocampus, but you have one on each side of your brain (unless a serious accident/incident destroyed one, but you’ll know if that applies to you, unless you lost both, in which case you will not remember about it).
What kind(s) of workout?
While a varied workout is best for overall health, for these brain benefits specifically, what’s most important is that it raises your heart rate.
This is why in her Big Think talk we shared before, she talks about the benefits of taking a brisk walk daily. See also:
If that’s not your thing, though (and/or is for whatever reason an inaccessible form of exercise for you), there is almost certainly some kind of High Intensity Interval Training that is a possibility for you. That might sound intimidating, but if you have a bit of floor and can exercise for one minute at a time, then HIIT is an option for you:
How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
Dr. Suzuki herself is an ardent fan of “intenSati” which blends cardio workouts with yoga for holistic mind-and-body fitness. In fact, she loves it so much that she became a certified exercise instructor:
How much is enough?
It’s natural to want to know the minimum we can do to get results, but Dr. Suzuki would like us to bear in mind that when it comes to our time spent exercising, it’s not so much an expense of time as an investment in time:
❝Exercise is something that when you spend time on it, it will buy you time when you start to work❞
Read more: A Neuroscientist Experimented on Her Students and Found a Powerful Way to Improve Brain Function
Ok, but we really want to know how much!
Dr. Suzuki recommends at least three to four 30-minute exercise sessions per week.
Note: this adds up to less than the recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, but high-intensity exercise counts for twice the minutes for these purposes, e.g. 1 minute of high-intensity exercise is worth 2 minutes of moderate exercise.
How soon will we see benefits?
Benefits start immediately, but stack up cumulatively with continued long-term exercise:
❝My lab showed that a single workout can improve your ability to shift and focus attention, and that focus improvement will last for at least two hours. ❞
…which is a great start, but what’s more exciting is…
❝The more you’re working out, the bigger and stronger your hippocampus and prefrontal cortex gets. Why is that important?
Because the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus are the two areas that are most susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases and normal cognitive decline in aging. ❞
In other words, while improving your heart rate through regular exercise will help prevent neurodegeneration by the usual mechanism of reducing neuroinflammation… It’ll also build the parts of your brain most susceptible to decline, meaning that when/if decline sets in, it’ll take a lot longer to get to a critical level of degradation, because it had more to start with.
Read more:
Inspir Modern Senior Living | Dr. Wendy Suzuki Boosts Brain Health with Exercise
Want more from Dr. Suzuki?
You might enjoy her TED talk:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically
Prefer text? TED.com has a transcript for you
Prefer lots of text? You might like her book, which we haven’t reviewed yet but will soon:
Enjoy!
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- Exercise boosts levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin (and, which wasn’t mentioned there, noradrenaline)
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PFAS Exposure & Cancer: The Numbers Are High
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PFAS & Cancer Risk: The Numbers Are High
Image Credits Mount Sinai This is Dr. Maaike van Gerwen. Is that an MD or a PhD, you wonder? It’s both.
She’s also Director of Research in the Department of Otolaryngology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, Scientific Director of the Program of Personalized Management of Thyroid Disease, and Member of the Institute for Translational Epidemiology and the Transdisciplinary Center on Early Environmental Exposures.
What does she want us to know?
She’d love for us to know about her latest research published literally today, about the risks associated with PFAS, such as the kind widely found in non-stick cookware:
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure and thyroid cancer risk
Dr. van Gerwen and her team tested this several ways, and the very short and simple version of the findings is that per doubling of exposure, there was a 56% increased rate of thyroid cancer diagnosis.
(The rate of exposure was not just guessed based on self-reports; it was measured directly from PFAS levels in the blood of participants)
- PFAS exposure can come from many sources, not just non-stick cookware, but that’s a “biggie” since it transfers directly into food that we consume.
- Same goes for widely-available microwaveable plastic food containers.
- Relatively less dangerous exposures include waterproofed clothing.
To keep it simple and look at the non-stick pans and microwavable plastic containers, doubling exposure might mean using such things every day vs every second day.
Practical take-away: PFAS may be impossible to avoid completely, but even just cutting down on the use of such products is already reducing your cancer risk.
Isn’t it too late, by this point in life? Aren’t they “forever chemicals”?
They’re not truly “forever”, but they do have long half-lives, yes.
See: Can we take the “forever” out of forever chemicals?
The half-lives of PFOS and PFOA in water are 41 years and 92 years, respectively.
In the body, however, because our body is constantly trying to repair itself and eliminate toxins, it’s more like 3–7 years.
That might seem like a long time, and perhaps it is, but the time will pass anyway, so might as well get started now, rather than in 3–7 years time!
Read more: National Academies Report Calls for Testing People With High Exposure to “Forever Chemicals”
What should we use instead?
