Healthy Chocolate Fudge Energy Bites
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While these are quite high-calorie, they’re also high in protein, and the fiber and healthy fats flatten the blood sugar curve:
You will need
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 4 oz dark chocolate, melted (try to get dark chocolate with >80% cocoa, if you can; 85% is very respectable and 90% is perfect)
- ⅓ cup maple syrup (you can safely reduce this, or even omit it, if you prefer less sweetness)
- ¼ cup hazelnuts
- ¼ cup almond milk (or your preferred milk, but we recommend almond for taste and health)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Topping: ¼ cup hazelnuts, roughly chopped
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Combine all the ingredients (except the topping) in a food processor, and blend until smooth.
2) Line a container (5″x7″ is a good size) with baking paper and spread the mixture evenly into it, pressing down gently.
3) Sprinkle the topping onto it, press that even more gently into it.
4) Refrigerate overnight (or chill it for 2hrs in the freezer).
5) Cut into cubes to serve; they can be served frozen or thawed, per your preference:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Eating For Energy (In Ways That Actually Work)
- “Let Them Eat Cake”, She Said…
- Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
- Plant-Based Milks—What’s Best?
- Chocolate & Health: Fact or Fiction?
Take care!
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At The Heart Of Women’s Health
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A woman’s heart is a particular thing
For the longest time (and still to a large degree now), “women’s health” is assumed to refer to the health of organs found under a bikini. But there’s a lot more to it than that. We are whole people, with such things as brains and hearts and more.
Today (Valentine’s Day!) we’re focusing on the heart.
A quick recap:
We’ve talked previously about some of these sex differences when it comes to the heart, for example:
Heart Attack: His & Hers (Be Prepared!)
…but that’s fairly common knowledge at least amongst those who are attentive to such things, whereas…
…is much less common knowledge, especially with the ways statins are more likely to make things worse for a lot of women (not all though; see the article for some nuance about that).
We also talked about:
What Menopause Does To The Heart
…which is well worth reading too!
A question:
Why are women twice as likely to die from a heart attack as their age-equivalent male peers? Women develop heart disease later, but die from it sooner. Why is that?
That’s been a question scientists have been asking (and tentatively answering, as scientists do—hypotheses, theories, conclusions even sometimes) for 20 years now. Likely contributing factors include:
- A lack of public knowledge of the different symptoms
- A lack of confidence of bystanders to perform CPR on a woman
- A lack of public knowledge (including amongst prescribers) about the sex-related differences for statins
- A lack of women in cardiology, comparatively.
- A lack of attention to it, simply. Men get heart disease earlier, so it’s thought of as a “man thing”, by health providers as much as by individuals. Men get more regular cardiovascular check-ups, women get a mammogram and go.
Statistically, women are much more likely to die from heart disease than breast cancer:
- Breast cancer kills around 0.02% of us.
- Heart disease kills one in three.
And yet…
❝In a nationwide survey, only 22% of primary care doctors and 42% of cardiologists said they feel extremely well prepared to assess cardiovascular risks in women.
We are lagging in implementing risk prevention guidelines for women.
A lot of women are being told to just watch their cholesterol levels and see their doctor in a year. That’s a year of delayed care.❞
Source: The slowly evolving truth about heart disease and women
(there’s a lot more in that article than we have room for in ours, so do check it out!)
Some good news:
The “bystanders less likely to feel confident performing CPR on a woman” aspect may be helped by the deployment of new automatic external defibrillator, that works from four sides instead of one.
It’s called “double sequential external defibrillation”, and you can learn about it here:
A new emergency procedure for cardiac arrests aims to save more lives—here’s how it works
(it’s in use already in Canada and Aotearoa)
Gentlemen-readers, thank you for your attention to this one even if it was mostly not about you! Maybe someone you love will benefit from being aware of this
On a lighter note…
Since it’s Valentine’s Day, a little more on affairs of the heart…
Is chocolate good for the heart? And is it really an aphrodisiac?
