Mediterranean Diet… In A Pill?
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Does It Come In A Pill?
For any as yet unfamiliar with the Mediterranean diet, you may be wondering what it involves, beyond a general expectation that it’s a diet popularly enjoyed in the Mediterranean. What image comes to mind?
We’re willing to bet that tomatoes feature (great source of lycopene, by the way, and if you’re not getting lycopene, you’re missing out), but what else?
- Salads, perhaps? Vegetables, olives? Olive oil, yea or nay?
- Bread? Pasta? Prosciutto, salami? Cheese?
- Pizza but only if it’s Romana style, not Chicago?
- Pan-seared liver, with some fava beans and a nice Chianti?
In fact, the Mediterranean diet is quite clear on all these questions, so to read about these and more (including a “this yes, that no” list), see:
What Is The Mediterranean Diet, And What Is It Good For?
So, how do we get that in a pill?
A plucky band of researchers, Dr. Chiara de Lucia et al. (quite a lot of “et al.”; nine listed authors on the study), wondered to what extent the benefits of the Mediterranean diet come from the fact that the Mediterranean diet is very rich in polyphenols, and set about testing that, by putting the same polyphenols in capsule form, and running a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover clinical intervention trial.
Now, polyphenols are not the only reason the Mediterranean diet is great; there are also other considerations, such as:
- a great macronutrient balance with lots of fiber, healthy fats, moderate carbs, and protein from select sources
- the absence or at least very low presence of a lot of harmful substances such as refined seed oils, added sugars, refined carbohydrates, and the like (“but pasta” yes pasta; in moderation and wholegrain and served with extra sources of fiber and healthy fats, all of which slow down the absorption of the carbs)
…but polyphenols are admittedly very important too; we wrote about some common aspects of them here:
Tasty Polyphenols: Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
As for what Dr. de Lucia et al. put into the capsule, behold…
The ingredients:
- Apple Extract 10.0%
- Pomegranate Extract 10.0%
- Tomato Powder 2.5%
- Beet, Spray Dried 2.5%
- Olive Extract 7.5%
- Rosemary Extract 7.5%
- Green Coffee Bean Extract (CA) 7.5%
- Kale, Freeze Dried 2.5%
- Onion Extract 10.0%
- Ginger Extract 10.0%
- Grapefruit Extract 2.5%
- Carrot, Air Dried 2.5%
- Grape Skin Extract 17.5%
- Blueberry Extract 2.5%
- Currant, Freeze Dried 2.5%
- Elderberry, Freeze Dried 2.5%
And the relevant phytochemicals they contain:
- Quercetin
- Luteolin
- Catechins
- Punicalagins
- Phloretin
- Ellagic Acid
- Naringin
- Apigenin
- Isorhamnetin
- Chlorogenic Acids
- Rosmarinic Acid
- Anthocyanins
- Kaempferol
- Proanthocyanidins
- Myricetin
- Betanin
And what, you may wonder, did they find? Well, first let’s briefly summarise the setup of the study:
They took volunteers (n=30), average age 67, BMI >25, without serious health complaints, not taking other supplements, not vegetarian or vegan, not consuming >5 cups of coffee per day, and various other stipulations like that, to create a fairly homogenous study group who were expected to respond well to the intervention. In contrast, someone who takes antioxidant supplements, already eats many different color plants per day, and drinks 10 cups of coffee, probably already has a lot of antioxidant activity going on, and someone with a lower BMI will generally have lower resting levels of inflammatory markers, so it’s harder to see a change, proportionally.
About those inflammatory markers: that’s what they were testing, to see whether the intervention “worked”; essentially, did the levels of inflammatory markers go up or down (up is bad; down is good).
For more on inflammation, by the way, see:
How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation
…which also explains what it actually is, and some important nuances about it.
Back to the study…
They gave half the participants the supplement for a week and the other half placebo; had a week’s gap as a “washout”, then repeated it, switching the groups, taking blood samples before and after each stage.
What they found:
The group taking the supplement had lower inflammatory markers after a week of taking it, while the group taking the placebo had relatively higher inflammatory markers after a week of taking it; this trend was preserved across both groups (i.e., when they switched roles for the second half).
The results were very significant (p=0.01 or thereabouts), and yet at the same time, quite modest (i.e. the supplement made a very reliable, very small difference), probably because of the small dose (150mg) and small intervention period (1 week).
What the researchers concluded from this
The researchers concluded that this was a success; the study had been primarily to provide proof of principle, not to rock the world. Now they want the experiment to be repeated with larger sample sizes, greater heterogeneity, larger doses, and longer intervention periods.
This is all very reasonable and good science.
