Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More
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What Doesn’t Lycopene Do?
Lycopene is an antioxidant carotenoid famously found in tomatoes; it actually appears in even higher levels in watermelon, though. If you are going to get it from tomato, know that cooking improves the lycopene content rather than removing it (watermelon, on the other hand, can be enjoyed as-is and already has the higher lycopene content).
Antioxidant properties
Let’s reiterate the obvious first, for the sake of being methodical and adding a source. Lycopene is a potent antioxidant with multiple health benefits:
Lycopene: A Potent Antioxidant with Multiple Health Benefits
…and as such, it does all the things you might reasonably expect and antioxidant to do. For example…
Anti-inflammatory properties
In particular, it regulates macrophage activity, reducing inflammation while improving immune response:
Lycopene Regulates Macrophage Immune Response through the Autophagy Pathway Mediated by RIPK1
As can be expected of most antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents, it also has…
Anticancer properties
Scientific papers tend to be “per cancer type”, so we’re just going to give one example, but there’s pretty much evidence for its utility against most if not all types of cancer. We’re picking prostate cancer though, as it’s one that’s been studied the most in the context of lycopene intake—in this study, for example, it was found that men who enjoyed at least two servings of lycopene-rich tomato sauce per week were 30% less likely to develop prostate cancer than those who didn’t:
Dietary lycopene intake and risk of prostate cancer defined by ERG protein expression
If you’d like to see something more general, however, then check out:
Potential Use of Tomato Peel, a Rich Source of Lycopene, for Cancer Treatment
It also fights Candida albicans
Ok, this is not (usually) so life-and-death as cancer, but reducing our C. albicans content (specifically: in our gut) has a lot of knock-on effects for other aspects of our health, so this isn’t one to overlook:
The title does not make this clear, but yes: this does mean it has an antifungal effect. We mention this because often cellular apoptosis is good for an overall organism, but in this case, it simply kills the Candida.
It’s good for the heart
A lot of studies focus just on triglyceride markers (which lycopene improves), but more tellingly, here’s a 10-year observational study in which diets rich in lycopene were associated to a 17–26% lower risk of heart disease:
Relationship of lycopene intake and consumption of tomato products to incident CVD
…and a 39% overall reduced mortality in, well, we’ll let the study title tell it:
…which means also:
It’s good for the brain
As a general rule of thumb, what’s good for the heart is good for the brain (because the brain needs healthy blood flow to stay healthy, and is especially vulnerable when it doesn’t get that), and in this case that rule of thumb is also borne out by the post hoc evidence, specifically yielding a 31% decreased incidence of stroke:
Dietary and circulating lycopene and stroke risk: a meta-analysis of prospective studies
Is it safe?
As a common food product, it is considered very safe.
If you drink nothing but tomato juice all day for a long time, your skin will take on a reddish hue, which will go away if you stop getting all your daily water intake in tomato juice.
In all likelihood, even if you went to extremes, you would get sick from the excess of vitamin A (generally present in the same foods) sooner than you’d get sick from the excess of lycopene.
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, and also we recommend simply enjoying tomatoes, watermelons, etc, but if you do want a supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
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Brain Benefits in 3 Months…through walking?
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Keeping it Simple
Today’s video (below) is another Big Think production (can you tell that we love their work?). Wendy Suzuki does a wonderful job of breaking down the brain benefits of exercise into three categories, within three minutes.
The first question to ask yourself is: what is your current level of fitness?
Low Fitness
Exercising, even if it’s just going on a walk, 2-3 times a week improves baseline mood state, as well as enhances prefrontal and hippocampal function. These areas of the brain are crucial for complex behaviors like planning and personality development, as well as memory and learning.
Mid Fitness
The suggested regimen is, without surprise, to slightly increase your regular workouts over three months. Whilst you’re already getting the benefits from the low-fitness routine, there is a likelihood that you’ll increase your baseline dopamine and serotonin levels–which, of course, we love! Read more on dopamine here, here, or here.
