Passion Fruit vs Blueberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing passion fruit to blueberries, we picked the passion fruit.
Why?
It wasn’t close!
In terms of macros, the passion fruit has 3x the protein, 1.5x the carbs, and more than 4x the fiber. An easy win for passion fruit!
In the category of vitamins, passion fruit has more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, and choline, while blueberries have more of vitamins B1, E, and K. So, blueberries are not without their merits, but all in all, another win for passion fruit here.
When it comes to minerals, passion fruit has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium, while blueberries have slightly more zinc.
Looking at polyphenols, this is one category where blueberry wins, and by a fair margin. We think that’s a great reason to enjoy blueberries, but not enough to reverse the win for passion fruit based on all the other categories!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Enjoy!
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How Aging Changes At 44 And Again At 60 (And What To Do About It)
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As it turns out, aging is not linear. Or rather: chronological aging may be, but biological aging isn’t, and there are parts of our life where it kicks into a different gear. This study looked at 108 people (65 of whom women) between the ages of 25 and 75, as part of a longitudinal cohort study, tracked for around 2–8 years (imprecise as not all follow-up durations were the same). They took frequent blood and urine samples, and tested them for thousands of different molecules and analyzing changes in gene expression, proteomic, blood biomarkers, and more. All things that are indicators of various kinds of health/disease, and which might seem more simple but it isn’t: aging.
Here’s what they found:
Landmark waypoints
At 44, significant changes occur in the metabolism, including notably the metabolism of carbs, caffeine, and alcohol. A large portion of this may be hormone related, as that’s a time of change not just for those undergoing the menopause, but also the andropause (not entirely analogous to the menopause, but it does usually entail a significant reduction in sex hormone production; in this case, testosterone).
However, the study authors also hypothesize that lifestyle factors may be relevant, as one’s 40s are often a stressful time, and an increase in alcohol consumption often occurs around the same time as one’s ability to metabolize it drops, resulting in further dysfunctional alcohol metabolism.
At 60, carb metabolism slows again, with big changes in glucose metabolism specifically, as well as an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and a decline in kidney function. In case that wasn’t enough: also an increase free radical pathology, meaning a greatly increased risk of cancer. Immune function drops too.
What to do about this: the recommendation is of course to be proactive, and look after various aspects of your health before it becomes readily apparent that you need to. For example, good advice for anyone approaching 44 might be to quit alcohol, go easy on caffeine, and eat a diet that is conducive to good glucose metabolism. Similarly, good advice for anyone approaching 60 might be to do the same, and also pay close attention to keeping your kidneys healthy. Getting regular tests done is also key, including optional extras that your doctor might not suggest but you should ask for, such as blood urea nitrogen levels (biomarkers of kidney function). The more we look after each part of our body, the more they can look after us in turn, and the fewer/smaller problems we’ll have down the line.
If you, dear reader, are approaching the age 44 or 60… Be neither despondent nor complacent. We must avoid falling into the dual traps of “Well, that’s it, bad health is around the corner, nothing I can do about it; that’s nature”, vs “I’ll be fine, statistics are for other people, and don’t apply to me”.
Those are averages, and we do not have to be average. Every population has statistical outliers. But it would be hubris to think none of this will apply to us and we can just carry on regardless. So, for those of us who are approaching one of those two ages… It’s time to saddle up, knuckle down, and do our best!
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Also, if you’d like to read the actual paper by Dr. Xiaotao Shen et al., here it is:
Nonlinear dynamics of multi-omics profiles during human aging ← honestly, it’s a lot clearer and more informative than the video, and also obviously discusses things in a lot more detail than we have room to here
Take care!
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Ear Candling: Is It Safe & Does It Work?
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Does This Practice Really Hold A Candle To Evidence-Based Medicine?
In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you your opinion of ear candling, and got the above-depicted, below-described set of responses:
- Exactly 50% said “Under no circumstances should you put things in your ear and set fire to them”
- About 38% said “It is a safe, drug-free way to keep the ears free from earwax and pathogens”
- About 13% said “Done correctly, thermal-auricular therapy is harmless and potentially beneficial”
This means that if we add the two positive-to-candling answers together, it’s a perfect 50:50 split between “do it” and “don’t do it”.
(Yes, 38%+13%=51%, but that’s because we round to the nearest integer in these reports, and more precisely it was 37.5% and 12.5%)
So, with the vote split, what does the science say?
First, a quick bit of background: nobody seems keen to admit to having invented this. One of the major manufacturers of ear candles refers to them as “Hopi” candles, which the actual Hopi tribe has spent a long time asking them not to do, as it is not and never has been used by the Hopi people. Other proposed origins offered by advocates of ear candling include Traditional Chinese Medicine (not used), Ancient Egypt (no evidence of such whatsoever), and Atlantis:
Quackwatch | Why Ear Candling Is Not A Good Idea
It is a safe, drug-free way to keep the ears free from earwax and pathogens: True or False?