What we conclude from this
That ingredients list makes for a good shopping list!
Well, not the extracts they listed, necessarily, but rather those actual fruits, vegetables, etc.
If nine top scientists (anti-aging specialists, neurobiologists, pharmacologists, and at least one professor of applied statistics) came to the conclusion that to get the absolute most bang-for-buck possible, those are the plants to get the phytochemicals from, then we’re not going to ignore that.
So, take another list above and ask yourself: how many of those 16 foods do you eat regularly, and could you work the others in?
Want to make your Mediterranean diet even better?
While the Mediterranean diet is a top-tier catch-all, it can be tweaked for specific areas of health, for example giving it an extra focus on heart health, or brain health, or being anti-inflammatory, or being especially gut healthy:
Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean
Enjoy!
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Cost of living: if you can’t afford as much fresh produce, are canned veggies or frozen fruit just as good?
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The cost of living crisis is affecting how we spend our money. For many people, this means tightening the budget on the weekly supermarket shop.
One victim may be fresh fruit and vegetables. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggests Australians were consuming fewer fruit and vegetables in 2022–23 than the year before.
The cost of living is likely compounding a problem that exists already – on the whole, Australians don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables. Australian dietary guidelines recommend people aged nine and older should consume two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables each day for optimal health. But in 2022 the ABS reported only 4% of Australians met the recommendations for both fruit and vegetable consumption.
Fruit and vegetables are crucial for a healthy, balanced diet, providing a range of vitamins and minerals as well as fibre.
If you can’t afford as much fresh produce at the moment, there are other ways to ensure you still get the benefits of these food groups. You might even be able to increase your intake of fruit and vegetables.
New Africa/Shutterstock Frozen
Fresh produce is often touted as being the most nutritious (think of the old adage “fresh is best”). But this is not necessarily true.
Nutrients can decline in transit from the paddock to your kitchen, and while the produce is stored in your fridge. Frozen vegetables may actually be higher in some nutrients such as vitamin C and E as they are snap frozen very close to the time of harvest. Variations in transport and storage can affect this slightly.
Minerals such as calcium, iron and magnesium stay at similar levels in frozen produce compared to fresh.
Another advantage to frozen vegetables and fruit is the potential to reduce food waste, as you can use only what you need at the time.
Freezing preserves the nutritional quality of vegetables and increases their shelf life. Tohid Hashemkhani/Pexels As well as buying frozen fruit and vegetables from the supermarket, you can freeze produce yourself at home if you have an oversupply from the garden, or when produce may be cheaper.
A quick blanching prior to freezing can improve the safety and quality of the produce. This is when food is briefly submerged in boiling water or steamed for a short time.
Frozen vegetables won’t be suitable for salads but can be eaten roasted or steamed and used for soups, stews, casseroles, curries, pies and quiches. Frozen fruits can be added to breakfast dishes (with cereal or youghurt) or used in cooking for fruit pies and cakes, for example.
Canned
Canned vegetables and fruit similarly often offer a cheaper alternative to fresh produce. They’re also very convenient to have on hand. The canning process is the preservation technique, so there’s no need to add any additional preservatives, including salt.
Due to the cooking process, levels of heat-sensitive nutrients such as vitamin C will decline a little compared to fresh produce. When you’re using canned vegetables in a hot dish, you can add them later in the cooking process to reduce the amount of nutrient loss.
To minimise waste, you can freeze the portion you don’t need.
Fermented
Fermented vegetables are another good option. Angela Khebou/Unsplash Fermentation has recently come into fashion, but it’s actually one of the oldest food processing and preservation techniques.
Fermentation largely retains the vitamins and minerals in fresh vegetables. But fermentation may also enhance the food’s nutritional profile by creating new nutrients and allowing existing ones to be absorbed more easily.
Further, fermented foods contain probiotics, which are beneficial for our gut microbiome.
5 other tips to get your fresh fix
Although alternatives to fresh such as canned or frozen fruit and vegetables are good substitutes, if you’re looking to get more fresh produce into your diet on a tight budget, here are some things you can do.
1. Buy in season
Based on supply and demand principles, buying local seasonal vegetables and fruit will always be cheaper than those that are imported out of season from other countries.
2. Don’t shun the ugly fruit and vegetables
Most supermarkets now sell “ugly” fruit and vegetables, that are not physically perfect in some way. This does not affect the levels of nutrients in them at all, or their taste.
Buying fruit and vegetables during the right season will be cheaper. August de Richelieu/Pexels 3. Reduce waste
On average, an Australian household throws out A$2,000–$2,500 worth of food every year. Fruit, vegetables and bagged salad are the three of the top five foods thrown out in our homes. So properly managing fresh produce could help you save money (and benefit the environment).
