Redcurrants vs Cranberries – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing redcurrants to cranberries, we picked the redcurrants.

Why?

First know: here we’re comparing raw redcurrants to raw cranberries, with no additives in either case. If you buy jelly made from either, or if you buy dried fruits but the ingredients list has a lot of added sugar and often some vegetable oil, then that’s going to be very different. But for now… Let’s look at just the fruits:

In terms of macros, redcurrants are higher in carbs, but also higher in fiber, and have the lower glycemic index as cranberries have nearly 2x the GI.

When it comes to vitamins, redcurrants have more of vitamins B1, B2, B6, B9, C, K, and choline, while cranberries have more of vitamins A, B5, and E. In other words, a clear win for redcurrants.

In the category of minerals, redcurrants sweep even more convincingly with a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. On the other hand, cranberries boast a little more manganese; they also have about 2x the sodium.

Both berries have generous amounts of assorted phytochemicals (flavonoids and others), and/but nothing to set one ahead of the other.

As per any berries that aren’t poisonous, both of these are fine choices for most people most of the time, but redcurrants win with room to spare in most categories.

Want to learn more?

You might like to read:

Health Benefits Of Cranberries (But: You’d Better Watch Out)

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  • Apple vs Apricot – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing apple to apricot, we picked the apricot.

    Why?

    In terms of macros, there’s not too much between them; apples are higher in carbs and only a little higher in fiber, which disparity makes for a slightly higher glycemic index, but it’s not a big difference and they are both low GI foods.

    Micronutrients, however, set these two fruits apart:

    In the category of vitamins, apple is a tiny bit higher in choline, while apricots are higher in vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, C, E, and K—in most cases, by quite large margins, too. All in all, a clear and easy win for apricots.

    When it comes to minerals, apples are not higher in any minerals, while apricots are higher in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. There’s simply no contest here.

    In short, if an apple a day keeps the doctor away, then an apricot will give the doctor a nice weekend break somewhere.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Top 8 Fruits That Prevent & Kill Cancer

    Take care!

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  • What’s Your Vascular Dementia Risk?

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    We often say that “what’s good for your heart is good for your brain”, and this is because the former feeds the latter, with oxygen and nutrients, and also clears away detritus like beta-amyloid (associated with Alzheimer’s) and alpha-synuclein (associated with Parkinson’s).

    For more on those, see: How To Clean Your Brain (Glymphatic Health Primer)

    For this reason, there are many risk factors that apply equally cardiovascular disease (CVD), and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and other vascular dementias, as well as stroke risk.

    The link between the two has also been studied; recently a team of scienists led by Dr. Anisa Dhana asked the question:

    ❝What is the association between cardiovascular health (CVH) and biomarkers of neurodegeneration, including neurofilament light chain and total tau?❞

    To answer this, they looked at data from more than 10,000 Americans aged 65+; of these, they were able to get serum samples from 5,470 of them, and tested those samples for the biomarkers of neurodegeneration mentioned above.

    They then tabulated the results with cardiovascular health scores based on the American Heart Association (AHA)’s “Life’s Simple 7” tool, and found, amongst other things:

    • 34.6% of participants carried the APOE e4 allele, a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s.
    • Higher CVH scores were associated with lower NfL levels, but not with t-tau concentrations.
    • APOE e4 carriers with high CVH had significantly lower NfL levels.
    • Race did not influence the CVH-NfL relationship.
    • Higher CVH was linked to a slower annual increase in NfL levels but did not affect t-tau changes.
    • Over 10 years, participants with the lowest CVH scores saw a 7.1% annual increase in NfL levels, while those with the highest CVH scores had a 5.2% annual increase.
    • Better CVH is linked to lower serum NfL levels, regardless of age, sex, or race.
    • CVH is particularly crucial for APOE e4 carriers

    In other words: higher cardiovascular health meant lower markers of neurodegeneration, and this not only still held true for APOE e4 carriers, but also, the benefits actually even more pronounced in those participants.