We answered these questions and more in our previous main feature:
Chocolate & Health: Fact or Fiction?
Enjoy!
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Astaxanthin: Super-Antioxidant & Neuroprotectant
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Think Pink For Brain Health!
Astaxanthin is a carotenoid that’s found in:
- certain marine microalgae
- tiny crustaceans that eat the algae
- fish (and flamingos!) that eat the crustaceans
Yes, it’s the one that makes things pink.
But it does a lot more than that…
Super-antioxidant
Move over, green tea! Astaxanthin has higher antioxidant activity than most carotenoids. For example, it is 2–5 times more effective than alpha-carotene, lutein, beta-carotene, and lycopene:
Antioxidant activities of astaxanthin and related carotenoids
We can’t claim credit for naming it a super-antioxidant though, because:
Astaxanthin: A super antioxidant from microalgae and its therapeutic potential
Grow new brain cells
Axtaxanthin is a neuroprotectant, but that’s to be expected from something with such a powerful antioxidant ability.
What’s more special to astaxanthin is that it assists continued adult neurogenesis (creation of new brain cells):
❝The unique chemical structure of astaxanthin enables it to cross the blood-brain barrier and easily reach the brain, where it may positively influence adult neurogenesis.
Furthermore, astaxanthin appears to modulate neuroinflammation by suppressing the NF-κB pathway, reducing the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and limiting neuroinflammation associated with aging and chronic microglial activation.
By modulating these pathways, along with its potent antioxidant properties, astaxanthin may contribute to the restoration of a healthy neurogenic microenvironment, thereby preserving the activity of neurogenic niches during both normal and pathological aging. ❞
That first part is very important, by the way! There are so many things that our brain needs, and we can eat, but the molecules are unable to pass the blood-brain barrier, meaning they either get wasted, or used elsewhere, or dismantled for their constituent parts. In this case, it zips straight into the brain instead.
See also:
How To Grow New Brain Cells (At Any Age)
(Probably) good for the joints, too
First, astaxanthin got a glowing report in a study we knew not to trust blindly:
…and breathe. What a title that was! But, did you catch why it’s not to be trusted blindly? It was down at the bottom…
❝Conflict of interest statement
NOVAREX Co., Ltd. funded the study. Valensa International provided the FlexPro MD® ingredients, and NOVAREX Co., Ltd. encapsulated the test products (e.g., both FlexPro MD® and placebo)❞
Studies where a supplement company funded the study are not necessarily corrupt, but they can certainly sway publication bias, i.e. the company funds a bunch of studies and then pulls funding from the ones that aren’t going the way it wants.
So instead let’s look at:
Astaxanthin attenuates joint inflammation induced by monosodium urate crystals
and
Astaxanthin ameliorates cartilage damage in experimental osteoarthritis
…which had no such conflicts of interest.
They agree that astaxanthin indeed does the things (attenuates joint inflammation & ameliorates cartilage damage).
However, they are animal studies (rats), so we’d like to see studies with humans to be able to say for sure how much it helps these things.
Summary of benefits
Based on the available research, astaxanthin…
- is indeed a super-antioxidant
- is a neuroprotective agent
- also assists adult neurogenesis
- is probablygood for joints too
How much do I take, and is it safe?
A 2019 safety review concluded:
❝Recommended or approved doses varied in different countries and ranged between 2 and 24 mg.
We reviewed 87 human studies, none of which found safety concerns with natural astaxanthin supplementation, 35 with doses ≥12 mg/day.❞
Source: Astaxanthin: How much is too much? A safety review
In short: for most people, it’s very safe and well-tolerated. If you consume it to an extreme, you will likely turn pink, much as you would turn orange if you did the same thing with carrots. But aside from that, the risks appear to be minimal.
However! If you have a seafood allergy, please take care to get a supplement that’s made from microalgae, not one that’s made from krill or other crustaceans, or from other creatures that eat those.
Where can I get it?