In place of non-stick cookware, cast iron is fantastic. It’s not everyone’s preference, though, so you might also like to know that ceramic cookware is a fine option that’s functionally non-stick but without needing a non-stick coating. Check for PFAS-free status; they should advertise this.
In place of plastic microwaveable containers, Pyrex (or equivalent) glass dishes (you can get them with lids) are a top-tier option. Ceramic containers (without metallic bits!) are also safely microwaveable.
See also:
Here’s a List of Products with PFAS (& How to Avoid Them)
Take care!
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The Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook – by Dr. Daniel Fox
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Personality disorders in general get a bad rep. In part, because their names and descriptions often focus on how the disorders affect other people, rather than how they affect the actual sufferer:
- “This disorder gives you cripplingly low self-esteem; we call it Evil Not-Quite-Human Disorder”
- “This disorder makes you feel unloveable; we call it Abusive Bitch Disorder”
- …etc
Putting aside the labels and stigma, it turns out that humans sometimes benefit from help. In the case of BPD, characterized by such things as difficult moods and self-sabotage, the advice in this book can help anyone struggling with those (and related) issues.
The style of the book is both textbook, and course. It’s useful to proceed through it methodically, and doing the exercises is good too. We recommend getting the print edition, not the Kindle edition, so that you can check off boxes, write in it (pencil, if you like!), etc.
Bottom line: if you or a loved one suffers from BPD symptoms (whether or not you/they would meet criteria for diagnosis), this book can help a lot.
Click here to check out the BPD Workbook, and retake control of your life!
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Curious Kids: what are the main factors in forming someone’s personality?
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“What are the main factors in forming someone’s personality?” – Emma, age 10, from Shanghai
Hello Emma, and thank you for this very interesting question!
Let’s start by exploring what we mean by personality. Have you noticed no two people are completely alike? We all see, experience, and understand the world in different ways.
For example, some people love spending time with friends and being the centre of attention, whereas other people are more shy and enjoy having time to themselves.
Your unique personality is shaped by your genes as well as various influences in your environment. And your personality plays an important role in how you interact with the world.
The big five
Did you know there are scientists who spend time researching personality? Their research is concerned with describing the ways people differ from each other, and understanding how these differences could be important for other parts of life such as our health and how well we do in school or at work.
There are many different perspectives on personality. A widely accepted viewpoint based on a lot of research is called the five factor model or the “big five”. According to this theory, a great deal of a person’s personality can be summarised in terms of where they sit on five dimensions, called traits:
- the introversion-extraversion trait refers to how much someone is outgoing and social (extroverted) or prefers being with smaller groups of friends or focusing on their own thoughts (introverted)
- agreeableness captures how much someone tends to be cooperative and helps others
- openness to experience refers to how much a person is creative and enjoys experiencing new things
- neuroticism describes a person’s tendency to experience negative feelings, like worrying about things that could go wrong
- conscientiousness encompasses how much a person is organised, responsible, and dedicated to things that are important to them, like schoolwork or training for a sports team.
A person can have high, low, or moderate levels of each of these traits. And understanding whether someone has higher or lower levels of the big five can tell us a lot about how we might expect them to behave in different situations.
So what shapes our personalities?
A number of factors shape our personalities, including our genes and social environment.
Our bodies are made up of many very small structures called cells. Within these cells are genes. We inherit genes from our parents, and they carry the information needed to make our bodies and personalities. So, your personality may be a bit like your parents’ personalities. For example, if you’re an outgoing sort of person who loves to meet new people, perhaps one or both of your parents are very social too.
Our personalities are influenced by the genes we get from our parents.
KieferPix/ShutterstockPersonalities are also affected by our environment, such as our experiences and our relationships with family and friends. For example, some research has shown our relationships with our parents can influence our personality. If we have loving and warm relationships, we may be more agreeable and open. But if our relationships are hurtful or stressful, this may increase our neuroticism.
Another study showed that, over time, young children who were more physically active were less introverted (less shy) and less likely to get very upset when things don’t go their way, compared to children who were less physically active. Although we don’t know why this is for sure, one possible explanation is that playing sport leads to reduced shyness because it introduces children to different people.
While we’re learning more about personality development all the time, research in this area presents quite a few challenges. Many different biological, cultural and environmental influences shape our development, and these factors can interact with each other in complex ways.
Is our personality fixed once we become adults?
Although we develop most of our personality when we are young, and people’s personalities tend to become more stable as they get older, it is possible for aspects of a person’s personality to change, even when they are fully grown.
A good example of this can be seen among people who seek treatment for conditions like anxiety or depression. People who respond well to working with a psychologist can show decreases in neuroticism, indicating they become less likely to worry a lot or feel strong negative feelings when something stressful happens.
Hello, Curious Kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to mailto:[email protected]
Tim Windsor, Professor, Director, Generations Research Initiative, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University and Natalie Goulter, Lecturer, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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