The End of Heart Disease – by Dr. Joel Fuhrman
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.
We’ve previously reviewed another of Dr. Fuhrman’s books, “Eat To Live”, and this time, he’s focusing specifically on preventing/reversing heart disease.
Dr. Fuhrman takes the stance that our food can either kill or heal us, and we get to choose which. As such, nutrition is central to his heart-healthy plan; he mostly leaves matters of exercise, sleep, etc to other sources.
His dietary approach is mostly uncontroversial: for example, advices include: enjoy nutritionally dense foods, skip processed foods, eat at least mostly plants, skip the added salt. A slightly more controversial aspect is that he advocates for avoiding cooking oils, including the healthiest oils, including olive and avocado, which are by current scientific consensus considered heart-healthy in moderation. As in, not even just heart-neutral, but rather, they actively improve triglycerides.
He compares different cardioprotective diets, and while he’s not unbiased, he does provide 40 pages of scholarly references, so we may understand that at the very least, his approach is sound.
There are also recipes—94 pages of them—for any who might wonder “how do I cook without…?” and some ingredient he would rather you omit.
The style is information-dense (and this is a 448-page book) but still very readable.
Bottom line: if you’re serious about improving your heart health, this book can help a lot with that.
Click here to check out The End Of Heart Disease, and end heart disease for yourself!
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:
-
Teriyaki Chickpea Burgers
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.
Burgers are often not considered the healthiest food, but they can be! Ok, so the teriyaki sauce component itself isn’t the healthiest, but the rest of this recipe is, and with all the fiber this contains, it’s a net positive healthwise, even before considering the protein, vitamins, minerals, and assorted phytonutrients.
You will need
- 2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or 2 cups of chickpeas, cooked drained and rinsed)
- ¼ cup chickpea flour (also called gram flour or garbanzo bean flour)
- ¼ cup teriyaki sauce
- 2 tbsp almond butter (if allergic, substitute with a seed butter if available, or else just omit; do not substitute with actual butter—it will not work)
- ½ bulb garlic, minced
- 1 large chili, minced (your choice what kind, color, or even whether or multiply it)
- 1 large shallot, minced
- 1″ piece of ginger, grated
- 2 tsp teriyaki sauce (we’re listing this separately from the ¼ cup above as that’ll be used differently)
- 1 tsp yeast extract (even if you don’t like it; trust us, it’ll work—this writer doesn’t like it either but uses it regularly in recipes like these)
- 1 tbsp black pepper
- 1 tsp fennel powder
- ½ tsp sweet cinnamon
- ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt
- Extra virgin olive oil for frying
For serving:
- Burger buns (you can use our Delicious Quinoa Avocado Bread recipe)
- Whatever else you want in there; we recommend mung bean sprouts, red onion, and a nice coleslaw
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Preheat the oven to 400℉ / 200℃.
2) Roast the chickpeas spaced out on a baking tray (lined with baking paper) for about 15 minutes. Leave the oven on afterwards; we still need it.
3) While that’s happening, heat a little oil in a skillet to a medium heat and fry the shallot, chili, garlic, and ginger, for about 2–3 minutes. You want to release the flavors, but not destroy them.
4) Let them cool, and when the chickpeas are done, let them cool for a few minutes too, before putting them all into a food processor along with the rest of the ingredients from the main section, except the oil and the ¼ cup teriyaki sauce. Process them into a dough.
5) Form the dough into patties; you should have enough dough for 4–6 patties depending on how big you want them.
6) Brush them with the teriyaki sauce; turn them onto a baking tray (lined with baking paper) and brush the other side too. Be generous.
7) Bake them for about 15 minutes, turn them (taking the opportunity to add more teriyaki sauce if it seems to merit it) and bake for another 5–10 minutes.
8) Assemble; we recommend the order: bun, a little coleslaw, burger, red onion, more coleslaw, mung bean sprouts, bun, but follow your heart!
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Three Daily Servings of Beans/Legumes?
- Hoisin Sauce vs Teriyaki Sauce – Which is Healthier?
- Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc
- Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits? ← we scored 4/5 today!
- Monosodium Glutamate: Sinless Flavor-Enhancer Or Terrible Health Risk?
Take care!
Share This Post
-
For Athletic Performance, Can Plant-Based Diets Compete?
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.
There are, of course, health risks that come with eating meat. See for example: The Whys and Hows of Cutting Meats Out Of Your Diet
But, it’s very reasonable to be wary of making big changes! For this reason, we have previously asked (and answered) such questions as: Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy?
The short answer to that question, by the way, is that by nature, humans are quite versatile generalists when it comes to diet:
- Most of us can live healthily and happily on just plants if we so choose.
- Some people cannot, and will require varying kinds (and quantities) of animal products.
- As for red and/or processed meats, we’re not the boss of you, but from a health perspective, the science is clear: unless you have a circumstance that really necessitates it, just don’t.
- Same goes for pork, which isn’t so red in color and may not be processed, but metabolically it’s associated with the same problems and is generally classified as “red meat” for the purposes of studies.
- The jury is out on poultry, but it strongly appears to be optional, healthwise, without making much of a difference either way
- Fish is roundly considered healthful in moderation. Enjoy it if you want, don’t if you don’t.
The longer answer, of course, can be found in the link we gave up top 🙂
We have also previously tackled the quite general question of: Plant vs Animal Protein
But what about the more specific question of “for athletic performance”?
Science has the answer
When it comes to muscle-building specifically, it has already been established that assuming a broadly healthy balanced diet, and getting sufficient protein from your chosen source, it doesn’t make too much of a difference if you include animal products or not:
- Vegan and Omnivorous High Protein Diets Support Comparable Daily Myofibrillar Protein Synthesis Rates and Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy in Young Adults
- A mycoprotein-based high-protein vegan diet supports equivalent daily myofibrillar protein synthesis rates compared with an isonitrogenous omnivorous diet in older adults: a randomised controlled trial
(both studies showed that both dietary approaches yielded results that showed no difference in muscle synthesis between the two)
More recently, researchers (Dr. Chloe Raygoza et al.) did an experiment in which the participants were runners or resistance trainers (i.e. athletes who did resistance training, not necessarily that they were training someone else), who were normally omnivorous, and exercised 3–4 times per week. The plant-based phase replaced meat with foods such as beans, tofu, and plant-based meat alternatives, and each participant followed both diets for four weeks in random order, serving as their own control.
Quick note on diet quality: compared with the omnivore diet, the plant-based diet provided more carbohydrates, fiber, iron, and calcium, while the omnivore diet contained more saturated fat, cholesterol, and vitamin B12. Calorie intake was similar between diets.
As for the results? In few words:
- Endurance results: no significant difference
- Strength results: no significant difference
Sometimes, the correct and useful answer doesn’t have to be exciting!
If you’d like to read the paper in full, here it is: Plant-Based vs. Omnivore diets for athletic performance outcomes among recreational athletes in university dining halls: a randomized crossover study
Want to learn more?
For a much more in-depth exploration and comprehensive guide, you might like these books we reviewed:
- High-Protein Plant-Based Diet for Beginners – by Maya Howard with Ariel Warren
- The Plant-Based Athlete – by Matt Frazier and Robert Cheeke
- Be A Plant-Based Woman Warrior – by Jane Esselstyn & Ann Esselstyn
Enjoy!
Share This Post
-
Reasons Why Your Mitochondria Are Getting Destroyed
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.
Dr. Ashley Froese tells us 13 of the biggest mitochondria-killers:
When those “power plants” get shut down…
How well mitochondria are doing might seem like a trivial issue, since after all, they are so very small, and we humans have bigger things to worry about, right?
But, when it comes down to it, the energy they have is the energy we have. If you don’t recharge your phone battery, your phone dies. If you run your phone battery into the ground and do all the worst things for its longevity, it gives up the ghost entirely much sooner than it otherwise would have done. So it is with mitochondria too.
So, with that in mind, much like you might engage battery-preserving settings on your phone, here are 13 key factors when it comes to mitochondrial health:
- Bad sleep: skipping deep sleep prevents mitochondrial detox, repair, and fusion, leaving your cells overloaded with oxidative waste
- Chronic stress: constant cortisol output forces mitochondria into permanent max-output mode, creating excess oxidative by-products and blocking recovery
- Sedentary lifestyle: lack of movement turns off the signalling that builds new mitochondria, shrinking your overall energy capacity
- Overtraining: daily high-intensity exercise without sufficient rest drives chronic oxidative stress and prevents repair, overloading your system instead of allowing mitochondrial growth
- Sugar spikes: rapid glucose surges overload mitochondria with unburnable fuel, driving inflammation and insulin resistance
- Seed oils: unstable omega-6 fatty acids combine with high glucose to accelerate lipid peroxidation, damaging cellular and mitochondrial membranes
- Low protein intake: insufficient amino acids (including especially glycine and cysteine) impair mitochondrial enzyme repair and energy transport, forcing the body to break down muscle
- Micronutrient deficiencies: low levels of B vitamins, magnesium, and CoQ10 stall the electron transport chain and leak energy as heat instead of ATP
- Statins: these reduce CoQ10 production, impairing ATP synthesis and contributing to fatigue and muscle weakness
- Metformin: this mildly inhibits respiratory chain complex 1, slowing the mitochondrial “assembly line”; may stimulate biogenesis but remains controversial
- Fluoroquinolone antibiotics: drugs like levofloxacin and ciprofloxacin interfere with mitochondrial DNA, sometimes causing prolonged fatigue
- SSRI medications: SSRIs can bind mitochondrial complexes, jamming energy production and increasing oxidative stress, which may contribute to brain fog in some users
- Environmental toxins: pesticides, plastics, and heavy metals inhibit cytochrome oxidase and deplete glutathione, leaving mitochondria vulnerable to oxidative damage
PS: yes, the video says 15 things, but we count 13!
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:
7 Ways To Boost Mitochondrial Health To Fight Disease
Take care!
Share This Post
Related Posts
-
The Common Vaccine That Cuts Cardiac Mortality By 66%
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.
…and other items from this week’s health science news:
Vaccinated against cardiac mortality?
Directly? No. But indirectly? Yes.
Looking at data from 246,822 adults in the US with atherosclerotic heart disease, those who were vaccinated against shingles had 46% fewer major cardiac events and 66% lower risk of death within one year.
Otherwise put in numbers, the vaccine was also associated with:
- 32% fewer heart attacks
- 25% fewer strokes
- 25% fewer instances of heart failure
As one limitation, this was an observational study, so healthier behaviors among vaccinated people could partly explain the benefit, but researchers adjusted for many factors, and the association holds.
In terms of how it likely has this effect, the researchers note that preventing shingles (which caused by the Herpes zoster virus) can reduce not just inflammation, but also the clot formation that can trigger heart attacks and strokes.
Current guidance already recommends shingles vaccination for adults aged 50+ and others with weakened immunity, so now there’s an extra reason to get it:
Read in full: This common vaccine cuts heart risk nearly in half in new study
Ultra-processed foods and cardiac risk
If you don’t feel like reducing your cardiac risk with the above method, how about increasing by an equal and opposite amount, with this method?
In few words: eating higher amounts of ultra-processed foods is linked to a 67% higher risk of heart attack, stroke, or death from heart disease compared with lower intake.
Importantly, the risk doesn’t just spike at high intake—each additional daily serving* increases cardiovascular risk by 5.1%.
*This is about the “servings” listed on packaging. Not “one meal”. More like “5 pringles” etc.
It’s also worth noting that the increased risk remained even after adjusting for calories, overall diet quality, and conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity:
Read in full: Ultra-processed foods linked to 67% higher risk of heart attack and stroke
Related: How Likely Is It That Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs) Will Kill You?
Dr. ChatGPT recommends that teens should starve themselves
These days, a lot of people are turning to ChatGPT and similar LLMs for health advice. We don’t recommend it.
Researchers (Dr. Ayşe Betül Bilen et al.) investigated how good such AI models are at dispensing nutritional advice for teens. Specifically:
❝A total of 60 three-day diet plans were generated in two sessions by five AI models (ChatGPT-4o, Gemini 2.5 Pro, Claude 4.1, Bing Chat-5GPT, and Perplexity) for four standardized adolescent profiles in this cross-sectional and comparative study.❞
In few words: it didn’t go well.
The AI models systematically undercalculated energy requirements by around 700kcal per day, as well as undercalculating protein requirements by 20g/day, carb requirements by 115g/day, and fat requirements by 16g/day.
So, please don’t rely on AI for this, nor let your loved ones do so.
Read in full: AI diet plans underestimate teen nutrition and miss key nutrients
Related: AI: The Doctor That Never Tires? ← this is about made-for-medical deep learning models, not large language models like ChatGPT et al.
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:
-
Less Common Oral Hygiene Options
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.
Less Common Alternatives For Oral Hygiene!
You almost certainly brush your teeth. You might use mouthwash. A lot of people floss for three weeks at a time, often in January.
There are a lot of options for oral hygiene; variations of the above, and many alternatives too. This is a big topic, so rather than try to squeeze it all in one, this will be a several-part series.
- The first part was: Toothpastes & Mouthwashes: Which Help And Which Harm?
- The second part was: Flossing, Better (And Easier!)
- The third (and for now at least, final) part will look at some less common alternatives.
Tooth soap
The idea here is simplicity, and brushing with as few ingredients as possible. Soap cleans your teeth the same way it cleans your (sometimes compositionally quite similar—enamel and all) dishes, without damaging them.
We’d love to link to some science here, but alas, it appears to have not yet been done—at least, we couldn’t find any!
You can make your own tooth soap if you are feeling confident, or you might prefer to buy one ready-made (here’s an example product on Amazon, with various flavor options)
Oil pulling
We are getting gradually more scientific now; there is science for this one… But the (scientific) reviews are mixed:
Wooley et al., 2020, conducted a review of extant studies, and concluded:
❝The limited evidence suggests that oil pulling with coconut oil may have a beneficial effect on improving oral health and dental hygiene❞
The “Science-Based Medicine” project was less positive in its assessment, and declared that all and any studies that found oil pulling to be effective were a matter of researcher/publication bias. We would note that SBM is a private project and is not without its own biases, but for balance, here is what they had to offer:
A more rounded view seems to be that it is a good method for cleaning your teeth if you don’t have better options available (whereby, “better options” is “almost any other method”).
One final consideration, which the above seemed not to consider, is:
If you have sensitive teeth/gums, oil-pulling is the gentlest way of cleaning them, and getting them back into sufficient order that you can comfortably use other methods.
Want to try it? You can use any food-grade oil (coconut oil or olive oil are common choices).
Chewing stick
Not just any stick—a twig of the Salvadora persica tree. This time, there’s lots of science for it, and it’s uncontroversially effective:
❝A number of scientific studies have demonstrated that the miswak (Salvadora persica) possesses antibacterial, anti-fungal, anti-viral, anti-cariogenic, and anti-plaque properties.
Several studies have also claimed that miswak has anti-oxidant, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory effects. The use of a miswak has an immediate effect on the composition of saliva.
Several clinical studies have confirmed that the mechanical and chemical cleansing efficacy of miswak chewing sticks are equal and at times greater than that of the toothbrush❞
Read in full: A review of the therapeutic effects of using miswak (Salvadora Persica) on oral health
And about the efficacy vs using a toothbrush, here’s an example:
Comparative effect of chewing sticks and toothbrushing on plaque removal and gingival health
Want to try the miswak stick? Here’s 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!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Why it’s a bad idea to mix alcohol with some medications
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.
Anyone who has drunk alcohol will be familiar with how easily it can lower your social inhibitions and let you do things you wouldn’t normally do.
But you may not be aware that mixing certain medicines with alcohol can increase the effects and put you at risk.
When you mix alcohol with medicines, whether prescription or over-the-counter, the medicines can increase the effects of the alcohol or the alcohol can increase the side-effects of the drug. Sometimes it can also result in all new side-effects.
How alcohol and medicines interact
The chemicals in your brain maintain a delicate balance between excitation and inhibition. Too much excitation can lead to convulsions. Too much inhibition and you will experience effects like sedation and depression.
Alcohol works by increasing the amount of inhibition in the brain. You might recognise this as a sense of relaxation and a lowering of social inhibitions when you’ve had a couple of alcoholic drinks.
With even more alcohol, you will notice you can’t coordinate your muscles as well, you might slur your speech, become dizzy, forget things that have happened, and even fall asleep.
Alcohol can affect the way a medicine works.
Jonathan Kemper/UnsplashMedications can interact with alcohol to produce different or increased effects. Alcohol can interfere with the way a medicine works in the body, or it can interfere with the way a medicine is absorbed from the stomach. If your medicine has similar side-effects as being drunk, those effects can be compounded.
Not all the side-effects need to be alcohol-like. Mixing alcohol with the ADHD medicine ritalin, for example, can increase the drug’s effect on the heart, increasing your heart rate and the risk of a heart attack.
Combining alcohol with ibuprofen can lead to a higher risk of stomach upsets and stomach bleeds.
Alcohol can increase the break-down of certain medicines, such as opioids, cannabis, seizures, and even ritalin. This can make the medicine less effective. Alcohol can also alter the pathway of how a medicine is broken down, potentially creating toxic chemicals that can cause serious liver complications. This is a particular problem with paracetamol.
At its worst, the consequences of mixing alcohol and medicines can be fatal. Combining a medicine that acts on the brain with alcohol may make driving a car or operating heavy machinery difficult and lead to a serious accident.
Who is at most risk?
The effects of mixing alcohol and medicine are not the same for everyone. Those most at risk of an interaction are older people, women and people with a smaller body size.
Older people do not break down medicines as quickly as younger people, and are often on more than one medication.
Older people also are more sensitive to the effects of medications acting on the brain and will experience more side-effects, such as dizziness and falls.
Smaller and older people are often more affected.
Alfonso Scarpa/UnsplashWomen and people with smaller body size tend to have a higher blood alcohol concentration when they consume the same amount of alcohol as someone larger. This is because there is less water in their bodies that can mix with the alcohol.
What drugs can’t you mix with alcohol?
You’ll know if you can’t take alcohol because there will be a prominent warning on the box. Your pharmacist should also counsel you on your medicine when you pick up your script.
The most common alcohol-interacting prescription medicines are benzodiazepines (for anxiety, insomnia, or seizures), opioids for pain, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and some antibiotics, like metronidazole and tinidazole.
Medicines will carry a warning if you shouldn’t take them with alcohol.
Nial WheateIt’s not just prescription medicines that shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol. Some over-the-counter medicines that you shouldn’t combine with alcohol include medicines for sleeping, travel sickness, cold and flu, allergy, and pain.
Next time you pick up a medicine from your pharmacist or buy one from the local supermarket, check the packaging and ask for advice about whether you can consume alcohol while taking it.
If you do want to drink alcohol while being on medication, discuss it with your doctor or pharmacist first.
Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the School of Pharmacy, University of Sydney; Jasmine Lee, Pharmacist and PhD Candidate, University of Sydney; Kellie Charles, Associate Professor in Pharmacology, University of Sydney, and Tina Hinton, Associate Professor of Pharmacology, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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:
