Rosehip’s Benefits, Inside & Out
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.
It’s In The Hips
Rosehip (often also written: “rose hip”, “rosehips”, or “rose hips”, but we’ll use the singular compound here to cover its use as a supplement) is often found as an extra ingredient in various supplements, and also various herbal teas. But what is it and what does it actually do?
What it is: it’s the fruiting body that appears on rose plants underneath where the petals appear. They are seasonal.
As for what it does, read on…
Anti-inflammatory
Rosehip is widely sought for (and has been well-studied for) its anti-inflammatory powers.
Because osteoarthritis is one of the most common inflammatory chronic diseases around, a lot of the studies are about OA, but the mechanism of action is well-established as being antioxidant and anti-inflammatory in general:
❝Potent antioxidant radical scavenging effects are well documented for numerous rose hip constituents besides Vitamin C.
Furthermore, anti-inflammatory activities include the reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, reduction of NF-kB signaling, inhibition of pro-inflammatory enzymes, including COX1/2, 5-LOX and iNOS, reduction of C-reactive protein levels, reduction of chemotaxis and chemoluminescence of PMNs, and an inhibition of pro-inflammatory metalloproteases.❞
Note that while rosehip significantly reduces inflammation, it doesn’t affect the range of movement in OA—further making clear its mechanism of action:
Read: Rosa canina fruit (rosehip) for osteoarthritis: a cochrane review
Anti-aging
This is partly about its antioxidant effect, but when it comes to skin, also partly its high vitamin C content. In this 8-week study, for example, taking 3mg/day resulted in significant reductions of many measures of skin aging:
Heart healthy
The dose required to achieve this benefit is much higher, but nonetheless its effectiveness is clear, for example:
❝Daily consumption of 40 g of rose hip powder for 6 weeks can significantly reduce cardiovascular risk in obese people through lowering of systolic blood pressure and plasma cholesterol levels. ❞
~ Dr. Mona Landin-Olsson et al.
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Recommended
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
The Collagen Cure – by Dr. James DiNicolantonio
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.
Collagen is vital for, well, most of our bodies, really. Where me most tend to feel its deficiency is in our joints and skin, but it’s critical for bones and many other tissues too.
You may be wondering: why a 572-page book to say what surely must amount to “take collagen, duh”?
Dr. DiNicolantonio has a lot more of value to offer us than that. In this book, we learn about not just collagen synthesis and usage, different types of collagen, the metabolism of it in our diet (if we get it—vegans and vegetarians won’t). We also learn about the building blocks of collagen (vegans and vegetarians do get these, assuming a healthy balanced diet), with a special focus on glycine, the smallest amino acid which makes up about a third of the mass of collagen (a protein).
Not stopping there, we also learn about the interplay of other nutrients with our metabolism of glycine and, if applicable, collagen. Vitamin C and copper are star features, but there’s a lot more going on with other nutrients too, down to the level of “So take this 75 minutes before this but after that and/but definitely not with the other”, etc.
The style is incredibly clear and readable for something that’s also quite scientifically dense (over 1000 references and many diagrams).
Bottom line: if you’re serious about maintaining your body as you get older, and you’d like a book about collagen that’s a lot more helpful than “take collagen, duh”, then this is the book for you.
Click here to check out The Collagen Cure, and take care of yours!
Share This Post
-
Water: For Health, for Healing, for Life – by Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj
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.
Notwithstanding the cover’s declaration of “you’re not sick, you’re thirsty”, in fact this book largely makes the argument that both are often the case simultaneously, and that dehydration plays a bigger role in disease pathogenesis and progression than it is credited for.
You may be wondering: is this 304 pages to say “drink some water”?
And the answer is: yes, somewhat. However, it also goes into detail of how and why it is relevant in each case, which means that there will be, once you have read this, more chance of your dehydrated and thus acutely-less-functional brain going “oh, I remember what this is” rather than just soldiering on dehydrated because you are too dehydrated to remember to hydrate.
The strength of the book really is in motivation; understanding why things happen the way they do and thus why they matter, is a huge part of then actually being motivated to do something about it. And let’s face it, a “yes, I will focus on my hydration” health kick is typically sustained for less time than many more noticeable (e.g. diet and exercise) healthy lifestyle adjustments, precisely because there’s less there to focus on so it gets forgotten.