To minimise waste, plan your meals and shopping ahead of time. And if you don’t think you’re going to get to eat the fruit and vegetables you have before they go off, freeze them.
4. Swap and share
There are many websites and apps which offer the opportunity to swap or even pick up free fresh produce if people have more than they need. Some local councils are also encouraging swaps on their websites, so dig around and see what you can find in your local area.
5. Gardening
Regardless of how small your garden is you can always plant produce in pots. Herbs, rocket, cherry tomatoes, chillies and strawberries all grow well. In the long run, these will offset some of your cost on fresh produce.
Plus, when you have put the effort in to grow your own produce, you are less likely to waste it.
Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Total Recovery – by Dr. Gary Kaplan
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
First, know: Dr. Kaplan is an osteopath, and as such, will be mostly approaching things from that angle. That said, he is also board certified in other things too, including family medicine, so he’s by no means a “one-trick pony”, nor are there “when your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail” problems to be found here. Instead, the scope of the book is quite broad.
Dr. Kaplan talks us through the diagnostic process that a doctor goes through when presented with a patient, what questions need to be asked and answered—and by this we mean the deeper technical questions, e.g. “what do these symptoms have in common”, and “what mechanism was at work when the pain become chronic”, not the very basic questions asked in the initial debriefing with the patient.
He also asks such questions (and questions like these get chapters devoted to them) as “what if physical traumas build up”, and “what if physical and emotional pain influence each other”, and then examines how to interrupt the vicious cycles that lead to deterioration of one’s condition.
The style of the book is very pop-science and often narrative in its presentation, giving lots of anecdotes to illustrate the principles. It’s a “sit down and read it cover-to-cover” book—or a chapter a day, whatever your preferred pace; the point is, it’s not a “dip directly to the part that answers your immediate question” book; it’s not a textbook or manual.
Bottom line: a lot of this work is about prompting the reader to ask the right questions to get to where we need to be, but there are many illustrative possible conclusions and practical advices to be found and given too, making this a useful read if you and/or a loved one suffers from chronic pain.
Click here to check out Total Recovery, and solve your own mysteries!
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CLA for Weight Loss?
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Conjugated Linoleic Acid for Weight Loss?
You asked us to evaluate the use of CLA for weight loss, so that’s today’s main feature!
First, what is CLA?
Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) is a fatty acid made by grazing animals. Humans don’t make it ourselves, and it’s not an essential nutrient.
Nevertheless, it’s a popular supplement, mostly sold as a fat-burning helper, and thus enjoyed by slimmers and bodybuilders alike.
❝CLA reduces bodyfat❞—True or False?
True! Contingently. Specifically, it will definitely clearly help in some cases. For example:
- This study found it doubled fat loss in chickens
- It significantly increased delipidation of white adipose tissue in these mice
- The mice in this study enjoyed a 43–88% reduction in (fatty) weight gain
- Over the course of a six-week weight-loss program, these mice got 70% more weight loss on CLA, compared to placebo
- In this study, pigs that took CLA on a high-calorie diet gained 50% less weight than those not taking CLA
- On a heart-unhealthy diet, these hamsters taking CLA gained much less white adipose tissue than their comrades not taking CLA
- Another study with pigs found that again, CLA supplementation resulted in much less weight gained
- These hamsters being fed a high-cholesterol diet found that those taking CLA ended up with a leaner body mass than those not taking CLA
- This study with mice found that CLA supplementation promoted fat loss and lean muscle gain
Did you notice a theme? It’s Animal Farm out there!
❝CLA reduces bodyfat in humans❞—True or False?
False—practically. Technically it appears to give non-significantly better results than placebo.
A comprehensive meta-analysis of 18 different studies (in which CLA was provided to humans in randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials and in which body composition was assessed by using a validated technique) found that, on average, human CLA-takers lost…
Drumroll please…
00.00–00.05 kg per week. That’s between 0–50g per week. That’s less than two ounces. Put it this way: if you were to quickly drink an espresso before stepping on the scale, the weight of your very tiny coffee would cover your fat loss.
The reviewers concluded:
❝CLA produces a modest loss in body fat in humans❞
Modest indeed!
See for yourself: Efficacy of conjugated linoleic acid for reducing fat mass: a meta-analysis in humans
But what about long-term? Well, as it happens (and as did show up in the non-human animal studies too, by the way) CLA works best for the first four weeks or so, and then effects taper off.