We don’t sell it, but here’s an example product on Amazon, for your convenience
Enjoy!
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Fix Chronic Fatigue & Regain Your Energy, By Science
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Chronic fatigue is on the rise. A lot of it appears to be Long COVID-related, but whether that’s the case for you or not, one thing that will make a big difference to your energy levels is something that French biochemist Jessie Inchauspé is here to explain:
Mitochondrial management
Inchauspé explains it in terms of a steam train; to keep running, it must have coal burning in its furnace. However, if more coal is delivered to the engine room faster than it can be put in the furnace and burned, and the coal just keeps on coming, the worker there will soon be overwhelmed trying to find places to put it all; the engine room will be full of coal, and the furnace will sputter and go out because the worker can’t even reach it on account of being buried in coal.
So it is with our glucose metabolism also. If we get spikes of glucose faster than our body can deal with them, it will overload the body’s ability to process that energy at all. Just like the steam train worker, our body will try! It’ll stuff that extra glucose wherever it can (storing as glycogen in the liver is a readily available option that’s easy to do and/but also gives you non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and isn’t quickly broken down into useable energy), and meanwhile, your actual mitochondria aren’t getting what they need (which is: a reliable, but gentle, influx of glucose).
You can imagine that the situation we described in the steam train isn’t good for the engine’s longevity, and the corresponding situation in the human body isn’t good for our mitochondria either (or our pancreas, or our liver, or… the list goes on). Indeed, damaged mitochondria affect exercise capacity and stress resilience—as well as being a long-term driver of cancer.
The remedy, of course, is blood sugar management. Specifically, avoiding glucose spikes. She has a list of 10 ways to do this (small changes to how we eat; what things to eat with what, in which order, etc) that make a huge measurable difference. For your convenience, we’ve linked those ten ways below; first though, if you’d like to hear it from Inchauspé directly (her style is very pleasant), enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- 10 Ways To Balance Your Blood Sugars ← this is the longer list she’s referring to in the video!
- How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver ← also relevant
Take care!
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Soap vs Sanitizer – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing soap to sanitizer, we picked the soap.
Why?
Both are good at killing bacteria / inactivating viruses, but there are several things that set them apart:
- Soap doesn’t just kill them; it slides them off and away down the drain. That means that any it failed to kill are also off and down the drain, not still on your hands. This is assuming good handwashing technique, of course!
- Sanitizer gel kills them, but can take up to 4 minutes of contact to do so. Given that people find 20 seconds of handwashing laborious, 240 seconds of sanitizer gel use seems too much to hope for.
Both can be dehydrating for the hands; both can have ingredients added to try to mitigate that.
We recommend a good (separate) moisturizer in either case, but the point is, the dehydration factor doesn’t swing it far either way.
So, we’ll go with the one that gets rid of the germs the most quickly: the soap
10almonds tip: splash out on the extra-nice hand-soaps for your home—this will make you and others more likely to wash your hands more often! Sometimes, making something a more pleasant experience makes all the difference.
Want to know more?
Check out:
Take care!
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How To Regrow Receding Gums
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One of the problems with the human form is that our teeth evolved to last us for the whole of our life, with plenty of room to spare before our eventual death at the ripe old age of about 35 on average. Dr. Ellie Phillips advises those of us who might be a bit older than that, on how we can avoid becoming “too long in the tooth”—in other words, how to keep our gums, and thus our teeth, in place and healthy.
Getting to the root of the problem
The single biggest cause of gum recession is an acidic environment in the mouth, which harms teeth and gums alike. This acidic environment is produced not merely by consuming acid foods or drinks, but also (and much more often, and more problematically) by sugary foods and drinks, which are not necessarily themselves acidic, but they feed bacteria that release acids as a by-product of their metabolism. If we consume an acidic food or drink, it’s there for a moment, but if we then salivate and/or take a drink of water, it’s pretty much gone in a few seconds. But those bacteria when we feed them sugar? They are there to stay unless we do something more about them than just drink some water.
