Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
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When Bitter Is Better
A good general rule of thumb for “does this food contain a lot of healthy polyphenols?” is:
“is this (edible) plant bitter/astringent/pungent”?
If it is, it’s probably rich in polyphenols:
Deciphering the role of bitter and astringent polyphenols in promoting well-being
…which is why it’s no surprise that black coffee and bitter chocolate score highly, as do hot peppers and even garlic.
See also: Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
Even fruits, generally considered something sweet to eat, often contain more polyphenols when they are bitter—many berries are great examples of this!
Read more: Goji Berries: Which Benefits Do They Really Have?
You can read more about the science of this here:
Sensory Nutrition and Bitterness and Astringency of Polyphenols
Important for multiple reasons (including heart and brain health)
Polyphenols have many benefits, and they’re most well known for their heart-healthy properties, but their antioxidant effect (and other mechanisms) also means these foods are generally neuroprotectants too:
The science of this is not all as obvious as you might think!
It is reasonable to expect “ok, this has antioxidant effect, so it will reduce oxidative damage to brain cells too”, and while that is true (and yes, polyphenols do cross the blood-brain barrier), they also help in other ways, including through the gut:
What if I don’t like bitter/astringent/pungent foods?
If you do not have a medical condition that proscribes them (do check with your doctor if unsure), the best advice is to simply eat them anyway, and your tastes will adapt.
It will also help if you avoid sweet foods (though this too is also a good general rule of thumb!), as this will move the balance of where your brain’s “set range” is for “good taste”.
Bonus tip: dark chocolate (80%+ cocoa if possible, 95% if you can get it) and chilli peppers go great with each other. Here’s an example of a chilli chocolate product on Amazon; it’s 70% cocoa (which is not bad, but could be better). You might be able to get a higher percentage locally, especially if you ask your local chocolatière, or make it yourself!
Enjoy!
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Fast Like A Girl – by Dr. Mindy Pelz
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A lot of information out there when it comes to intermittent fasting is very much centered on men in the 25–35 years age range. What about the rest of us?
Our physiological needs are not the same, and it’d be foolhardy to ignore that. But what things do still stand the same, and what things would benefit from a different approach in our cases?
Dr. Pelz has our back with this book packed with information based on the best science currently out there. She gives a general overview of fasting with full consideration to the fact that we the reader may well be female or over a certain age or both. In addition, the book offers:
- Metabolic switching (the “missing key to weight loss”)
- Building a fasting lifestyle (that works with your actual life, not just on paper)
- How to time fasting according to your menstrual cycle (if you don’t have a cycle, she has you covered too)
- How to break a fast—properly (and many other hacks/tips/tricks to make fasting so much easier)
Bottom line: if you want to do intermittent fasting and want to work with rather than against your body, then this book is a fine option.
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The Science of Nutrition – by Rhiannon Lambert
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While there are a lot of conflicting dietary approaches out there, the science itself is actually fairly cohesive in most regards. This book does a lot of what we do here at 10almonds, and presents the science in a clear fashion without having any particular agenda to push.
The author is a nutritionist (BSc, MSc, RNutr) and therefore provides an up-to-date evidence-based approach for eating.
As a result, the only part of this book that brings it down in this reviewer’s opinion is the section on Intermittent Fasting. Being not strictly about nutrition, she has less expertise on that topic, and it shows.
The information is largely presented in double-page spreads each answering a particular question. Because of this, and the fact there are colorful graphic representations of information too, we do recommend the print version over Kindle*.
Bottom line: if you like the notion of real science being presented in a clear and simple fashion (we like to think our subscribers do!), then you’ll surely enjoy this book.
Click here to check out the Science of Nutrition, and get a clear overview!
*Writer’s note: I realize I’ve two days in a row recommended this (yesterday because there are checkboxes to check, worksheets to complete, etc), but it’s not a new trend; just how it happened to be with these two books. I love my Kindle dearly, but sometimes print has the edge for one reason or another!
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Correct An Upper Spine Hump (Simple Stretch & Exercise)
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Generally called a neck hump in this video, it can be in the cervical (neck) vertebrae or it can be in the thoracic (upper back) vertebrae. It’s also known as a dowager’s hump, buffalo hump, or kyphosis.
However, it can be fixed:
What to do
First understand the cause: it generally comes from poor posture, especially from prolonged desk work or phone use.
With that in mind…
- Posture adjustments: lean back in a chair to counter gravity’s pull on your head. Avoid slumping; keep your head aligned with your spine.
- Stretching: lie flat on the floor without pillows to restore spinal alignment. Gradually reduce pillow height during sleep to decrease neck hyperflexion.
- Neck retraction: pull chin straight back while keeping your eyes looking forwards. Hold for 15 seconds, gradually increasing to 60 seconds. Perform 10 repetitions, resting between sets.
- Strengthening: lean forward and pull the chin back against gravity. Hold, or repeat for 10 repetitions. Over time, increase duration to a minute.
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 to read:
The Pains That Good Posture Now Can Help You Avoid Later
Take care!
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Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes – by Ginger Vieira
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If you or a loved one has Type 1 Diabetes, you’ll know that exercise can be especially frustrating…
- If you don’t do it, you risk weight gain and eventual insulin resistance.
- If you do it, you risk dangerous hypos, or perhaps hypers if you took off your pump or skipped a bolus.
Unfortunately, the popular medical advice is “well, just do your best”.
Ginger Vieira is Type 1 Diabetic, and writes with 20+ experience of managing her diabetes while being a keen exerciser. As T1D folks out there will also know, comorbidities are very common; in her case, fibromyalgia was the biggest additional blow to her ability to exercise, along with an underactive thyroid. So when it comes to dealing with the practical nuts and bolts of things, she (while herself observing she’s not a doctor, let alone your doctor) has a lot more practical knowledge than an endocrinologist (without diabetes) behind a desk.
Speaking of nuts and bolts, this book isn’t a pep talk.
It has a bit of that in, but most of it is really practical information, e.g: using fasted exercise (4 hours from last meal+bolus) to prevent hypos, counterintuitive as that may seem—the key is that timing a workout for when you have the least amount of fast-acting insulin in your body means your body can’t easily use your blood sugars for energy, and draws from your fat reserves instead… Win/Win!
That’s just one quick tip because this is a 1-minute review, but Vieira gives:
- whole chapters, with example datasets (real numbers)
- tech-specific advice, e.g. pump, injection, etc
- insulin-specific advice, e.g. fast vs slow, and adjustments to each in the context of exercise
- timing advice re meal/bolus/exercise for different insulins and techs
- blood-sugar management advice for different exercise types (aerobic/anaerobic, sprint/endurance, etc)
…and lots more that we don’t have room to mention here
Basically… If you or a loved one has T1D, we really recommend this book!
Order a copy of “Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes” from Amazon today!
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Optimal Black Pepper Dosage and Supplement
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It’s Q&A Day 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!
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
❝I may have missed it, but how much black pepper provides benefits?❞
So, for any new subscribers joining us today, this is about two recent main features:
As for a daily dosage of black pepper, it varies depending on the benefit you’re looking for, but:
- 5–20mg of piperine is the dosage range used in most scientific studies we looked at
- 10mg is a very common dosage found in many popular supplements
- That’s the mass of piperine though, so if taking it as actual black pepper rather than as an extract, ½ teaspoon is considered sufficient to enjoy benefits.
❝I loved the health benefits of pepper. I do not like pepper. Where can I get it as a supplement?❞
You can simply buy whole black peppercorns and take a few with water as though they were tablets. Your stomach acid will do the rest. Black pepper is also good for digestion, so taking it with a meal is best.
You can buy piperine (black pepper extract) by itself as a supplement in powder form, but if you don’t like black pepper, you will probably not like this powder either. We couldn’t find it readily in capsule form.
You can buy piperine (black pepper extract) as an adjunct to other supplements, with perhaps the most common/popular being turmeric capsules that also contain 10mg (or more) piperine per capsule. Shop around if you like, but here’s one that has 15mg piperine* per capsule, for example.
*They call it “Bioperine®” but that is literally just piperine. Same go
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Pneumonia: Prevention Is Better Than Cure
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Pneumonia: What We Can & Can’t Do About It
Pneumonia is a significant killer of persons over the age of 65, with the risk increasing with age after that, rising very sharply around the age of 85:
While pneumonia is treatable, especially in young healthy adults, the risks get more severe in the older age brackets, and it’s often the case that someone goes into hospital with one thing, then develops pneumonia, which the person was already not in good physical shape to fight, because of whatever hospitalized them in the first place:
American Lung Association | Pneumonia Treatment and Recovery
Other risk factors besides age
There are a lot of things that can increase our risk factor for pneumonia; they mainly fall into the following categories:
- Autoimmune diseases
- Other diseases of the immune system (e.g. HIV)
- Medication-mediated immunosuppression (e.g. after an organ transplant)
- Chronic lung diseases (e.g. asthma, COPD, Long Covid, emphysema, etc)
- Other serious health conditions ← we know this one’s broad, but it encompasses such things as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer
See also:
Why Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Is More Likely Than You Think
Things we can do about it
When it comes to risks, we can’t do much about our age and some of the other above factors, but there are other things we can do to reduce our risk, including:
- Get vaccinated against pneumonia if you are over 65 and/or have one of the aforementioned risk factors. This is not perfect (it only reduces the risk for certain kinds of infection) and may not be advisable for everyone (like most vaccines, it can put the body through its paces a bit after taking it), so speak with your own doctor about this, of course.
- See also: Vaccine Mythbusting
- Avoid contagion. While pneumonia itself is not spread person-to-person, it is caused by bacteria or viruses (there are numerous kinds) that are opportunistic and often become a secondary infection when the immune system is already busy with the first one. So, if possible avoid being in confined spaces with many people, and do wash your hands regularly (as a lot of germs are transferred that way and can get into the respiratory tract because you touched your face or such).
- See also: The Truth About Handwashing
- If you have a cold, or flu, or other respiratory infection, take it seriously, rest well, drink fluids, get good immune-boosting nutrients. There’s no such thing as “just a cold”; not anymore.
- Look after your general health too—health doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and nor does disease. Every part of us affects every other part of us, so anything that can be in good order, you want to be in good order.
This last one, by the way? It’s an important reminder that while some diseases (such as some of the respiratory infections that can precede pneumonia) are seasonal, good health isn’t.
We need to take care of our health as best we can every day along the way, because we never know when something could change.
Want to do more?
Check out: Seven Things To Do For Good Lung Health!
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
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