High Fitness
If you consider yourself in the high fitness bracket then well done, you’re doing an amazing job! Wendy Suzuki doesn’t make many suggestions for you; all she mentions is that there is the possibility of “too much” exercise actually having negative effects on the brain. However, if you’re not competing at an Olympic level, you should be fine.
Fitness and Exercise in General
Of course, fitness and exercise are both very broad terms. We would suggest that you find an exercise routine that you genuinely enjoy–something that is easy to continue over the long term. Try browsing different areas of exercise to see what resonates with you. For instance, Total Fitness After 40 is a great book on all things fitness in the second half of your life. Alternatively, search through our archive for fitness-related material.
Anyway, without further ado, here is today’s video:
How was the video? If you’ve discovered any great videos yourself that you’d like to share with fellow 10almonds readers, then please do email them to us!
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Chorus or Cacophony? Cicada Song Hits Some Ears Harder Than Others
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ST. LOUIS — Shhhooo. Wee-uuu. Chick, chick, chick. That’s the sound of three different cicada species. For some people, those sounds are the song of the summer. Others wish the insects would turn it down. The cacophony can be especially irritating for people on the autism spectrum who have hearing sensitivity.
Warren Rickly, 14, lives in suburban south St. Louis County, Missouri. Warren, who has autism, was at the bus stop recently waiting for his younger brother when the sound of cicadas became too much to bear.
“He said it sounds like there’s always a train running next to him,” his mother, Jamie Reed, said.
Warren told her the noise hurt.
Starting this spring, trillions of the red-eyed insects crawled their way out of the ground across the Midwest and Southeast. It’s part of a rare simultaneous emergence of two broods — one that appears every 13 years, the other every 17.
The noisy insects can be stressful. People with autism can have a sensitivity to texture, brightness, and sound.
“I think the difference for individuals with autism is the level of intensity or how upsetting some of these sensory differences are,” said Rachel Follmer, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.
“It can get to the extreme where it can cause physical discomfort,” she said.
When a large group of cicadas starts to sing, the chorus can be as loud as a motorcycle. Researchers at the University of Missouri-St. Louis this year crowdsourced cicada noise levels as high as 86 decibels, about as loud as a food blender.
That can be stressful, not melodic, Follmer said.
To help children cope, she suggests giving them a primer before they encounter a noisy situation. For cicadas, that could mean explaining what they are, that they don’t bite or sting, and that they’ll be here for just a short time.
“When something is uncomfortable, not having power in that situation can be very scary for a lot of individuals, whether you’re on the spectrum or not,” Follmer said.
Jamie Reed’s family has been using this and other strategies to help her son. Warren wears noise-canceling headphones, listens to music, and has been teaching himself about cicadas.
“For him, researching it and looking into it I think grounds him a little bit,” Reed said.
Fatima Husain is a professor and neuroscientist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and studies how the brain processes sound. She said people with tinnitus may also struggle with cicada song.
Tinnitus, a ringing or other noise in the ears, is a person’s perception of sound without an external source.
“Some people say it sounds like buzzing, like wind blowing through trees, and ironically, quite a few people say it sounds like cicadas,” Husain said.
For most people with tinnitus the cicada’s song is harmless background noise, according to Husain, but for others the ringing can prevent easy conversation or sleep. Those with tinnitus are also more likely to have anxiety or depression. A loud persistent sound, like singing cicadas, can make someone’s tinnitus worse, Husain said.
It’s not always bad, though. The cicada’s song can also be a relief.
For some, tinnitus gets worse in a quiet environment. Husain said she’s seen reports this year of patients saying the cicadas’ song has been like soothing white noise.
“The sound is loud enough that in some ways it’s drowning their internal tinnitus,” Husain said.
As loud as the cicadas can be, they won’t necessarily damage anyone’s hearing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hearing loss builds up over time from repeated exposure to loud sounds. Cicadas aren’t loud enough for long enough to do lasting damage, Husain said.
Everyday sources of noise come with a higher risk. Husain said constant exposure to loud highways, an airport, industrial sites, or household appliances like blenders and hair dryers can be a concern. And they can take a toll on someone’s emotional well-being.
“If you are being exposed to very loud sounds for a part of your school day or your working day, it may make you more stressed out; it may make you more angry about things,” she said.
Unlike the highway or an airport, cicadas won’t be around long. Most of the current brood will be gone in the next few weeks. Just in time for another noisy summer event: the Fourth of July.
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.
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100 No-Equipment Workouts – by Neila Rey
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For those of us who for whatever reason prefer to exercise at home rather than at the gym, we must make do with what exercise equipment we can reasonably install in our homes. This book deals with that from the ground upwards—literally!
If you have a few square meters of floorspace (and a ceiling that’s not too low, for exercises that involve any kind of jumping), then all 100 of these zero-equipment exercises are at-home options.
As to what kinds of exercises they are, they each marked as being one or both of “cardio” and “strength”.
They’re also marked as being of “difficulty level” 1, 2, or 3, so that someone who hasn’t exercised in a while (or hasn’t exercised like this at all), can know where best to start, and how best to progress.
The exercises come with clear explanations in the text, and clear line-drawing illustrations of how to do each exercise. Really, they could not be clearer; this is top quality pragmatism, and reads like a military manual.
Bottom line: whatever your strength and fitness goals, this book can see you well on your way to them (if not outright get you there already in many cases). It’s also an excellent “all-rounder” for full-body workouts.
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Procrastination, and how to pay off the to-do list debt
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Procrastination, and how pay off the to-do list debt
Sometimes we procrastinate because we feel overwhelmed by the mountain of things we are supposed to be doing. If you look at your to-do list and it shows 60 overdue items, it’s little wonder if you want to bury your head in the sand!
“What difference does it make if I do one of these things now; I will still have 59 which feels as bad as having 60”
So, treat it like you might a financial debt, and make a repayment plan. Now, instead of 60 overdue items today, you have 1/day for the next 60 days, or 2/day for the next 30 days, or 3/day for the next 20 days, etc. Obviously, you may need to work out whether some are greater temporal priorities and if so, bump those to the top of the list. But don’t sweat the minutiae; your list doesn’t have to be perfectly ordered, just broadly have more urgent things to the top and less urgent things to the bottom.
Note: this repayment plan means having set repayment dates.
Up front, sit down and assign each item a specific calendar date on which you will do that thing.
This is not a deadline! It is your schedule. You’ll not try to do it sooner, and you won’t postpone it for later. You will just do that item on that date.
A productivity app like ToDoist can help with this, but paper is fine too.
What’s important here, psychologically, is that each day you’re looking not at 60 things and doing the top item; you’re just looking at today’s item (only!) and doing it.
Debt Reduction/Cancellation
Much like you might manage a financial debt, you can also look to see if any of your debts could be reduced or cancelled.
We wrote previously about the “Getting Things Done” system. It’s a very good system if you want to do that; if not, no worries, but you might at least want to borrow this one idea….
Sort your items into:
Do / Defer / Delegate / Ditch
- Do: if it can be done in under 2 minutes, do it now.
- Defer: defer the item to a specific calendar date (per the repayment plan idea we just talked about)
- Delegate: could this item be done by someone else? Get it off your plate if you reasonably can.
- Ditch: sometimes, it’s ok to realize “you know what, this isn’t that important to me anymore” and scratch it from the list.
As a last resort, consider declaring bankruptcy
Towards the end of the dot-com boom, there was a fellow who unintentionally got his 5 minutes of viral fame for “declaring email bankruptcy”.
Basically, he publicly declared that his email backlog had got so far out of hand that he would now not reply to emails from before the declaration.
He pledged to keep on top of new emails only from that point onwards; a fresh start.
We can’t comment on whether he then did, but if you need a fresh start, that can be one way to get it!
In closing…
Procrastination is not usually a matter of laziness, it’s usually a matter of overwhelm. Hopefully the above approach will help reframe things, and make things more manageable.
Sometimes procrastination is a matter of perfectionism, and not starting on tasks because we worry we won’t do them well enough, and so we get stuck in a pseudo-preparation rut. If that’s the case, our previous main feature on perfectionism may help:
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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!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
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How gender-affirming care improves trans mental health
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In recent years, a growing number of states have passed laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for transgender people, particularly minors. As conversations about gender-affirming care increase, so do false narratives about it, with some opponents falsely suggesting that it’s harmful to mental health.
Despite widespread attacks against gender-affirming care, research clearly shows that it improves mental health outcomes for transgender people.
Read on to learn more about what gender-affirming care is, how it benefits mental well-being, and how you can access it.
What is gender-affirming care?
Gender-affirming care describes a range of medical interventions that help align people’s bodies with their gender identities. While anyone can seek gender-affirming care in the form of laser hair removal, breast augmentation, erectile dysfunction medication, or hormone therapy, among other treatments, most conversations about gender-affirming care center around transgender people, whose gender identity or gender expression does not conform to their sex assigned at birth.
Gender-affirming care for trans people varies based on age. For example, some trans adults seek hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or gender-affirming surgeries that help their bodies match their internal sense of gender.
Trans kids entering adolescence might be prescribed puberty blockers, which temporarily delay the production of hormones that initiate puberty, to give them more time to figure out their gender identities before deciding on next steps. This is the same medication given to cisgender kids—whose gender identities match the sex they were assigned at birth—experiencing early puberty.
What is gender dysphoria?
Gender dysphoria describes a feeling of unease that some trans people experience when their perceived gender doesn’t match their gender identity. This can lead to a range of mental health conditions that affect their quality of life
Some trans people may manage gender dysphoria by wearing gender-affirming clothing, opting for a gender-affirming hairstyle, or asking others to refer to them by a name and pronouns that authentically represent them. Others may need gender-affirming care to feel at home in their bodies.
Trans people who desire gender-affirming care and have not been able to access it experience psychological distress, including depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. The Trevor Project’s 2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young People found that roughly half of trans youth “seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year.”
How does gender-affirming care improve mental health?
For trans adults, gender-affirming care can alleviate gender dysphoria, which has been shown to improve both short-term and long-term mental health. A 2018 study found that trans adults who do not undergo HRT are four times more likely to experience depression than those who do, although not all trans people desire HRT.
Extensive research has shown that gender-affirming care also alleviates gender dysphoria and improves mental health outcomes in trans kids, teens, and young adults. A 2022 study found that access to HRT and puberty blockers lowered the odds of depression in trans people between the ages of 13 and 20 by 60 percent and reduced the risk of self-harm and suicidal thoughts by 73 percent.
Both the Endocrine Society—which aims to advance hormone research—and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that trans kids and teens have access to developmentally appropriate gender-affirming care.
How can I access gender-affirming care?
If you’re a trans adult seeking gender-affirming care or a guardian of a trans kid or teen who’s seeking gender-affirming care, talk to your health care provider about your options. You can find a trans-affirming provider by searching the World Professional Association for Transgender Health directory or visiting your local LGBTQ+ health center or Planned Parenthood.
Some gender-affirming care may not be covered by insurance. Learn how to make the most of your coverage from the National Center for Transgender Equality. Find insurance plans available through the Marketplace that cover gender-affirming care in some states through Out2Enroll.
Some states restrict or ban gender-affirming care. Learn about the laws in your state by visiting the Trans Legislation Tracker.
Where can trans people and their families find mental health support?
In addition to working with a trans-affirming therapist, trans people and their families can find mental health support through these free services:
- PFLAG offers resources for families and friends of LGBTQ+ people. Find a PFLAG chapter near you.
- The Trevor Project’s hotline has trained counselors who help LGBTQ+ youth in crisis. Call the TrevorLifeline 1-866-488-7386 or text START to 678-678.
- The Trans Lifeline was created by and for the trans community to support trans people in crisis. You can reach the Trans Lifeline hotline at 1-877-565-8860.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
If you or anyone you know is considering suicide or self-harm or is anxious, depressed, upset, or needs to talk, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741. For international resources, here is a good place to begin.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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