The style is a little dated (the book is from 2003, and the style feels like it is from the 80s, which is when the author was doing most of his research, before launching his first book, which we haven’t read-and-reviewed yet, in 1992) but perfectly clear and pleasant to read.
Bottom line: this book may well get you to actually drink more water
Click here to check out Water: For Health, for Healing, for Life, and get hydrating!
Share This Post
-
Healthy Relationship, Healthy Life
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.
Only One Kind Of Relationship Promotes Longevity This Much!
One of the well-established keys of a long healthy life is being in a fulfilling relationship. That’s not to say that one can’t be single and happy and fulfilled—one totally can. But statistically, those who live longest, do so in happy, fulfilling, committed relationships.
Note: happy, fulfilling, committed relationships. Less than that won’t do. Your insurance company might care about your marital status for its own sake, but your actual health doesn’t—it’s about the emotional safety and security that a good, healthy, happy, fulfilling relationship offers.
How to keep the “love coals” warm
When “new relationship energy” subsides and we’ve made our way hand-in-hand through the “honeymoon period”, what next? For many, a life of routine. And that’s not intrinsically bad—routine itself can be comforting! But for love to work, according to relational psychologists, it also needs something a little more.
What things? Let’s break it down…
Bids for connection—and responsiveness to same
There’s an oft-quoted story about a person who knew their marriage was over when their spouse wouldn’t come look at their tomatoes. That may seem overblown, but…
When we care about someone, we want to share our life with them. Not just in the sense of cohabitation and taxes, but in the sense of:
- Little moments of joy
- Things we learned
- Things we saw
- Things we did
…and there’s someone we’re first to go to share these things with. And when we do, that’s a “bid for connection”. It’s important that we:
- Make bids for connection frequently
- Respond appropriately to our partner’s bids for connection
Of course, we cannot always give everything our full attention. But whenever we can, we should show as much genuine interest as we can.
Keep asking the important questions
Not just “what shall we have for dinner?”, but:
- “What’s a life dream that you have at the moment?”
- “What are the most important things in life?”
- “What would you regret not doing, if you never got the chance?”
…and so forth. Even after many years with a partner, the answers can sometimes surprise us. Not because we don’t know our partners, but because the answers can change with time, and sometimes we can even surprise ourselves, if it’s a question we haven’t considered for a while.
It’s good to learn and grow like this together—and to keep doing so!
Express gratitude/appreciation
For the little things as well as the big:
- Thank you for staying by my side during life’s storms
- Thank you for bringing me a coffee
- Thank you for taking on these responsibilities with me
- I really appreciate your DIY skills
- I really appreciate your understanding nature
On which note…
Compliment, often and sincerely
Most importantly, compliment things intrinsic to their character, not just peripheral attributes like appearance, and also not just what they do for you.
- You’re such a patient person; I really admire that
- I really hit the jackpot to get someone I can trust so completely as you
- You are the kindest and sweetest soul I have ever encountered in life
- I love that you have such a blend of strength and compassion
- Your unwavering dedication to your personal values makes me so proud
…whatever goes for your partner and how you see them and what you love about them!
Express your needs, and ask about theirs
We’re none of us mind-readers, and it’s easy to languish in “if they really cared, I wouldn’t have to ask”, or conversely, “if they wanted something, they would surely say so”.
Communicate. Effectively. Life is too short to waste in miscommunication and unsaid things!
We covered much more detailed how-tos of this in a previous issue, but good double-whammy of top tier communication is:
- “I need…” / “Please will you…”
- “What do you need?” / “How can I help?”
Touch. Often.
It takes about 20 seconds of sustained contact for oxytocin to take effect, so remember that when you hug your partner, hold hands when walking, or cuddle up the sofa.
Have regular date nights
It doesn’t have to be fancy. A date night can be cooking together, it can be watching a movie together at home. It can be having a scheduled time to each bring a “big question” or five, from what we talked about above!
Most importantly: it’s a planned shared experience where the intent is to enjoy each other’s romantic company, and have a focus on each other. Having a regularly recurring date night, be it the last day of each month, or every second Saturday, or every Friday night, whatever your schedules allow, makes such a big difference to feel you are indeed “dating” and in the full flushes of love—not merely cohabiting pleasantly.
Want ideas?
Check out these:
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!)
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.
Realistic chronic pain management
We’ve had a number of requests to do a main feature on managing chronic pain, so here it is!