    You may be wondering: “but it said it helped with NfL levels, not t-tau concentrations?” And, indeed, it is so. But this means that the overall neurodegeneration risk is still inversely proportional to cardiovascular health; it just means it’s not a magical panacea and we must still do other things too.

    See also: How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

    And as for the study, you can read the paper itself in full here:

    Cardiovascular Health and Biomarkers of Neurodegenerative Disease in Older Adults

    Life’s Simple 7

    We mentioned that they used the AHA’s “Life’s Simple 7” tool to assess cardiovascular health; it is indeed simple, but important. Here it is:

    MetricPoorIntermediateIdeal
    Current smokingYesFormer ≤12 moNever or quit >12 mo
    BMI, kg/m2≥3025–29.9<25
    Physical activityNone1–149 min/wk of moderate activity or 1–74 min/wk of vigorous activity or 1–149 min/wk of moderate and vigorous activity≥150 min/wk of moderate activity or ≥75 min/wk of vigorous activity or ≥150 min/wk of moderate and vigorous activity
    Diet pattern score*0–12–34–5
    Total cholesterol, mg/dL≥240200–239 or treated to goal<200
    Blood pressure, mm HgSBP ≥140 or DBP ≥90SBP 120–139 or DBP 80–89 or treated to goal<120/<80
    Fasting plasma glucose, mg/dL≥126100–125 or treated to goal<100

    *Each of the following 5 diet elements is given a score of 1: (1) ≥4.5 cups/day of fruits and vegetables; (2) ≥2 servings/week of fish; (3) ≥3 servings/day of whole grains; (4) no more than 36 oz/wk of sugar‐sweetened beverages; and (5) no more than 1500 mg/d of sodium.

    As the AHA notes,

    ❝Unfortunately, 99% of the U.S. adult population has at least one of seven cardiovascular health risks: tobacco use,
    poor diet, physical inactivity, unhealthy weight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or high blood glucose.❞

    It then goes on to talk about the financial burden of this on employers, but this was taken from a workplace health resource, and we recognize the rest of it won’t be of pressing concern for most of our readers. In case you are interested though, here it is:

    American Heart Association | Life’s Simple 7® Journey to Health™

    For a more practical (if you’re just a private individual and employee healthcare is not your main concern) overview, see:

    American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7: Lifestyle Recommendations, Polygenic Risk, and Lifetime Risk of Coronary Heart Disease

    Want to know more?

    Here are some very good starting points for improving each of those 7 metrics, as necessary:

    1. Which Addiction-Quitting Methods Work Best?
    2. How To Lose Weight (Healthily!)
    3. The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More
    4. Which Diet? Top Diets Ranked By Experts
    5. Lower Cholesterol Naturally, Without Statins
    6. 10 Ways To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally
    7. 10 Ways To Balance Your Blood Sugars

    Take care!

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  • The Rise Of The Machines

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    In this week’s health science news, several pieces of technology caught our eye. Let’s hope these things roll out widely!

    When it comes to UTIs, antimicrobial resistance is taking the p—

    This has implications far beyond UTIs—though UTIs can be a bit of a “canary in the coal mine” for antimicrobial resistance. The more people are using antibiotics (intentionally, or because they are in the food chain), the more killer bugs are proliferating instead of dying when we give them something to kill them. And yes: they do proliferate sometimes when given antibiotics, not because the antibiotics did anything directly good for them, but because they killed their (often friendly bacteria) competition. Thus making for a double-whammy of woe.

    This development tackles that, by using AI modelling to crunch the numbers of a real-time data-driven personalized approach to give much more accurate treatment options, in a way that a human couldn’t (or at least, couldn’t at anything like the same speed, and most family physicians don’t have a mathematician locked in the back room to spend the night working on a patient’s data).

    Read in full: AI can help tackle urinary tract infections and antimicrobial resistance

    Related: AI: The Doctor That Never Tires?

    When it comes to CPR and women, people are feint of heart

    When CPR is needed, time is very much of the essence. And yet, bystanders are much less likely to give CPR to a woman than to a man. Not only that, but CPR-training is part of what leads to this reluctance when it comes to women: the mannequins used are very homogenous, being male (94%) and lean (99%). They’re also usually white (88%) even in countries where the populations are not, but that is less critical. After all, a racist person is less likely to give CPR to a person of color regardless of what color the training mannequin was.

    However, the mannequins being male and lean is an issue, because it means people suddenly lack confidence when faced with breasts and/or abundant body fat. Both can prompt the bystander to wonder if some different technique is needed (it isn’t), and breasts can also prompt the bystander to fear doing something potentially “improper” (the proper course of action is: save a person’s life; do not get distracted by breasts).

    Read in full: Women are less likely to receive CPR than men. Training on manikins with breasts could help ← there are also CPR instructions (and a video demonstration) there, for anyone who wants a refresher, if perhaps your last first-aid course was a while ago!

    Related: Heart Attack: His & Hers (Be Prepared!)

    When technology is a breath of fresh air

    A woman with COPD and COVID has had her very damaged lungs replaced using a da Vinci X robot to perform a minimally-invasive surgery (which is quite a statement, when it comes to replacing someone’s lungs).

    Not without human oversight though—surgeon Dr. Stephanie Chang was directing the transplant. Surgery is rarely fun for the person being operated on, but advances like this make things go a lot more smoothly, so this kind of progress is good to see.

    Read in full: Woman receives world’s first robotic double-lung transplant

    Related: Why Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Is More Likely Than You Think

    Take care!

    Share This Post

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  • 12 Foods That Fight Depression & Anxiety

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Food impacts mental health, and while it won’t magically cure mental illness, dietary changes can do a lot to improve mood. Here’s how:

    Nutraceuticals

    We’ll not keep the 12 nutraceutical foods a mystery; here’s what they are and a few words on how they work (in many cases, we could write whole articles about them; in some cases, we already have! You can find many of them by using the search function in the top-right of each page).

    • Walnuts are rich in omega-3s for brain health; arguably the best nut for depression relief.
    • Fermented foods because probiotics in foods like yogurt and sauerkraut support the gut-brain connection as well as serotonin production there, enhancing mood.
    • Cherry tomatoes are rich in lycopene, which helps combat both depression and mood swings.
    • Leafy greens reduce brain inflammation linked to depression.
    • Apples and other fruit are high in fiber and antioxidants that stabilize blood sugar and mood, reducing brain inflammation.
    • Beans are high in B vitamins, crucial for neurotransmitter production and mood regulation (without also being high in brain-harmful things, as red meat is).
    • Berries are super-high antioxidants and cortisol-lowering anthocyanidins, promoting calmness and reducing stress.
    • Oats contain the healthiest kind of fiber, β-glucan, and additionally help stabilize blood sugar and mood; they’re also rich in selenium, which boosts mood.
    • Mushrooms help regulate blood sugar and act as prebiotics, supporting serotonin production in the gut.
    • Avocados are famously rich in healthy fats, including omega-3s and oleic acid, which support brain health and combat depression.
    • Dark chocolate contains antioxidants, magnesium, and gut-healthy prebiotics that indirectly reduce mental stress and improve brain function. Also a famous comfort food for many, of course, and that factor’s not to be overlooked either.
    • Pumpkin seeds are rich in tryptophan, which boosts serotonin production. As a bonus, they also help some kinds of antidepressant to work better—check with your doctor or pharmacist to be sure in your case, though.

    For more on all of these, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    The 6 Pillars Of Nutritional Psychiatry

    Take care!

