
Peaches vs Plums – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing peaches to plums, we picked the peaches.
Why?
Both are great! But there is a clear winner out of these two botanically-similar fruits:
In terms of macronutrients they are very similar. Peaches have slightly more protein and plums have slightly more carbs, but the numbers are close enough to make no meaningful difference; they’re both mostly water.
They’re also not too far from each other in the category of vitamins; peaches have more of vitamins B2, B3, B5, E, and choline, while plums have more of vitamins B1, B6, B9, C, and K. They’re equal on vitamin A, by the way, and the vitamins they do differ in, differ by around the same margins, so this category is a clear tie.
When it comes to minerals, however, peaches win easily with more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. The two fruits are equal on calcium, and plum is not higher in any minerals.
While they already won easily because of the mineral situation, it should be noted that peaches also have the lower glycemic index. But honestly, plums are fine too; peaches are just even lower.
So: enjoy both, but if you’re going to pick one, peaches boast the most!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Top 8 Fruits That Prevent & Kill Cancer
- Apricots vs Peaches – Which is Healthier?
- Dried Apricots vs Dried Prunes – Which is Healthier? (prunes are dried plums, usually partially rehydrated)
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Exercises for Aging-Ankles
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Can Ankles Deterioration be Stopped?
As we all know (or have experienced!), Ankle mobility deteriorates with age.
We’re here to argue that it’s not all doom and gloom!
(In fact, we’ve written about keeping our feet, and associated body parts, healthy here).
This video by “Livinleggings” (below) provides a great argument that yes, ankle deterioration can be stopped, or even reversed. It’s a must-watch for anyone from yoga enthusiasts to gym warriors who might be unknowingly crippling their ankle-health.
How We Can Prioritise Our Ankles
Poor ankle flexibility isn’t just an inconvenience – it’s a direct route to knee issues, hip hiccups, and back pain. More importantly, ankle strength is a core component of building overall mobility.
With 12 muscles in the ankle, it can be overwhelming to work out which to strengthen – and how. But fear not, we can prioritise three of the twelve: the calf duo (gastrocnemius and soleus) and the shin’s main muscle, the tibialis anterior.
The first step is to test yourself! A simple wall test reveals any hidden truths about your ankle flexibility. Go to the 1:55 point in the video to see how it’s done.
If you can’t do it, you’ve got work to be done.
If you read the book we recommended on great functional exercises for seniors, then you may already be familiar with some super ankle exercises.
Otherwise, these four ankle exercises are a great starting point:
How did you find that 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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Tomato vs Cucumber – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing tomato to cucumber, we picked the tomato.
Why?
Both are certainly great, but there are some nutritional factors between them:
In terms of macros, everything is approximately equal except that tomato has more than 2x the fiber, so that’s a win for tomato.
When it comes to vitamins, tomatoes have more of vitamins A, B1, B3, B6, B9, C, E, and choline, while cucumber has more of vitamins B2, B5, and K. In short, an 8:3 victory for tomatoes.
In the category of minerals, tomatoes have more copper, potassium, and manganese, while cucumber has more calcium, iron, magnesium, selenium, and zinc. So, a win for cucumber this time.
Both have useful phytochemical properties, too; tomatoes are rich in lycopene which has many benefits, and cucumbers have powerful anti-inflammatory powers whose mechanism of action is not yet fully understood—see the links below for more details!
All in all, enjoy either or both (they make a great salad chopped roughly together with some olives, a little garlic, and a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar with a twist or three of black pepper), but if you have to pick just one (what a cruel world), we say the tomato has the most benefits, on balance.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More
- Cucumber Extract Beats Glucosamine & Chondroitin… At 1/135th Of The Dose?!
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Fix Tight Hamstrings In Just 3 Steps
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There’s a better way to increase your flexibility than just stretching and stretching and hoping for the best. Here’s a 3-step method that will transform your flexibility:
As easy as 1-2-3
Only one part actually involves stretching:
Step 1: reciprocal inhibition
- Concept: when one muscle contracts, the opposing muscle relaxes—which is what we need.
- Goal: engage hip flexors to encourage hamstring relaxation.
- Method:
- Kneeling hamstring stretch position with one leg forward.
- Support with yoga blocks or a chair; use a cushion for comfort.
- Maintain a slight arch in the lower back and hinge forward slightly.
- Attempt to lift the foot off the floor, even if it doesn’t move.
- Hold for around 10 seconds.
Step 2: engaging more muscle fibers
- Concept: our muscles contain a lot of fibers, and often not all of them come along for the ride when we do something (exercising, stretching, etc), and those fibers that weren’t engaged will hold back the whole process.
- Goal: activate more fibers in the hamstring for a deeper stretch.
- Method:
- Same kneeling position, slight back arch, and forward hinge.
- Drive the heel into the floor as if trying to dent it.
- Apply significant effort but hold for only 10 seconds.
- A small bend in the knee is acceptable.
Step 3: manipulating the nervous system
- Concept: the nervous system often limits flexibility due to safety signals (causing sensations of discomfort to tell us to stop a lot sooner than we really need to).
- Goal: passive stretching to reduce nervous system resistance.
- Method:
- Avoid muscle engagement or movement—stay completely relaxed.
- Focus on calmness, with slow, steady breaths.
- Avoid signs of tension (e.g. clenched fists, short/sharp breathing). While your nervous system is trying to communicate to you that you are in danger, you need to communicate to your nervous system that this is fine actually, so in order to reassure your nervous system you need to avoid signs that will tip it off that you’re worried too.
- Don’t overstretch; prioritize a relaxed, safe feeling.
For more on all of this, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like:
Tight Hamstrings? Here’s A Test To Know If It’s Actually Your Sciatic Nerve
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Keep Your Wits About You – by Dr. Vonetta Dotson
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Dr. Dotson sets out to provide the reader with the tools to maintain good brain health at any age, though she does assume the reader to be in midlife or older.
She talks us through the most important kinds of physical activity, mental activity, and social activity, as well as a good grounding in brain-healthy nutrition, and how to beat the often catch-22 situation of poor sleep.
If you are the sort of person who likes refreshers on what you have just read, you’ll enjoy that the final two chapters repeat the information from chapters 2–6. If not, then well, if you skip the final 2 chapters the book will be 25% shorter without loss of content.
The style is enthusiastic; when it comes to her passion for the brain, Dr. Dotson both tells and shows, in abundance. While some authors may take care to break down the information in a way that can be understood from skimming alone, Dr. Dotson assumes that the reader’s interest will match hers, and thus will not mind a lot of lengthy prose with in-line citations. So, provided that’s the way you like to read, it’ll suit you too.
Bottom line: if you are looking for a book on maintaining optimal brain health that covers the basics without adding advice that is out of the norm, then this is a fine option for that!
Click here to check out Keep Your Wits About You, and keep your wits about you!
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You can now order all kinds of medical tests online. Our research shows this is (mostly) a bad idea
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Elena.Katkova/Shutterstock Many of us have done countless rapid antigen tests (RATs) over the course of the pandemic. Testing ourselves at home has become second nature.
But there’s also a growing worldwide market in medical tests sold online directly to the public. These are “direct-to-consumer” tests, and you can access them without seeing a doctor.
While this might sound convenient, the benefits to most consumers are questionable, as we discovered in a recent study.
What are direct-to-consumer tests?
Let’s start with what they’re not. We’re not talking about patients who are diagnosed with a condition, and use tests to monitor themselves (for example, finger-prick testing to monitor blood sugar levels for people with diabetes).
We’re also not talking about home testing kits used for population screening, such as RATs for COVID, or the “poo tests” sent to people aged 50 and over for bowel cancer screening.
Direct-to-consumer tests are products marketed to anyone who is willing to pay, without going through their GP. They can include hormone profiling tests, tests for thyroid disease and food sensitivity tests, among many others.
Some direct-to-consumer tests allow you to complete the test at home, while self-collected lab tests give you the equipment to collect a sample, which you then send to a lab. You can now also buy pathology requests for a lab directly from a company without seeing a doctor.
We’ve all become accustomed to RATs during the pandemic.
Ground Picture/ShutterstockWhat we did in our study
We searched (via Google) for direct-to-consumer products advertised for sale online in Australia between June and December 2021. We then assessed whether each test was likely to provide benefits to those who use them based on scientific literature published about the tests, and any recommendations either for or against their use from professional medical organisations.
We identified 103 types of tests and 484 individual products ranging in price from A$12.99 to A$1,947.
We concluded only 11% of these tests were likely to benefit most consumers. These included tests for STIs, where social stigma can sometimes discourage people from testing at a clinic.
A further 31% could possibly benefit a person, if they were at higher risk. For example, if a person had symptoms of thyroid disease, a test may benefit them. But the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners does not recommend testing for thyroid disease in people without symptoms because evidence showing benefits of identifying and treating people with early thyroid disease is lacking.
Some 42% were commercial “health checks” such as hormone and nutritional status tests. Although these are legitimate tests – they may be ordered by a doctor in certain circumstances, or be used in research – they have limited usefulness for consumers.
A test of your hormone or vitamin levels at a particular time can’t do much to help you improve your health, especially because test results change depending on the time of day, month or season you test.
Most worryingly, 17% of the tests were outright “quackery” that wouldn’t be recommended by any mainstream health practitioner. For example, hair analysis for assessing food allergies is unproven and can lead to misdiagnosis and ineffective treatments.
More than half of the tests we looked at didn’t state they offered a pre- or post-test consultation.
Ordering medical tests online probably isn’t a good idea.
fizkes/ShutterstockProducts available may change outside the time frame of our study, and direct-to-consumer tests not promoted or directly purchasable online, such as those offered in pharmacies or by commercial health clinics, were not included.
But in Australia, ours is the first and only study we know of mapping the scale and variety of direct-to-consumer tests sold online.
Research from other countries has similarly found a lack of evidence to support the majority of direct-to-consumer tests.
4 questions to ask before you buy a test online
Many direct-to-consumer tests offer limited benefits, and could even lead to harms. Here are four questions you should ask yourself if you’re considering buying a medical test online.
1. If I do this test, could I end up with extra medical appointments or treatments I don’t need?
Doing a test yourself might seem harmless (it’s just information, after all), but unnecessary tests often find issues that would never have caused you problems.
For example, someone taking a diabetes test may find moderately high blood sugar levels see them labelled as “pre-diabetic”. However, this diagnosis has been controversial, regarded by many as making patients out of healthy people, a large number of whom won’t go on to develop diabetes.
2. Would my GP recommend this test?
If you have worrying symptoms or risk factors, your GP can recommend the best tests for you. Tests your GP orders are more likely to be covered by Medicare, so will cost you a lot less than a direct-to-consumer test.
3. Is this a good quality test?
A good quality home self-testing kit should indicate high sensitivity (the proportion of true cases that will be accurately detected) and high specificity (the proportion of people who don’t have the disease who will be accurately ruled out). These figures should ideally be in the high 90s, and clearly printed on the product packaging.
For tests analysed in a lab, check if the lab is accredited by the National Association of Testing Authorities. Avoid tests sent to overseas labs, where Australian regulators can’t control the quality, or the protection of your sample or personal health information.
4. Do I really need this test?
There are lots of reasons to want information from a test, like peace of mind, or just curiosity. But unless you have clear symptoms and risk factors, you’re probably testing yourself unnecessarily and wasting your money.
Direct-to-consumer tests might seem like a good idea, but in most cases, you’d be better off letting sleeping dogs lie if you feel well, or going to your GP if you have concerns.
Patti Shih, Senior Lecturer, Australian Centre for Health Engagement, Evidence and Values, University of Wollongong; Fiona Stanaway, Associate Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, University of Sydney; Katy Bell, Associate Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, and Stacy Carter, Professor and Director, Australian Centre for Health Engagement, Evidence and Values, University of Wollongong
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Is TikTok right? Are there health benefits to eating sea moss?
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Sea moss is the latest “superfood” wellness influencers are swearing by. They claim sea moss products – usually in gel form – have multiple health benefits. These include supporting brain and immune function, or protecting against viruses and other microbes.
But do these health claims stack up? Let’s take a look.
Plataresca/Shutterstock What is sea moss?
Sea moss is produced using a kind of seaweed – particularly red algae – that grow in various locations all around the world. Three main species are used in sea moss products:
- Chondrus crispus (known as Irish moss or carrageenan moss)
- Eucheuma cottonii (sea moss or seabird’s nest)
- Gracilaria (Irish moss or ogonori).
Some products also contain the brown algae Fucus vesiculosus (commonly known as bladderwrack, black tang, rockweed, sea grapes, bladder fucus, sea oak, cut weed, dyers fucus, red fucus or rock wrack).
Most sea moss products are sold as a gel that can be added to recipes, used in smoothies, frozen into ice cubes or eaten on its own. The products also come in capsule form or can be purchased “raw” and used to make your own gels at home.
Several kinds of red algae are used in commercially-available sea moss products. Nancy Ann Bowe/Shutterstock What’s the evidence?
Sea moss products claim a host of potential health benefits, from supporting immunity, to promoting skin health and enhancing mood and focus, among many others.
But is there any evidence supporting these claims?
Recent studies have reviewed the biological properties of the main sea moss species (Chondrus crispus, Eucheuma cottonii, Gracilaria and Fucus vesiculosus).
They suggest these species may have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticancer, antidiabetic and probiotic properties.
However, the vast majority of research relating to Chondrus crispus, Gracilaria and Fucus vesiculosus – and all of the research on Eucheuma cottonii – comes from studies done in test tubes or using cell and animal models. We should not assume the health effects seen would be the same in humans.
In cell and animal studies, researchers usually administer algae in a laboratory and use specific extracts rich in bioactive compounds rather than commercially available sea moss products.
They also use very different – often relatively larger – amounts compared to what someone would typically consume when they eat sea moss products.
This means the existing studies can’t tell us about the human body’s processes when eating and digesting sea moss.
Sea moss may have similar effects in humans. But so far there is very little evidence people who consume sea moss will experience any of the claimed health benefits.
Nutritional value
Eating sea moss does not replace the need for a balanced diet, including a variety of fruits and vegetables.
Chondrus crispus, Eucheuma cottonii and Gracilaria, like many seaweeds, are rich sources of nutrients such as fatty acids, amino acids, vitamin C and minerals. These nutrients are also likely to be present in sea moss, although some may be lost during the preparation of the product (for example, soaking may reduce vitamin C content), and those that remain could be present in relatively low quantities.
There are claims that sea moss may be harmful for people with thyroid problems. This relates to the relationship between thyroid function and iodine. The algae used to make sea moss are notable sources of iodine and excess iodine intake can contribute to thyroid problems, particularly for people with pre-existing conditions. That is why these products often carry disclaimers related to iodine sensitivity or thyroid health.
Is it worth it?
So you may be wondering if it’s worth trying sea moss. Here are a few things to consider before you decide whether to start scooping sea moss into your smoothies.
A 375mL jar costs around $A25–$30 and lasts about seven to ten days, if you follow the recommended serving suggestion of two tablespoons per day. This makes it a relatively expensive source of nutrients.
Sea moss is commonly sold as a gel that can be eaten on a kitchen bench. April Sims/Shutterstock Sea moss is often hyped for containing 92 different minerals. While there may be 92 minerals present, the amount of minerals in the algae will vary depending on growing location and conditions.
The efficiency with which minerals from algae can be absorbed and used by the body also varies for different minerals. For example, sodium is absorbed well, while only about 50% of iodine is absorbed.
But sea moss has also been shown to contain lead, mercury and other heavy metals – as well as radioactive elements (such as radon) that can be harmful to humans. Seaweeds are known for their ability to accumulate minerals from their environment, regardless of whether these are beneficial or harmful for human nutrition. Remember, more doesn’t always mean better.
What else am I eating?
While you won’t get a full nutritional breakdown on the jar, it is always wise to check what other ingredients you may be eating. Sea moss products can contain a range of other ingredients, such as lime, monk fruit powder, spirulina and ginger, among many others.
These ingredients differ between brands and products, so be aware of your needs and always check.
Despite their health claims, most sea moss products also carry disclaimers indicating that the products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
If you have concerns about your health, always speak to a health professional for accurate and personalised medical advice.
Margaret Murray, Senior Lecturer, Nutrition, Swinburne University of Technology
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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