Oh, Honey
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The Bee’s Knees?
If you’d like to pre-empt that runny nose, some say that local honey is the answer. The rationale is that bees visiting the local sources of pollen and making honey will introduce the same allergens to you in a non allergy-inducing fashion (the honey). The result? Inoculation against the allergens in question.
But does it work?
Researching this, we found a lot of articles saying there was no science to back it up.
And then! We found one solitary study from 2013, and the title was promising:
But we don’t stop at titles; that’s not the kind of newsletter we are. We pride ourselves on giving good information!
And it turned out, upon reading the method and the results, that:
- Both the control and test groups also took loratadine for the first 4 weeks of the study
- The test group additionally took 1g/kg bodyweight of honey, daily—so for example if you’re 165lb (75kg), that’s about 4 tablespoons per day
- The control group took the equivalent amount of honey-flavored syrup
- Both groups showed equal improvements by week 4
- The test group only showed continued improvements (over the control group) by week 8
The researchers concluded from this:
❝Honey ingestion at a high dose improves the overall and individual symptoms of AR, and it could serve as a complementary therapy for AR.❞
We at 10almonds concluded from this:
❝That’s a lot of honey to eat every day for months!❞
We couldn’t base an article on one study from a decade ago, though! Fortunately, we found a veritable honeypot of more recent research, in the form of this systematic review:
Read: The Potential Use Of Honey As A Remedy For Allergic Diseases
…which examines 13 key studies and 43 scientific papers over the course of 21 years. That’s more like it! This was the jumping-off point we needed into more useful knowledge.
We’re not going to cite all those here—we’re a health and productivity newsletter, not an academic journal of pharmacology, but we did sift through them so that you don’t have to, and:
The researchers (of that review) concluded:
❝Although there is limited evidence, some studies showed remarkable improvements against certain types of allergic illnesses and support that honey is an effective anti-allergic agent.❞
Our (10almonds team) further observations included:
- The research review notes that a lot of studies did not confirm which phytochemical compounds specifically are responsible for causing allergic reactions and/or alleviating such (so: didn’t always control for what we’d like to know, i.e. the mechanism of action)
- Some studies showed results radically different from the rest. The reviewers put this down to differences that were not controlled-for between studies, for example:
- Some studies used very different methods to others. There may be an important difference between a human eating a tablespoon of honey, and a rat having aerosolized honey shot up its nose, for instance. We put more weight to human studies than rat studies!
- Some kinds of honey (such as manuka) contain higher quantities of gallic acid which itself can relieve allergies by chemically inhibiting the release of histamine. In other words, never mind pollen-based inoculations… it’s literally an antihistamine.
- Certain honeys (such as tualang, manuka and gelam) contain higher quantities of quercetin. What’s quercetin? It’s a plant flavonoid that a recent study has shown significantly relieves symptoms of seasonal allergies. So again, it works, just not for the reason people say!
In summary:
The “inoculation by local honey” thing specifically may indeed remain “based on traditional use only” for now.
But! Honey as a remedy for allergies, especially manuka honey, has a growing body of scientific evidence behind it.
Bottom line:
If you like honey, go for it (manuka seems best)! It may well relieve your symptoms.
If you don’t, off-the-shelf antihistamines remain a perfectly respectable option.
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How Not to Die – by Dr. Michael Greger
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Dr. Greger (of “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen” fame) outlines for us in cold hard facts and stats what’s most likely to be our cause of death. While this is not a cheery premise for a book, he then sets out to work back from there—what could have prevented those specific things?
Some of the advice is what you might expect: eat green things and whole grains, skip the bacon. Other advice is less well-known: get a daily dose of curcumin/turmeric, take it with black pepper. Works wonders. If you want to add in daily exercises, just lifting the book could be a start; weighing in at 678 pages, it’s an information-dense tome that’s more likely to be sifted through than read cover-to-cover.
If you’re a more cynical sort, you might note that since the book doesn’t confer immortality, but does help us avoid statistically likely causes of death, logically it significantly increases our chances of dying in a statistically unlikely way. (Ha! Your mental exercise for today will be decoding that sentence )
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Food Fix – by Dr. Mark Hyman
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On a simplistic level, “eat more plants, but ideally not monocrops, and definitely fewer animals” is respectable, ecologically-aware advice that is also consistent with good health. But it is a simplification, and perhaps an oversimplification.
Is there space on a healthy, ecologically sound plate for animal products? Yes, argues Dr. Mark Hyman. It’s a small space, but it’s there.
For example, some kinds of fish are both healthier and more sustainable as a food source than others, same goes for some kinds of dairy products. Poultry, too, can be farmed sustainably in a way that promotes a small self-contained ecosystem—and in terms of health, consumption of poultry appears to be health-neutral at worst.
As this book explores:
- Oftentimes, food choices look like: healthy/sustainable/cheap (choose one).
- Dr. Hyman shows how in fact, we can have it more like: healthy/sustainable/cheap (choose two).
- He argues that if more people “vote with their fork”, production will continue to adjust accordingly, and we’ll get: healthy/sustainable/cheap (all three).
To this end, while some parts of the book can feel like they are purely academic (pertaining less to what we can do as individuals, and more on what governments, farming companies, etc can do), it’s good to know what issues we might also take to the ballot box, if we’re able.
The big picture aside, the book remains very strong even just from an individual health perspective, though.
Bottom line: if you have an interest in preserving your own health, and possibly humanity itself, this is an excellent book.
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In Praise Of Walking – by Dr. Shane O’Mara
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At 10almonds we talk often of the health benefits of walking, so what’s new here?
As the subtitle suggests: a new scientific exploration!
Dr. Shane O’Mara is a professor of experimental brain research—and a keen walker. Combining his profession and his passion, he offers us a uniquely well-grounded perspective.
While the writing style is very readable, there’s a lot of science referenced here, with many studies cited. We love that!
We begin our journey by learning what we have in common with sea squirts, and what we have different from all other apes. What we can learn from other humans, from toddlers to supercentenarians.
As one might expect from a professor of experimental brain research, we learn a lot more about what walking does for our brain, than for the rest of our body. We’ve previously talked about walking and cardiovascular health, and brown adipose tissue, and benefits to the immune system, but this book remains steadfastly focused on the brain.
Which just goes to show, what a lot there is to say for the science-based benefits to our brain health, both neurologically and psychologically!
One of the things at which Dr. O’Mara excels that this reviewer hasn’t seen someone do so well before, is neatly tie together the appropriate “why” and “how” to each “what” of the brain-benefits of walking. Not just that walking boosts mood or creativity or problem-solving, say, but why and how it does so.
Often, understanding that can be the difference between being motivated to actually do it or not!
Bottom line: if there’s a book that’ll get you lacing up your walking shoes, this’ll be the one.
Click here to check out “In Praise of Walking” on Amazon, and start reaping the benefits!
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Avoiding Anemia (More Than Just “Get More Iron”)
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The Iron Dilemma: Factors To Consider
Anemia affects around 10% of American seniors, and that number jumps to 34–39% if there’s a comorbidity such as diabetes, hypertension, or hypercholesterolemia, which in turn climbs with increasing age or with other chronic conditions:
So, what can we do about it?
Get iron yes, but how?
We’d be remiss not to say: yes, do of course make sure you get plenty of iron.
Most people know that red meats, which are terrible for the heart and for cancer risk, are good sources of iron.
Well, good insofar as they provide plenty of it! They’re bad for other reasons.
❝Studies consistently show that consumption of red meat has been contributory to a multitude of chronic conditions such as diabetes, CVD, and malignancies.
There are various emerging reasons that strengthen this link-from the basic constituents of red meat like the heme iron component, the metabolic reactions that take place after consumption, and finally to the methods used to cook it.
The causative links show that even occasional use raises the risk of T2DM.❞
Source: Red Meat Consumption (Heme Iron Intake) and Risk for Diabetes and Comorbidities?
To heme or not to heme
Did you catch that in the middle there, about the heme iron component?
Dietary iron is broadly divided into two kinds: heme, and non-heme.
- Heme iron comes from animals
- Non-heme iron comes from plants
Bad news for vegans: non-heme iron is not so easily absorbed as heme iron.
This means that if you’re just eating plants, the RDA may be significantly lowballing the amount actually required. As a rule, about 1.8x more iron may be needed for vegans, to compensate for it being less easily absorbed.
Why this happens: it’s because of the phytic acid / phytate in the plants that contain the iron, blocking its absorption.
Good news for vegans: however, taking iron with vitamin C increases its absorption rate by about 5x better absorption, and several other side-along nutrients do similarly, including allium (from garlic), carotenoids (from many colorful plants), and fermented foods.
Why this happens: it’s because they bind with similar sites as phytic acid, without causing the same effect. To make a metaphor: these foods steal phytic acid’s parking space, so phytic acid can’t do its iron-blocking thing.
By happy coincidence, today’s featured recipe has all of these things in, by the way (vitamin C, allium, carotenoids, and fermented foods), and the star ingredient (fava beans) is a rich source of iron.