Another review of longer-term randomized clinical trials (in humans) found that over the course of a year, CLA-takers enjoyed on average a 1.33kg total weight loss benefit over placebo—so that’s the equivalent of about 25g (0.8 oz) per week. We’re talking less than a shot glass now.
They concluded:
❝The evidence from RCTs does not convincingly show that CLA intake generates any clinically relevant effects on body composition on the long term❞
A couple of other studies we’ll quickly mention before closing this section:
- CLA supplementation does not affect waist circumference in humans (at all).
- Amongst obese women doing aerobic exercise, CLA supplementation has no effect (at all) on body fat reduction compared to placebo
What does work?
You may remember this headline from our “What’s happening in the health world” section a few days ago:
Research reveals self-monitoring behaviors and tracking tools key to long-term weight loss success
On which note, we’ve mentioned before, we’ll mention again, and maybe one of these days we’ll do a main feature on it, there’s a psychology-based app/service “Noom” that’s very personalizable and helps you reach your own health goals, whatever they might be, in a manner consistent with any lifestyle considerations you might want to give it.
Curious to give it a go? Check it out at Noom.com (you can get the app there too, if you want)
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Getting COMFY – by Jordan Gross
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
It’s easy to see how good “morning people” seem to have it; it’s harder, it seems, to become one.
And, if we’re forced by circumstance to be the morning person we’re not? We all-too-easily find ourselves greeting each coming day without the joy that, in an ideal world, we might.
So, is it possible to learn this power? Jordan Gross has it mapped out for it us…
The “COMFY” of the title is indeed an acronym, and it stands for:
- Calm
- Openness
- Movement
- Funny
- You
There’s a chapter explaining each in detail, and they’re bookended with other chapters explaining more about the whys and the hows.
As you might expect, the key to a good morning starts the night before, but there’s also a formula to follow. Of course, you can change it up, mix and match if you like… but this book provides a base framework to build from, which is something that can make a huge difference!
Bottom line: it’s a highly enjoyable book to read, and also provides genuine powerful help to bring us the brighter happier mornings we deserve—the set-up to the perfect day!
Click here to check out “Getting COMFY” and perk up your mornings—you deserve it!
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How (And Why) To Train Your Pre-Frontal Cortex
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Dr. Chapman’s Keys For Mental Focus
This is Dr. Sandra Chapman; she’s a cognitive neuroscientist, on a mission to, in her words, further our understanding of:
- what makes the brain stronger, faster and last longer
- what enhances human cognitive capacity, and
- what enhances the underlying brain systems across the lifespan.
To this end, she’s also the founder and Chief Director of the Center For Brain Health, where she has worked on her mission for the past 25 years (clocking up hundreds of peer-reviewed publications to her name), as well as being a professor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UT Dallas.
What does she want us to know?
Get your brain into gear
When it comes to your brainpower, it is “use it or lose it”, but it is also perfectly possible to use it and lose it.
Why?
Very often, what we are using our brains for is high-strain, low-yield stuff, such as multitasking, overthinking, or overthinking while multitasking. And to make it worse, we often do it without sufficient rest.
This is the equivalent of owning a Ferrari but trying to drive it in second and third gear at once by switching between the two as rapidly as possible. And doing that for 18 hours each day.
Suffice it to say, you’ll be going nowhere quickly.
An alternative “use” of brainpower is low-strain, low-yield stuff, such as having to pay close attention to a boring conversation. It’s enough to stop your mind from doing anything else, but not enough to actually stimulate you.
This is the equivalent of owning a Ferrari but keeping it idling. The wear and tear is minimal this time, but you’re not actually going anywhere either.
Better, of course, are the other two quadrants:
- low-strain, high-yield: consistently using our brain in relatively non-taxing ways that encourage its development
- high-strain, high-yield: here the Ferrari metaphor definitely fails, because unlike cars, our bodies (including our brains) are machines that benefit from judicious regular progressive overloading (but just by a bit, and with adequate recovery time between overloads).
See also: 12 Weeks To Measurably Boost Your Brain
How to do the “low-strain, low-yield” part
When it comes to “what’s the most important part of the brain to help in the face of cognitive decline?” the usual answer is either to focus on memory (hippocampi) or language (various parts, but for example Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area), since people most fear losing memory, and language is very important both socially and practically.
Those are indeed critical, and we at 10almonds stand by them, but Dr. Chapman (herself having originally trained as speech and language pathologist!) makes a strong case for adding a third brain part to the list.
Specifically, she advocates for strengthening the pre-frontal cortex, which is responsible for inhibition, task-switching, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. If that seems like a lot, do remember it’s a whole cortex and not one of the assorted important-but-small brain bits we mentioned above.
How? She has developed training programs for this, based on what she calls Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Tactics (SMART), to support support attention, planning, judgment and emotional management.
You can read more about those programs here:
Center For Brain Health | Our Programs
Participation in those is mostly not free, however, if you join their…
Center For Brain Health | BrainHealth Project
…then they will periodically invite you to join pilot programs, research programs, and the like, which will either be free or they-pay-you affairs—because this is how science is done, and you can read about yourself (anonymized, of course) later in peer-reviewed papers of the kind we often cite here.
If you’re not interested in any of that though, we will say that according to Dr. Chapman, the keys are:
Inhibition: be conscious of this function of your brain, and develop it. This is the function of your brain that stops you from making mistakes—or put differently: stops you from saying/doing something stupid.
Switching: do this consciously; per “I am now doing this task, now I am switching to this other task”, rather than doing the gear-grinding thing we discussed earlier
Working memory: this is effectively your brain’s RAM. Unlike the RAM of a computer (can be enhanced by adding another chip or replacing with a bigger chip), our brain’s RAM can be increased by frequent use, and especially by judicious use of progressive overloading (with rests between!) which we’ll discuss in the high-strain, high-yield section.
Flexibility: this is about creative problem-solving, openness to new ideas, and curiosity
See also: Curiosity Kills The Neurodegeneration
How to do the “high-strain, high-yield” part
Delighting this chess-playing writer, Dr. Chapman recommends chess. Although, similar games such as go (a Chinese game that looks simpler than chess but actually requires more calculation) work equally well too.
Why?
Games like chess and go cause structural changes that are particularly helpful, in terms of engaging in such foundational tasks as learning, abstract reasoning, problem-solving and self-control:
Chess Practice as a Protective Factor in Dementia
Basically, it checks (so to speak) a lot of boxes, especially for the pre-frontal cortex. Some notes:
- Focusing on the game is required for brain improvement; simply pushing wood casually will not do it. Ideally, calculating several moves ahead will allow for strong working memory use (because to calculate several moves ahead, one will have to hold increasingly many possible positions in the mind while doing so).
- The speed of play must be sufficiently slow as to allow not only for thinking, but also for what in chess is called “blunder-checking”, in other words, having decided on one’s move, pausing to consider whether it is a mistake, and actively trying to find evidence that it is. This is the crucial “inhibition habit”, and when one does it reflexively, one will make fewer mistakes. Tying this to dementia, see for example how one of the common symptoms of dementia is falling for scams that one wouldn’t have previously. How did cognitive decline make someone naïve? It didn’t, per se; it just took away their ability to, having decided what to do, pause to consider whether it was a mistake, and actively trying to find evidence that it is.
- That “conscious switching” that we talked about, rather than multitasking? In chess, there is a difference between strategy and tactics. Don’t worry about what that difference is for now (learn it if you want to take up chess), but know that strong players will only strategize while it is their opponent’s turn, and only calculate (tactics) while it is their own turn. It’s very tempting to flit constantly between one and the other, but chess requires players to have the mental discipline be able to focus on one task or the other and stick with that task until it’s the appointed time to switch.
If you feel like taking up chess, this site (and related app, if you want it) is free (it’s been funded by voluntary donations for a long time now) and good and even comes with free tuition and training tools: LiChess.org
Here’s another site that this writer (hi, it’s me) personally uses—it has great features too, but many are paywalled (I’m mostly there just because I’ve been there nearly since its inception, so I’m baked into the community now): Chess.com
Want to know more?
You might like this book by Dr. Chapman, which we haven’t reviewed yet but it did inform large parts of today’s article:
Make Your Brain Smarter: Increase Your Brain’s Creativity, Energy, and Focus – by Dr. Sandra Chapman
Enjoy!
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Broccoli vs Cauliflower – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing broccoli to cauliflower, we picked the broccoli.
Why?
This one is quite straightforward. Superficially, they’re very similar:
Both are great cruciferous vegetables with many health benefits to offer. Even for those keen to avoid oxalates, which cruciferous vegetables in general can be high in, these ones are quite low.
However, if you have IBS, you might want to avoid both, for their raffinose content that may cause problems for you.
For pretty much everyone else, unless you have a special reason why it’s not the case for you, both are a good source of abundant vitamins and minerals, and yet…
Anything cauliflower can do, broccoli can do better!
Broccoli contains more of the vitamins they both contain, and more of the minerals they both contain.
Broccoli also beats cauliflower on amino acids (except lysine), and contains a lot more lutein and zeaxanthin, carotenoids important for healthy eyes and brain.
So by all means enjoy both, but if you’re going to pick one, pick broccoli!
Want to know more?
Check out: Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!
Enjoy!
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