False! In a lot of cases of alternative therapy claims, there’s an absence of evidence that doesn’t necessarily disprove the treatment. In this case, however, it’s not even an open matter; its claims have been actively disproven by experimentation:
- It doesn’t remove earwax; on the contrary, experimentation “showed no removal of cerumen from the external auditory canal. Candle wax was actually deposited in some“
- It doesn’t remove pathogens, and the proposed mechanism of action for removing pathogens, that of the “chimney effect”: the idea that the burning candle creates a vacuum that draws wax out of the ear along with debris and bacteria, simply does not work; on the contrary, “Tympanometric measurements in an ear canal model demonstrated that ear candles do not produce negative pressure”.
- It isn’t safe; on the contrary, “Ear candles have no benefit in the management of cerumen and may result in serious injury”
In a medium-sized survey (n=122), the following injuries were reported:
- 13 x burns
- 7 x occlusion of the ear canal
- 6 x temporary hearing loss
- 3 x otitis externa (this also called “swimmer’s ear”, and is an inflammation of the ear, accompanied by pain and swelling)
- 1 x tympanic membrane perforation
Indeed, authors of one paper concluded:
❝Ear candling appears to be popular and is heavily advertised with claims that could seem scientific to lay people. However, its claimed mechanism of action has not been verified, no positive clinical effect has been reliably recorded, and it is associated with considerable risk.
No evidence suggests that ear candling is an effective treatment for any condition. On this basis, we believe it can do more harm than good and we recommend that GPs discourage its use❞
Source: Canadian Family Physician | Ear Candling
Under no circumstances should you put things in your ear and set fire to them: True or False?
True! It’s generally considered good advice to not put objects in general in your ears.
Inserting flaming objects is a definite no-no. Please leave that for the Cirque du Soleil.
You may be thinking, “but I have done this and suffered no ill effects”, which seems reasonable, but is an example of survivorship bias in action—it doesn’t make the thing in question any safer, it just means you were one of the one of the ones who got away unscathed.
If you’re wondering what to do instead… Ear oils can help with the removal of earwax (if you don’t want to go get it sucked out at a clinic—the industry standard is to use a suction device, which actually does what ear candles claim to do). For information on safely getting rid of earwax, see our previous article:
Take care!
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Eat It! – by Jordan Syatt and Michael Vacanti
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One of the biggest challenges we often face when undertaking diet and exercise regimes, is the “regime” part. Day one is inspiring, day two is exciting… Day seventeen when one has a headache and some kitchen appliance just broke and one’s preferred exercise gear is in the wash… Not so much.
Authors Jordan Syatt and Michael Vacanti, therefore, have taken it upon themselves to bring sustainability to us.
Their main premise is simplicity, but simplicity that works. For example:
- Having a daily calorie limit, but being ok with guesstimating
- Weighing regularly, but not worrying about fluctuations (just trends!)
- Eating what you like, but prioritizing some foods over others
- Focusing on resistance training, but accessible exercises that work the whole body, instead of “and then 3 sets of 12 reps of these in 6-4-2 progression to exhaustion of the anterior sternocleidomastoid muscle”
The writing style is simple and clear too, without skimping on the science where science helps explain why something works a certain way.
Bottom line: this one’s for anyone who would like a strong healthy body, without doing the equivalent of a degree in anatomy and physiology along the way.
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Eat to Beat Disease – by Dr. William Li
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Dr. William Li asks the important question: is your diet feeding disease, or defeating it?
Because everything we put in our bodies makes our health just a little better—or just a little worse. Ok, sometimes a lot worse.
But for most people, when it comes to diet, it’s a death of a thousand cuts of unhealthy food. And that’s what he looks to fix with this book.
The good news: Dr. Li (while not advocating for unhealthy eating, of course), focuses less on what to restrict, and more on what to include. This book covers hundreds of such healthy foods, and ideas (practical, useful ones!) on incorporating them daily, including dozens of recipes.
He mainly looks at five ways our food can help us with…
- Angiogenesis (blood vessel replacement)
- Regeneration (of various bodily organs and systems)
- Microbiome health (and all of its knock-on effects)
- DNA protection (and thus slower cellular aging)
- Immunity (defending the body while also reducing autoimmune problems)
The style is simple and explanatory; Dr. Li is a great educator. Reading this isn’t a difficult read, but you’ll come out of it feeling like you just did a short course in health science.
Bottom line: if you’d like an easy way to improve your health in an ongoing and sustainable way, then this book can help you do just that.
Click here to check out Eat To Beat Disease, and eat to beat disease!
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Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)
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Gut Health 101
We have so many microorganisms inside us, that by cell count, their cells outnumber ours more than ten-to-one. By gene count, we have 23,000 and they have more than 3,000,000. In effect, we are more microbe than we are human. And, importantly: they form a critical part of what keeps our overall organism ticking on.
Read all about it: The role of the gut microbiota in nutrition and health
Our trillions of tiny friends keep us alive, so it really really pays to return the favor.
But how?
Probiotics and fermented foods
You probably guessed this one, but it’d be remiss not to mention it first. It’s no surprise that probiotics help; the clue is in the name. In short, they help add diversity to your microbiome (that’s a good thing).
Read from the NIH: Probiotics: What You Need To Know
As for fermented foods, not every fermented food will boost your microbiota, but great options include…
- Fermented vegetables (sauerkraut, pickles, etc)
- You’ll often hear kimchi mentioned; that is also pickled vegetables, usually mostly cabbage. It’s just the culinary experience that differs. Unlike sauerkraut, kimchi is usually spiced, for example.
- Kombucha (a fermented sweet tea)
- Miso & tempeh (different preparations of fermented soy)
The health benefits vary based on the individual strains of bacteria involved in the fermentation, so don’t get too caught up on which is best.
The best one is the one you enjoy, because then you’ll have it regularly!
Feed them plenty of prebiotic fibers
Those probiotics you took? The bacteria in them eat the fiber that you can’t digest without them. So, feed them those sorts of fibers.
Great options include:
- Bananas
- Garlic
- Onions
- Whole grains
Read more: Effects of Probiotics, Prebiotics, and Synbiotics on Human Health
Don’t feed them sugar and sweeteners
Sugar and (and, counterintuitively, aspartame) can cause unfortunate gut microbe imbalances. Put simply, they kill some of your friends and feed some of your enemies. For example…
Candida, which we all have in us to some degree, feeds on sugar (including the sugar formed from breaking down alcohol, by the way) and refined carbs. Then it grows, and puts its roots through your intestinal walls, linking with your neural system. Then it makes you crave the very things that will feed it and allow it to put bigger holes in your intestinal walls.
Do not feed the Candida.
Don’t believe us? Read: Candida albicans-Induced Epithelial Damage Mediates Translocation through Intestinal Barriers
(That’s scientist-speak for “Candida puts holes in your intestines, and stuff can then go through those holes”)
And as for how that comes about, it’s like we said:
❝Colonization of the intestine and translocation through the intestinal barrier are fundamental aspects of the processes preceding life-threatening systemic candidiasis. In this review, we discuss the commensal lifestyle of C. albicans in the intestine, the role of morphology for commensalism, the influence of diet, and the interactions with bacteria of the microbiota.❞
Source: Candida albicans as a commensal and opportunistic pathogen in the intestine
The usual five things
- Good diet (Mediterranean Diet is good; plant-based version of it is by far the best for this)
- Good exercise (yes, really)
- Good sleep (helps them, and they’ll help you get better sleep in return)
- Limit or eliminate alcohol consumption (what a shocker)
- Don’t smoke (it’s bad for everything, including gut health)
One last thing you should know:
If you’re used to having animal products in your diet, and make a sudden change to all plants, your gut will object very strongly. This is because your gut microbiome is used to animal products, and a plant-based diet will cause many helpful microbes to flourish in great abundance, and many less helpful microbes will starve and die. And they will make it officially Not Fun™ for you.
So, you have two options to consider:
- Do it anyway, and sit it out (and believe us, you’ll be sitting), get the change over with quickly, and enjoy the benefits and much happier gut that follows.
- Make the change gradual. Reduce portions of animal products slowly, have “Meatless Mondays” etc, and slowly make the change over. This—for most people—is pretty comfortable, easy, and effective.
And remember: the effects of these things we’ve talked about today compound when you do more than one of them, but if you don’t want to take probiotics or really hate kombucha or absolutely won’t consider a plant-based diet or struggle to give up sugar or alcohol, etc… Just do what you can do, and you’ll still have a net improvement!
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- Fermented vegetables (sauerkraut, pickles, etc)
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Natural Alternatives for Depression Treatment
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Questions and Answers at 10almonds
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
This newsletter has been growing a lot lately, and so have the questions/requests, and we love that! 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
Natural alternatives to medication for depression?
Great question! We did a mean feature a while back, but we definitely have much more to say! We’ll do another main feature soon, but in the meantime, here’s what we previously wrote:
See: The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
^This covers not just the obvious, but also why the most common advice is not helpful, and practical tips to actually make manageable steps back to wellness, on days when “literally just survive the day” is one’s default goal.
Don’t Forget…
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