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  • Stop Sabotaging Your Gut

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    This is Dr. Robynne Chutkan. She’s an integrative gastroenterologist, and founder of the Digestive Center for Wellness, in Washington DC, which for the past 20 years has been dedicated to uncovering the root causes of gastrointestinal disorders, while the therapeutic side of things has been focused on microbial optimization, nutritional therapy, mind-body techniques, and lifestyle changes.

    In other words, maximal health for minimal medicalization.

    So… What does she want us to know?

    Live dirty

    While attentive handwashing is important to avoid the spread of communicable diseases*, excessive cleanliness in general can result in an immune system that has no idea how to deal with pathogens when exposure does finally occur.

    *See also: The Truth About Handwashing

    This goes doubly for babies: especially those who were born by c-section and thus missed out on getting colonized by vaginal bacteria, and especially those who are not breast-fed, and thus miss out on nutrients given in breast milk that are made solely for the benefit of certain symbiotic bacteria (humans can’t even digest those particular nutrients, we literally evolved to produce some nutrients solely for the bacteria).

    See also: Breast Milk’s Benefits That Are (So Far) Not Replicable

    However, it still goes for the rest of us who are not babies, too. We could, Dr. Chutkan tells us, stand to wash less in general, and definitely ease up on antibacterial soaps and so forth.

    See also: Should You Shower Daily?

    Take antibiotics only if absolutely necessary (and avoid taking them by proxy)

    Dr. Chutkan describes antibiotics as the single biggest threat to our microbiome, not just because of overprescription, but also the antibiotics that are used in animal agriculture and thus enter the food chain (and thus, enter us, if we eat animal products).

    Still, while the antibiotics meat/dairy-enjoyers will get from food are better avoided, antibiotics actually taken directly are even worse, and are absolutely a “scorched earth” tactic against whatever they’re being prescribed for.

    See also: Antibiotics? Think Thrice ← which also brings up “Four Ways Antibiotics Can Kill You”; seriously, the risks of antibiotics are not to be underestimated, including the risks associated only with them working exactly as intended—let alone if something goes wrong.

    Probiotics won’t save you

    While like any gastroenterologist (or really, almost any person in general), she notes that probiotics can give a boost to health. However, she wants us to know about two shortcomings that are little-discussed:

    1) Your body has a collection of microbiomes each with their own needs, and while it is possible to take “generally good” bacteria in probiotics and assume they’ll do good, taking Lactobacillus sp. will do nothing for a shortage of Bifidobacteria sp, and even taking the correct genus can have similar shortcomings if a different species of that genus is needed, e.g. taking L. acidophilus will do nothing for a shortage of L. reuteri.

    It’d be like a person with a vitamin D deficiency taking vitamin B12 supplements and wondering why they’re not getting better.

    2) Probiotics are often wasted if not taken mindfully of their recipient environment. For example, most gut bacteria only live for about 20 minutes in the gut. They’re usually inactive in the supplement form, they’re activated in the presence of heat and moisture and appropriate pH etc, and then the clock is ticking for them to thrive or die.

    This means that if you take a supplement offering two billion strains of good gut bacteria, and you take it on an empty stomach, then congratulations, 20 minutes later, they’re mostly dead, because they had nothing to eat. Or if you take it after drinking a soda, congratulations, they’re mostly dead because not only were they starved, but also their competing “bad” microbes weren’t starved and changed the environment to make it worse for the “good” ones.

    For this reason, taking probiotics with (or immediately after) plenty of fiber is best.

    This is all accentuated if you’re recovering from using antibiotics, by the way.

    Imagine: a nuclear war devastates the population of the Earth. Some astronauts manage to safely return, finding a mostly-dead world covered in nuclear winter. Is the addition of a few astronauts going to quickly repopulate the world? No, of course not. They are few, the death toll is many, and the environment is very hostile to life. A hundred years later, the population will be pretty much the same—a few straggling survivors.

    It’s the same after taking antibiotics, just, generations pass in minutes instead of decades. You can’t wipe out almost everything beneficial in the gut, create a hostile environment there, throw in a couple of probiotic gummies, and expect the population to bounce back.

    That said, although “probiotics will not save you”, they can help provided you give them a nice soft bed of fiber to land on, some is better than none, and guessing at what strains are needed is better than giving nothing.

    See also: How Much Difference Do Probiotic Supplements Make, Really?

    What she recommends

    So to recap, we’ve had:

    • Wash less, and/or with less harsh chemicals
    • Avoid antibiotics like the plague, unless you literally have The Plague, for which the treatment is indeed antibiotics
    • Avoid antibiotic-contaminated foods, which in the US is pretty much all animal products unless it’s, for example, your own back-yard hens whom you did not give antibiotics. Do not fall for greenwashing aesthetics in the packaging of “happy cows” and their beef, milk, etc, “happy hens” and their meat, eggs, etc… If it doesn’t explicitly claim to be free from the use of antibiotics, then antibiotics were almost certainly used.
      • Dr. Chutkan herself is not even vegan, by the way, but very much wants us to be able to make informed choices about this, and does recommend at least a “plants-forward” diet, for the avoiding-antibiotics reason and for the plenty-of-fiber reason, amongst others.
    • Consider probiotics, but don’t expect them to work miracles by themselves; you’ve got to help them to help you.
      • Dr. Chutkan also recommends getting microbiome tests done if you think something might be amiss, and then you can supplement with probiotics in a more targetted fashion instead of guessing at what species is needed where.

    She also recommends, of course, a good gut-healthy diet in general, especially “leafy green things that were recently alive; not powders”, beans, and nuts, while avoiding gut-unhealthy things such as sugars-without-fiber, alcohol, or some gut-harmful additives (such as most artificial sweeteners, although stevia is a gut-healthy exception, and sucralose is ok in moderation).

    For more on gut-healthy eating, check out:

    Make Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)

    Want to know more from Dr. Chutkan?

    We recently reviewed an excellent book of hers:

    The Anti-Viral Gut: Tackling Pathogens From The Inside Out – by Dr. Robynne Chutkan

    Enjoy!

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  • Mediterranean Diet… In A Pill?

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    Does It Come In A Pill?

    For any as yet unfamiliar with the Mediterranean diet, you may be wondering what it involves, beyond a general expectation that it’s a diet popularly enjoyed in the Mediterranean. What image comes to mind?

    We’re willing to bet that tomatoes feature (great source of lycopene, by the way, and if you’re not getting lycopene, you’re missing out), but what else?

    • Salads, perhaps? Vegetables, olives? Olive oil, yea or nay?
    • Bread? Pasta? Prosciutto, salami? Cheese?
    • Pizza but only if it’s Romana style, not Chicago?
    • Pan-seared liver, with some fava beans and a nice Chianti?

    In fact, the Mediterranean diet is quite clear on all these questions, so to read about these and more (including a “this yes, that no” list), see:

    What Is The Mediterranean Diet, And What Is It Good For?

    So, how do we get that in a pill?

    A plucky band of researchers, Dr. Chiara de Lucia et al. (quite a lot of “et al.”; nine listed authors on the study), wondered to what extent the benefits of the Mediterranean diet come from the fact that the Mediterranean diet is very rich in polyphenols, and set about testing that, by putting the same polyphenols in capsule form, and running a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover clinical intervention trial.

    Now, polyphenols are not the only reason the Mediterranean diet is great; there are also other considerations, such as:

    • a great macronutrient balance with lots of fiber, healthy fats, moderate carbs, and protein from select sources
    • the absence or at least very low presence of a lot of harmful substances such as refined seed oils, added sugars, refined carbohydrates, and the like (“but pasta” yes pasta; in moderation and wholegrain and served with extra sources of fiber and healthy fats, all of which slow down the absorption of the carbs)

    …but polyphenols are admittedly very important too; we wrote about some common aspects of them here:

    Tasty Polyphenols: Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain

    As for what Dr. de Lucia et al. put into the capsule, behold…

    The ingredients:

    1. Apple Extract 10.0%
    2. Pomegranate Extract 10.0%
    3. Tomato Powder 2.5%
    4. Beet, Spray Dried 2.5%
    5. Olive Extract 7.5%
    6. Rosemary Extract 7.5%
    7. Green Coffee Bean Extract (CA) 7.5%
    8. Kale, Freeze Dried 2.5%
    9. Onion Extract 10.0%
    10. Ginger Extract 10.0%
    11. Grapefruit Extract 2.5%
    12. Carrot, Air Dried 2.5%
    13. Grape Skin Extract 17.5%
    14. Blueberry Extract 2.5%
    15. Currant, Freeze Dried 2.5%
    16. Elderberry, Freeze Dried 2.5%

    And the relevant phytochemicals they contain:

    • Quercetin
    • Luteolin
    • Catechins
    • Punicalagins
    • Phloretin
    • Ellagic Acid
    • Naringin
    • Apigenin
    • Isorhamnetin
    • Chlorogenic Acids
    • Rosmarinic Acid
    • Anthocyanins
    • Kaempferol
    • Proanthocyanidins
    • Myricetin
    • Betanin

    And what, you may wonder, did they find? Well, first let’s briefly summarise the setup of the study:

    They took volunteers (n=30), average age 67, BMI >25, without serious health complaints, not taking other supplements, not vegetarian or vegan, not consuming >5 cups of coffee per day, and various other stipulations like that, to create a fairly homogenous study group who were expected to respond well to the intervention. In contrast, someone who takes antioxidant supplements, already eats many different color plants per day, and drinks 10 cups of coffee, probably already has a lot of antioxidant activity going on, and someone with a lower BMI will generally have lower resting levels of inflammatory markers, so it’s harder to see a change, proportionally.

    About those inflammatory markers: that’s what they were testing, to see whether the intervention “worked”; essentially, did the levels of inflammatory markers go up or down (up is bad; down is good).

    For more on inflammation, by the way, see:

    How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation

    …which also explains what it actually is, and some important nuances about it.

    Back to the study…

    They gave half the participants the supplement for a week and the other half placebo; had a week’s gap as a “washout”, then repeated it, switching the groups, taking blood samples before and after each stage.

    What they found:

    The group taking the supplement had lower inflammatory markers after a week of taking it, while the group taking the placebo had relatively higher inflammatory markers after a week of taking it; this trend was preserved across both groups (i.e., when they switched roles for the second half).

    The results were very significant (p=0.01 or thereabouts), and yet at the same time, quite modest (i.e. the supplement made a very reliable, very small difference), probably because of the small dose (150mg) and small intervention period (1 week).

    What the researchers concluded from this

    The researchers concluded that this was a success; the study had been primarily to provide proof of principle, not to rock the world. Now they want the experiment to be repeated with larger sample sizes, greater heterogeneity, larger doses, and longer intervention periods.

    This is all very reasonable and good science.

    Read in full: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Cross-Over Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Biological Effects and Safety of a Polyphenol Supplement on Healthy Ageing

    What we conclude from this

    That ingredients list makes for a good shopping list!

    Well, not the extracts they listed, necessarily, but rather those actual fruits, vegetables, etc.

    If nine top scientists (anti-aging specialists, neurobiologists, pharmacologists, and at least one professor of applied statistics) came to the conclusion that to get the absolute most bang-for-buck possible, those are the plants to get the phytochemicals from, then we’re not going to ignore that.

    So, take another list above and ask yourself: how many of those 16 foods do you eat regularly, and could you work the others in?

    Want to make your Mediterranean diet even better?

    While the Mediterranean diet is a top-tier catch-all, it can be tweaked for specific areas of health, for example giving it an extra focus on heart health, or brain health, or being anti-inflammatory, or being especially gut healthy:

    Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean

    Enjoy!

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