A quick (but important) note before we begin:
Obviously, not all chronic pain is created equal. Furthermore, we know that you, dear reader with chronic pain, have been managing yours for however long you have, learning as you go. You also doubtlessly know your individual condition inside out.
We also know that people with chronic health conditions in general are constantly beset by well-meaning unsolicited advice from friends and family, asking if you’ve heard about [thing you heard about 20 years ago] that will surely change your life and cure you overnight.
It’s frustrating, and we’re going to try to avoid doing that here, while still offering the advice that was asked for. We ask you, therefore, to kindly overlook whatever you already knew, and if you already knew it all, well, we salute you and will not be surprised if that’s the case for at least some readers. Chronic pain’s a… Well, it’s a chronic pain.
All that said, let’s dive in…
How are you treating your body right now?
Are you hydrated; have you eaten; are you standing/sitting/lying in a position that at least should be comfortable for you in principle?
The first two things affect pain perception; the latter can throw a spanner in the works if something’s not quite right.
Move your body (gently!)
You know your abilities, so think about the range of motion that you have, especially in the parts of your body that hurt (if that’s “everywhere”, then, our sympathies, and we hope you find the same advice applies). Think about your specific muscles and joints as applicable, and what the range of motion is “supposed” to be for each. Exercise your range of motion as best you can (gently!) to the point of its limit(s) and/or pain.
- If you take it past that limit, there is a good chance you will make it worse. You don’t want that.
- If you don’t take it to the limit, there is a good chance your range of movement will deteriorate, and your “safe zone” (i.e., body positions that are relatively free from pain) will diminish. You definitely don’t want that, either.
Again, moderation is key. Yes, annoying as the suggestion may be, such things as yoga etc can help, if done carefully and gently. You know your limits; work with those, get rest between, and do what you can.
For most people this will at least help keep the pain from getting worse.
Hot & Cold
Both of these things could ease your pain… Or make it worse. There is an element of “try it and see”, but here’s a good general guide:
Here’s How to Choose Between Using Ice or Heat for Pain
Meditation… Or Distraction
Meditating really does help a lot of people. In the case of pain, it can be counterintuitively helpful to focus for a while on the sensation of the pain… But in a calm, detached fashion. Without judgement.
“Yes, I am experiencing pain. Yes, it feels like I’m being stabbed with hot knives. Yes, this is tortuous; wow, I feel miserable. This truly sucks.”
…it doesn’t sound like a good experience, does it? And it’s not, but paying it attention this way can paradoxically help ease things. Pain is, after all, a messenger. And in the case of chronic pain, it’s in some ways a broken messenger, but what a messenger most needs is to be heard.
The above approach a) is good b) may have a limit in how long you can sustain it at a time, though. So…
The opposite is a can be a good (again, short-term) approach too. Call a friend, watch your favorite movie, play a video game if that’s your thing. It won’t cure anything, but it can give you a little respite.
Massage
Unless you already know this makes your pain worse, this is a good thing to try. It doesn’t have to be a fancy spa; if the nature of your pain and condition permits, you can do self-massage. If you have a partner or close friend who can commit to helping, it can be very worth them learning to give a good massage. There are often local courses available, and failing that, there is also YouTube.
Here’s an example of a good video for myofascial release massage, which can ease a lot of common kinds of chronic pain:
Some quick final things to remember:
- If you find something helps, then it helps, do that.
- That goes for mobility aids and other disability aids too, even if it was designed for a different disability. If it helps, it helps. You’re not stealing anyone’s thunder (or resources) by using something that makes your life easier. We’re not in this life to suffer!
- There is no such thing as “this pain is not too much”. The correct amount of pain is zero. Maybe your body won’t let you reach zero, but more than that is “too much” already.
- You don’t have to be suffering off the scale to deserve relief from pain
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
The Truth About Handwashing
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.
Washing Our Hands Of It
In Tuesdays’s newsletter, we asked you how often you wash your hands, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of self-reported answers:
- About 54% said “More times per day than [the other options]”
- About 38% said “Whenever using the bathroom or kitchen
- About 5% said “Once or twice per day”
- Two (2) said “Only when visibly dirty”
- Two (2) said “I prefer to just use sanitizer gel”
What does the science have to say about this?
People lie about their handwashing habits: True or False?
