Metabolic Health Roadmap – by Brenda Wollenberg
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The term “roadmap” is often used in informative books, but in this case, Wollenberg (a nutritionist with decades of experience) really does deliver what can very reasonably be described as a roadmap:
She provides chapters in the form of legs of a journey [to better metabolic health], and those legs are broadly divided into an “information center” to deliver new information, a “rest stop” for reflection, “roadwork” to guide the reader through implementing the information we just learned, in a practical fashion, and finally “traveller assistance” to give additional support / resources, as well as any potential troubleshooting, etc.
The information and guidance within are all based on very good science; a lot is what you will have read already about blood sugar management (generally the lynchpin of metabolic health in general), but there’s also a lot about leveraging epigenetics for our benefit, rather than being sabotaged by such.
There’s a little guidance that falls outside of nutrition (sleep, exercise, etc), but for the most part, Wollenberg stays within her own field of expertise, nutrition.
The style is idiosyncratic; it’s very clear that her goal is providing the promised roadmap, and not living up to any editor’s wish or publisher’s hope of living up to industry standard norms of book formatting. However, this pays off, because her delivery is clear and helpful while remaining personable and yet still bringing just as much actual science, and this makes for a very pleasant and informative read.
Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your metabolic health, as well as get held-by-the-hand through your health-improvement journey by a charming guide, this is very much the book for you!
Click here to check out the Metabolic Health Roadmap, and start taking steps!
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6 Worst Foods That Cause Dementia
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How many do you consume?
The hit list
Dr. Li bids us avoid:
High carb, low fiber foods: consuming a diet high in carbohydrates, particularly refined carbs like cakes, white bread, pizza, and sugary syrups, can significantly harm brain health. Over time, imbalanced (i.e. not balanced with fiber) carbohydrate consumption leads to the growth of visceral fat (not the same as subcutaneous fat, which is the squishy bits just under your skin; visceral fat is further underneath, around your viscera), , which triggers systemic inflammation and oxidative stress. These processes disrupt communication between brain cells, impair memory, and increase the risk of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. High carb diets can also contribute to metabolic syndrome—a cluster of conditions, including diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure—that damage blood vessels, leading to strokes and vascular dementia.
Trans fats: these are region-bound, as they’re banned in some places and not others—check your local regulations. Found in processed foods such as fried items, baked goods, packaged snacks, and margarine, trans fats are created through hydrogenation, which makes fats more stable at room temperature. These artificial fats raise bad cholesterol, lower good cholesterol, and promote atherosclerosis. This damages the brain by reducing oxygen supply, triggering chronic inflammation, and increasing the risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Sodas: regular consumption of sodas, whether sugary or artificially sweetened, is harmful to brain health. A single can of soda contains around 9 teaspoons of sugar, which overwhelms metabolism, contributes to insulin resistance, and leads to inflammation. These effects damage blood vessels and brain tissue, disrupt neuron function, and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and dementia. Furthermore, insulin resistance caused by excessive sugar intake can impair neuronal survival, activate immune responses, and exacerbate cognitive decline. As for the artificial sweeteners, the mechanism of harm depends on the sweetener (and some can also mess up insulin response, for reasons that are not entirely clear yet, but they measurably do), but even picking the healthiest artificial sweetener, training your palate to enjoy hyper-sweetened things will tend to lead to more sugar-laden food choices in other parts of one’s diet.
Processed foods: arguably a broad category that encompasses some of the above, but it’s important to consider it separately for catch-all purposes: these convenience foods, laden with artificial preservatives, colors, and sweeteners, harm brain health through chronic inflammation and usually a lack of essential nutrients. Processed foods are also a significant source of microplastics, which have been found to accumulate in the arteries, contributing to plaque build-up, atherosclerosis, and reduced blood flow to the brain. This combination of inflammation and oxidative stress from microplastics damages brain cells, paving the way for cognitive decline and dementia.
Seafood with high mercury levels: large fish such as tuna, swordfish, sharks, and tilefish accumulate high amounts of mercury, a potent neurotoxin. Fish that are larger, older, and/or higher up the food chain will have the most mercury (and other cumulative contaminants, for that matter, but we’re considering mercury here). Mercury disrupts essential brain chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, triggering oxidative stress and damaging brain cells. Chronic exposure to mercury leads to inflammation and neuroinflammation, both of which increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Alcohol: contrary to popular belief, any amount of alcohol is detrimental to brain health. While red wine is often promoted for its health benefits, the purported positive effects come from polyphenols, not the alcohol itself, and (for example) resveratrol from red wine cannot be delivered in meaningful doses without drinking an impossibly large quantity. Alcohol is a neurotoxin that can damage or kill brain cells, impair neuronal communication, and lead to cognitive decline. Excessive drinking results in hangover symptoms like headaches and brain fog, which are indicators of its harmful impact on the brain. Chronic alcohol consumption exacerbates neuron death, increases inflammation, and raises the risk of dementia.
As for what to eat instead?
Dr. Li recommends including foods such as:
- foods rich in omega-3s that aren’t mercury-laden fish, e.g. flaxseeds, chia seeds, walnuts, and hemp seeds, as they reduce inflammation, protect blood vessel linings, and prevent vascular dementia.
- berries, and in particular he recommends organic strawberries, which are rich in ellagic acid and anthocyanins, which improve memory, reduce depressive symptoms, and enhance cognitive function.
For more on all of these, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Take care!
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What Does Kaempferol Do, Anyway?
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small 😎
❝In the this or that article, you said kampeferol was a famously good flavonol on a par with quercetin, does it do the same thing or does it do something different, and is it worth supplementing?❞
So, this will be in reference to a This-or-That from last week:
Cantaloupe vs Cucumber – Which is Healthier?
Let’s break down your question into parts:
- Is it comparable to quercetin?
- Does it have special properties of its own?
- Is it worth supplementing?
Is it comparable to quercetin?
They are both flavonols, and potent ones at that. Similarities include that they’re found in many of the same plants, and that (like most if not all polyphenols) they have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits, which in turn usually translate to anti-aging and anticancer benefits too.
You can read more about quercetin here: Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
You can read more about polyphenols in general here: 21 Most Beneficial Polyphenols & What Foods Have Them ← quercetin and kaempferol are #1 and #2 on this list, respectively
Does it have special properties of its own?
Yes it does!
❝Epidemiological studies have shown an inverse relationship between kaempferol intake and cancer.
Kaempferol may help by augmenting the body’s antioxidant defense against free radicals, which promote the development of cancer.
At the molecular level, kaempferol has been reported to modulate a number of key elements in cellular signal transduction pathways linked to apoptosis, angiogenesis, inflammation, and metastasis.
Significantly, kaempferol inhibits cancer cell growth and angiognesis and induces cancer cell apoptosis, but on the other hand, kaempferol appears to preserve normal cell viability, in some cases exerting a protective effect.❞
Read in full: A review of the dietary flavonoid, kaempferol on human health and cancer chemoprevention
It is also particularly good for the gut:
❝Most recently, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated the significance of kaempferol in the regulation of intestinal function and the mitigation of intestinal inflammation❞
Read in full: A Critical Review of Kaempferol in Intestinal Health and Diseases
This also means it is particularly efficacious against food allergies:
❝we screened food ingredients with the expectation of finding dietary compounds that exert beneficial effects on intestinal immune tolerance and identified kaempferol, a flavonoid, as the compound that most effectively increased Aldh1a2 mRNA levels❞
(that’s good)
That one’s a bit scientifically denser than we usually try to find when citing sources here, so here’s a pop-science article about the same thing, which explains in more words than we have room to here:
Flavonoid kaempferol could offer natural relief for food allergies ← much lighter reading, but still very informative
Kaempferol (like quercetin, granted) is also a potent neuroprotective agent, not least of all because its anti-inflammatory powers extend to reducing neuroinflammation (not everything does, because not everything we ingest can pass the blood-brain barrier to affect what goes on in the brain):
…and more:
❝it may be used to treat numerous acute and chronic inflammation-induced diseases, including intervertebral disc degeneration and colitis, as well as post-menopausal bone loss and acute lung injury. In addition, it has beneficial effects against cancer, liver injury, obesity and diabetes, inhibits vascular endothelial inflammation, protects the cranial nerve and heart function, and may be used for treating fibroproliferative disorders, including hypertrophic scar.❞
Read in full: Recent progress regarding kaempferol for the treatment of various diseases
Is it worth supplementing?
If you eat a lot of leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, and/or citrus fruits, and/or drink tea (true teas from tea plants, not miscellaneous herbal infusions), then you probably get a good dose of kaempferol already.
However, if you want to supplement, hawthorn berry is not a bad one to go with, like this example product on Amazon 😎
We wrote about this before, here: Hawthorn For The Heart (& More)
As for teas, if you’re wondering about the merits of black, white, green or red, check out:
Black, White, Green, Red: Which Kind Of Tea Is Best For The Health, According To Science? ← this covers many factors
Enjoy!
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Fiber Without The Fiber?
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“Eat more fiber!” everyone says. Including us, to be fair, because it’s quite correct—most Americans do not eat nearly enough:
- The World Health Organization recommends we each get at least 25g of fiber per day: The Joint WHO/FAO Expert Consultation on diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases
- A more recent meta-review of studies, involving thousands of people and decades of time, suggests 25–29g is ideal: Carbohydrate quality and human health: a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses
- The British Nutritional Foundation gives 30g as the figure: 30 g of fibre a day: An achievable recommendation?
- The US National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine recommends 21g–38g per day, depending on age and sex: NAS | Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, [and more]
- A large study last year gave 30–40g as the figure: Therapeutic Benefits and Dietary Restrictions of Fiber Intake: A State-of-the-Art Review*
*This one is also a great read to understand more about the “why” of fiber
Meanwhile, the average American gets 16g of fiber per day.
So if you’d like to improve your own score on that front, then check out our main feature on that topic, here: Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
However…
More than one way to get things moving
When it comes to the specific problem of constipation, there are some foods that work a lot better than just fiber.
Researchers (Dr. Eirini Dimidi et al.) have found that kiwi, rye bread, and mineral-rich water are the most effective dietary options for chronic constipation relief, outperforming traditional “eat more fiber” advice.
Of course, two out of three of those do contain fiber, but on a gram-for-gram basis, they performed significantly better than a high fiber diet without those dietary items, for constipation relief.
Some supplements were also found to help, namely psyllium, certain probiotics, and magnesium, which were also found to help manage symptoms, but again not nearly as much as the aforementioned top-scoring items.
If you do want to do those latter three though, since they’re very recommendable in any case and it’s not like this is an “either/or” choice, then to make the most of them, see:
- Why Psyllium Is Healthy Through-And-Through
- Stop Sabotaging Your Gut ← this one is about how most people inadvertently stop their probiotics from working, and how to not make that mistake
- Which Magnesium? (And: When?)
Meanwhile, they also found that general high-fiber diets and senna supplements (commonly taken for laxative effect) lacked strong evidence for effectiveness in chronic constipation.
This information seems quite reliable, since Dr. Dimidi and her team reviewed 75 clinical trials resulting in 59 recommendations, and these recommendations were further vetted by an expert panel including dietitians, a nutritionist, a gastroenterologist, a gut physiologist, and a general practitioner.
To see this in full, you can find the full paper here: British Dietetic Association Guidelines for the Dietary Management of Chronic Constipation in Adults
Do still eat plenty of fiber, though
Dr. Dimidi herself noted that a high-fiber diet is still very important for overall health, even if it doesn’t seem to do as much as one might think with regard to constipation.
We at 10almonds have also covered why fiber is a critical component in avoiding metabolic syndrome (and especially diabetes), here:
From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose Cs: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same? ← while the title talks about sugar, the article talks about this and sugar’s counterpart for these purposes, fiber.
Take care!
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Barefoot Shoes vs Supportive Shoes: What Actually Protects Midlife Women’s Joints?
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Dr. Vonda Wright, author of “Unbreakable: A Woman’s Guide to Aging with Power”, shares insights on the shoe dilemma, alongside podiatrist Dr. Timothy Miller with foot-specific views:
Different angles
The podiatrist doesn’t reject barefoot footwear outright, but argues it should be used selectively and progressively rather than adopted suddenly. The rationale is that humans evolved walking on softer surfaces such as grass, dirt, and sand, but today most walking occurs on hard surfaces like concrete, asphalt, and tile, which reflect more force back into your feet and ankles.
This means that, as he explains, repeatedly exposing your feet to hard surfaces without adequate support may place more stress on your ligaments, tendons, arches, and related joints, potentially contributing to weakening over time.
However. That’s your feet. What about the rest of you?
Remember how you’ve probably been advised at some point to do heel drops, for the good of your bone density?
Do you think that still works if your heel is cushioned from the very force you are seeking to transmit to your bone to cue it to grow stronger?
So for this reason, going barefoot or enjoying barefoot-style shoes definitely has its place. No, they don’t have to be the super-thin kind, let alone with separate toes, but what’s useful is having a relatively uncushioned sole and “zero drop“, meaning the heel is at the same height as the ball of the foot.
On the other hand, which everyone here agrees on, flip-flops and similar are not good for anybody*. Not only do they not provide arch support, but also they encourage bad body biomechanics in terms of how we walk, which causes entirely different new and interesting problems. So do avoid those!
*Unless for brief uses where you need something to protect the soles of your feet briefly while not otherwise wearing footwear, such as perhaps the shower at the gym, or paddling in the sea. But that’s different from daily all-purpose use!
For more on all of this, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Steps For Keeping Your Feet A Healthy Foundation
…and, for that matter:
Unbreakable: A Woman’s Guide to Aging with Power – by Dr. Vonda Wright
Take care!
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Love Sense – by Dr. Sue Johnson
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Let’s quickly fact-check the subtitle:
- Is it revolutionary? It has a small element of controversy, but mostly no
- Is it new? No, it is based on science from the 70s that was expanded in the 80s and 90s and has been, at most, tweaked a little since.
- Is it science? Yes! It is so much science. This book comes with about a thousand references to scientific studies.
What’s the controversy, you ask? Dr. Johnson asserts, based on our (as a species) oxytocin responsiveness, that we are biologically hardwired for monogamy. This is in contrast to the prevailing scientific consensus that we are not.
Aside from that, though, the book is everything you could expect from an expert on attachment theory with more than 35 years of peer-reviewed clinical research, often specifically for Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), which is her thing.
The writing style is similar to that of her famous “Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations For A Lifetime Of Love”, a very good book that we reviewed previously. It can be a little repetitive at times in its ideas, but this is largely because she revisits some of the same questions from many angles, with appropriate research to back up her advice.
Bottom line: if you are the sort of person who cares to keep working to improve your romantic relationship (no matter whether it is bad or acceptable or great right now), this book will arm you with a lot of deep science that can be applied reliably with good effect.
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The Best Foods for Clear, Healthy Skin
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Dr. Andrea Suarez, dermatologist, explains:
The Gut-Skin Axis
Your trillions of tiny friends in your gut work together to improve your immunity, metabolism, and skin health. On the other hand, low levels of beneficial microbes and high levels of harmful ones (this unhelpful imbalance is called “dysbiosis”) will tend to drive inflammation that worsens acne, eczema, psoriasis, vitiligo, and skin resilience (i.e. how easily it becomes inflamed, and how quickly—or not—it heals).
- Disruptors to avoid: chronic stress, antibiotics, red meat (which in the US will almost always contain antibiotics in any case), and high-sugar/ultraprocessed diets, all reduce gut microbiome diversity and impair gut barrier function.
- Prebiotics to load up on: fibers that feed good gut bacteria can be found in most plants, but particularly high-scorers include oats, garlic, onions, asparagus, bananas, beans, barley, tomatoes, artichokes, and peas.
- Probiotics to add in: live beneficial bacteria from fermented foods such as yogurt, kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, miso, non-pasteurized pickles; amounts may be small but they are still very helpful, because they increase gut biodiversity in a good way (i.e. it’s not just about how many beneficial bacteria, but also how many kinds, from how many sources, with more being better than fewer).
- Superfoods to top it off: Dr. Suarez recommends nutrient-dense, antioxidant-rich, and low glycemic foods like berries, leafy greens, legumes, and whole grains, for optimal skin health. And do remember, hydration is important too!
For more on all of this plus a discussion of how to get the most out of the Mediterranean diet in this context, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Six Ways To Eat For Healthier Skin
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
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