What are good sources of iron, then?
In the category of plants:
- Beans (pick your favorites / eat a variety)
- Lentils (pick your favorites / eat a variety)
- Greens (especially dark leafy greens)
- Apricots (you can get these dried, for convenience!)
- Dark chocolate (5mg per 1oz square!)*
*Ok, technically dark chocolate is not a plant; cacao is a plant; dark chocolate is usually plant-based, though, as there is no reason to add milk.
In the category of dairy products:
That’s not a publication error; dairy products are just not great for iron. Cheeses are more nutrient-dense than milk, and have less than 0.5mg per oz, in other words, the top dairy product has around 10x less iron than dark chocolate, which came in 5th place and let’s face it, we were doing broad categories there. If we listed all the beans, lentils, greens, etc it’d be a much longer list.
Eggs, which are sometimes considered under the category of dairy by virtue of not being an animal (yet!) but an animal product, have around 1mg per egg, by the way, so considering eggs are nearer 2oz, that’s not much better than the cheese.
“But what about if…”
The above is good science and general good advice for most people. That said, some people may have conditions that preclude the foods we recommended, or have other considerations, and so things may be different. Anemia can sometimes be caused by things that can’t be fixed by diet (beyond the scope of today’s article; another time, perhaps), but for example, if you have leukemia then definitely discuss things with your doctors first. Other illnesses, and some medications, can also have troublesome effects that can contribute to anemia. Again, we can offer very good general information here, but we don’t know your medical history, and our standard legal/medical disclaimer applies as always.
See also: Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy?
Take care!
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The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness – by Alvaro Fernandez et al.
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We say “et al.” in the by-line, because this one has a flock of authors, including Dr. Pascale Michelon, Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, Dr. Elkehon Goldberg, and various others if we include the foreword, introduction, etc.
This is relevant, because those who contributed to the meat of the book (i.e., those listed above), it makes the work a lot more scientifically reliable; one skilled science writer might make a mistake; it’s much less likely to make it through to publication when there are a bevy of doctors in the mix, each staking their reputation on the book’s content, and thus having a vested interest in checking each other’s work as well as their own.
As for what this multidisciplinary team have to offer? The book covers such things as:
- how the brain works (especially the possibilities of neuroplasticity), and what that means for such things as memory and attention
- being “a coach not a patient”; i.e., being active rather than passive in one’s approach to brain health
- the relevance of physical exercise, how much, and what kind
- the relevance (and limitations) of diet choices for brain health
- the relevance of such things as learning new languages and musical training
- the relevance of social engagement, and how some (but not all) social engagement can boost cognition
- methods for managing stress and building resilience to same (critical for maintaining a healthy brain)
- “cross-fit for your brain”, that is to say, a multi-vector collection of tools to explore, ranging from meditation to CBT to biofeedback and more.
The style is pop-science without being sensationalist, just communicating ideas clearly, with enough padding to feel casual, and not like a dense read. Importantly, it’s also practical and applicable too, which is something we always look for here.
Bottom line: if you’d like to be given a good overview of what things work (and how much they can be expected to work), along with a good framework to put that knowledge into practice, then this is a great book for you.
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Makkō-Hō – by Haruka Nagai
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We’ve all heard the claims, “Fluent in 3 Months!”, “Russian in Two Weeks!”, “Overnight Mandarin Chinese”, “15-Minute Arabic!”, “Instant Italian!”.
We see the same in the world of health and fitness too. So how does this one’s claim of “five minutes’ physical fitness” hold up?
Well, it is 5 minutes per day. And indeed, the author writes:
❝The total time [to do these exercises], then, is only one minute and thirty seconds. This series I call one round. When it has been completed, execute another complete round. You should find the exercises easier to do the second time. Executed this way, the exercsies will prove very effective, though they take only three minutes in all. After you have leaned back into the final position, you must remain in that posture for one minute. That brings the total time to four minutes. Even when [some small additions] are added, it takes only five minutes at most.❞
The exercises themselves are from makkō-hō, which is a kind of Japanese dynamic yoga. They involve repetitions of (mostly) moving stretches with good form, and are excellent for mobility and general health, keeping us supple and robust as we get older.
The text descriptions are clear, as are the diagrams and photos. The language is a little dated, as this book was written in the 1970s, but the techniques themselves are timeless.
Bottom line: consider it a 5-minute anti-aging regimen. And, as Nagai says, “the person who cannot find 5 minutes out of 24 hours, was never truly interested in their health”.
Click here to check out Makkō-Hō and schedule your five minutes!
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