Other contributing factors to gum recession include teeth grinding, and (ironically) certain oral care products, especially many artificial teeth whiteners.
In case you were wondering: no, brushing will not* generally cause or even worsen gum recession, but flossing can exacerbate it if it’s already underway.
*unless, of course, you are using one of the whiteners we mentioned above
What to do about it: Dr. Phillips recommends:
- use a moderately firm toothbrush to massage gums and promote blood flow
- avoid acidic oral products and homemade remedies even if they’re not acidic but can be caustic, such as baking soda
- rebuild your gums’ and teeth’s protective biofilm (yes, there are “good bacteria” that are supposed to be there) with proper brushing
- avoid cleanings that are more intensive than brushing—skip flossing until your gums have recovered, too
- adjust your diet to avoid acids and (especially) sugars
10almonds note: she also recommends the use of xylitol to promote a healthy oral environment; we don’t recommend that, as while it may be great for the teeth, studies have found it to be bad for the heart.
For more on all of her advices and a bit more of the science of it, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?
- Flossing Without Flossing?
- Less Common Oral Hygiene Options ← including the miswak “chewing stick”, which even outperformed toothbrushes in clinical trials, by biochemically altering the composition of the saliva while gently cleaning like a toothbrush.
- Fluoride Toothpaste vs Non-Fluoride Toothpaste – Which is Healthier?
- Non-Alcohol Mouthwash vs Alcohol Mouthwash – Which is Healthier?
- Xylitol vs Erythritol – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
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Make Your Coffee Heart-Healthier!
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Health-Hack Your Coffee
We have previously written about the general health considerations (benefits and potential problems) of coffee:
The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
Today, we will broadly assume that you are drinking coffee (in general, not necessarily right now, though if you are, same!) and would like to continue to do so. We also assume you’d like to do so as healthily as possible.
Not all coffees are created equal
If you order a coffee in France or Italy without specifying what kind, the coffee you receive will be short, dark,
and handsomeand without sugar. Healthwise, this is not a bad starting point. However…- It will usually be espresso
- Or it may be what in N. America is called a French press (in Europe it’s just called a cafetière)
Both of these kinds of coffee mean that cafestol, a compound found in the oily part of coffee and which is known to raise LDL (“bad” cholesterol”), stays in the drink.
Read: Cafestol and Kahweol: A Review on Their Bioactivities and Pharmacological Properties
Also: Cafestol extraction yield from different coffee brew mechanisms
If you’re reading that second one and wondering what a mocha pot or a Turkish coffee is, they are these things:
- Mocha pot: a stovetop device used for making espresso without an espresso machine
- Turkish coffee pot: also a stovetop device; this thing makes some of the strongest coffee you have ever encountered. Turks usually add sugar (this writer doesn’t; but my taste in coffee been described as “coffee like a punch in the face”)
So, wonderful as they are for those of us who love strong coffee, they also produce the highest in-drink levels of cafestol. If you’d like to cut the cafestol (for example, if you are keeping an eye on your LDL), we recommend…
The humble filter coffee
Whether by your favorite filter coffee machine or a pour-over low-tech coffee setup of the kind you could use even without an electricity supply, the filter keeps more than just the coffee grinds out; it keeps the cafestol out too; most of it, anyway, depending on what kind of filter you use, and the grind of the coffee:
Physical characteristics of the paper filter and low cafestol content filter coffee brews
What about instant coffee?
It has very little cafestol in it. It’s up to you whether that’s sufficient reason to choose it over any other form of coffee (this coffee-lover could never)
Want to make any coffee healthier?
This one isn’t about the cafestol, but…
If you take l-theanine (see here for our previous main feature about l-theanine), the l-theanine acts as a moderator and modulator of the caffeine, amongst other benefits:
The Cognitive-Enhancing Outcomes of Caffeine and L-theanine: A Systematic Review
As to where to get that, we don’t sell it, but here’s an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
Don’t Forget…
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Learn to Age Gracefully
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