True and False (since some people lie and some don’t), but there’s science to this too. Here’s a great study from 2021 that used various levels of confidentiality in questioning (i.e., there were ways of asking that made it either obvious or impossible to know who answered how), and found…
❝We analysed data of 1434 participants. In the direct questioning group 94.5% of the participants claimed to practice proper hand hygiene; in the indirect questioning group a significantly lower estimate of only 78.1% was observed.❞
Note: the abstract alone doesn’t make it clear how the anonymization worked (it is explained later in the paper), and it was noted as a limitation of the study that the participants may not have understood how it works well enough to have confidence in it, meaning that the 78.1% is probably also inflated, just not as much as the 94.5% in the direct questioning group.
Here’s a pop-science article that cites a collection of studies, finding such things as for example…
❝With the use of wireless devices to record how many people entered the restroom and used the pumps of the soap dispensers, researchers were able to collect data on almost 200,000 restroom trips over a three-month period.
The found that only 31% of men and 65% of women washed their hands with soap.❞
Source: Study: Men Wash Their Hands Much Less Often Than Women (And People Lie About Washing Their Hands)
Sanitizer gel does the job of washing one’s hands with soap: True or False?
False, though it’s still not a bad option for when soap and water aren’t available or practical. Here’s an educational article about the science of why this is so:
UCI Health | Soap vs. Hand Sanitizer
There’s also some consideration of lab results vs real-world results, because while in principle the alcohol gel is very good at killing most bacteria / inactivating most viruses, it can take up to 4 minutes of alcohol gel contact to do so, as in this study with flu viruses:
In contrast, 20 seconds of handwashing with soap will generally do the job.
Antibacterial soap is better than other soap: True or False?
False, because the main way that soap protects us is not in its antibacterial properties (although it does also destroy the surface membrane of many bacteria and for that matter viruses too, killing/inactivating them, respectively), but rather in how it causes pathogens to simply slide off during washing.
Here’s a study that found that handwashing with soap reduced disease incidence by 50–53%, and…
❝Incidence of disease did not differ significantly between households given plain soap compared with those given antibacterial soap.❞
Read more: Effect of handwashing on child health: a randomised controlled trial
Want to wash your hands more than you do?
There have been many studies into motivating people to wash their hands more (often with education and/or disgust-based shaming), but an effective method you can use for yourself at home is to simply buy more luxurious hand soap, and generally do what you can to make handwashing a more pleasant experience (taking a moment to let the water run warm is another good thing to do if that’s more comfortable for you).
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Banana Bread vs Bagel – Which is Healthier?
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.
Our Verdict
When comparing banana bread to bagel, we picked the bagel.
Why?
Unlike most of the items we compare in this section, which are often “single ingredient” or at least highly standardized, today’s choices are rather dependent on recipe. Certainly, your banana bread and your bagels may not be the same as your neighbor’s. Nevertheless, to compare averages, we’ve gone with the FDA’s Food Central Database for reference values, using the most default average recipes available. Likely you could make either or both of them a little healthier, but as it is, this is how we’ve gone about making it a fair comparison. With that in mind…
In terms of macros, bagels have more than 2x the protein and about 4x the fiber, while banana bread has slightly higher carbs and about 7x more fat. You may be wondering: are the fats healthy? And the answer is, it could be better, could be worse. The FDA recipe went with margarine rather than butter, which lowered the saturated fat to being only ¼ of the total fat (it would have been higher, had they used butter) whereas bagels have no saturated fat at all—which characteristic is quite integral to bagels, unless you make egg bagels, which is rather a different beast. All in all, the macros category is a clear win for bagels, especially when we consider the carb to fiber ratio.
In the category of vitamins, bagels have on average more vitamin B1, B3, B5, and B9, while banana bread has on average more of vitamins A and C. A modest win for bagels.
When it comes to minerals, bagels are the more nutrient dense with more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while banana bread is not higher in any minerals. An obvious and easy win for bagels.
Closing thoughts: while the micronutrient profile quite possibly differs wildly from one baker to another, something that will probably stay more or less the same regardless is the carb to fiber ratio, and protein to fat. As a result, we’d weight the macros category as the more universally relevant. Bagels won in all categories today, as it happened, but it’s fairly safe to say that, on average, a baker who makes bagels and banana bread with the same levels of conscientiousness for health (or lack thereof) will tend to make bagels that are healthier than banana bread, based on the carb to fiber ratio, and the protein to fat ratio.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?
- Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)
- Wholewheat Bread vs Seeded White – Which is Healthier?
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: