“Good health” is quite a broad umbrella, and while we all have a general idea of what “healthy” looks like, it’s easy to focus on some areas and overlook others.

Of course, how much one does this will still depend on one’s level of interest in health, which can change over the course of life, and (barring serious midlife health-related curveballs such as a cancer diagnosis or something) often looks like an inverse bell curve:

• As small kids, we probably barely thought about health
• As teenagers, we probably had a narrow view of health (often related to whatever is considered sexually attractive at the time)
• In our 20s, may have a bit of a health kick in which we learn and apply a lot… Which often then gets to later take a bit of a back seat to work responsibilities and so forth
• This is commonly followed by a few decades of just trying to make it to Friday by any means necessary (definite risk factor for substance abuse of various kinds), double if we have kids, triple if we have work, kids, and are also solely responsible for managing the household.
• Then just as suddenly as it is predictably, we are ambushed when approaching retirement age by a cluster of age-related increased health risks that we now get to do our best to mitigate—the focus here is “not dying early”. A lot of health education occurs at this time.
• Finally, upon retirement, we actually get the time to truly focus on our health again, and now it’s easier to learn about all aspects of health, even if now there’s a need to juggle many health issues all at once, most of which affect the others.

See also: How Likely Are You To Live To 100? ← in which we can also see a graph of 10almonds subscribers’ ages, consistent with the above

So, let’s recap, and personalize our health plan

There are often things we wish we could have focused on sooner, so now’s the time to figure out what future-you in your next decade (or later!) is going to thank you for having done now.

So, while 20-year-old us might have been focusing on fat levels or athletic performance, how much does that really help us now? (With apologies to any readers in their 20s, but also, with the bonus for you: now’s the perfect time to plan ahead!)

At 10almonds, while we cover very many health topics, we often especially focus on:

• Brain health
• Heart health
• Gut health

…because they affect everything else so much. We’ve listed them there in the order they appear in the body, but in fact it can be useful to view them upside down, because:

• Gut health is critical for good metabolic health (a happy efficient gut allows us to process nutrients, including energy, efficiently)
• Metabolic health is critical for good heart health (a nicely ticking metabolism will not strain our heart)
• Heart health is critical for good brain health (a strong heart will nourish the brain with well-oxygenated blood and the nutrients it also carries)

So, this isn’t a catch-22 at all! There is a clear starting point:

Stop Sabotaging Your Gut

“How do I do the other bits, though?”

We have you covered here: Your Health Audit, From Head To Toe

“Wait, where’s the personalization?”

This comes once you’ve got those above things in order.

Hopefully you know what particular health risks you have—as in, particular to you.

First, you will have any current diagnoses, and a plan for treating those. Many chronic illnesses can be reversed or at least lessened with lifestyle changes, in particular, if we reduce chronic inflammation, which is implicated in countless chronic illnesses, and exacerbates most of the rest.

So: How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation

The same goes for any heightened risks you have as a result of those current diagnoses.

Next, you will have any genetic health risks—so here’s where genetic testing is a good one-shot tool, to get a lot of information all in one go.

Learn more: The Real Benefit Of Genetic Testing

…and then, of course, take appropriate steps to avoid suffering the things of which you are at increased genetic risk.

Finally, you will have any personal concerns or goals—in other words, what do you want to still be able to do, later in life? It’s easy to say “everything”, but what’s most important?

This writer’s example: I want to remain mobile, free from pain, and sharp of mind.

That doesn’t mean I’ll neglect the rest of my health, but it does mean that I will regularly weigh my choices against whether they are consistent with those three things.

As for how to plan for that?

Check out: Train For The Event Of Your Life! ← this one is mostly about the mobility aspect; staying free from pain is in large part a matter of avoiding inflammation which we already discussed, and staying sharp of mind relies on the gut-heart-brain pipeline we also covered.

You can also, of course, personalize your diet per which areas of health are the most important for you:

Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean (most anti-inflammatory, gut-healthiest, heart-healthiest, brain-healthiest)

Take care!

Bell Peppers: A Spectrum Of Specialties

We were going to do this as part of our ongoing “This Or That?” challenge, but as there are four main types all with many different benefits, we thought this bunch of fruits deserved a main feature.

And yes, they’re botanically fruits, even if culinarily used as vegetables—much like tomatoes, famously!

They’re all the same (but also very much not)

A thing to know is that whether bell peppers be green, yellow, orange, or red, they’re all the same plant, Capiscum anuum. All that differs is how early or late they’re harvested.

Notwithstanding the “Capiscum” genus, they don’t contain capsaicin (as is found in hot peppers). Capsaicin’s a wonderful phytochemical:

Capsaicin For Weight Loss And Against Inflammation

…but today we’re all about the bell peppers.

So, let’s see how they stack up!

💚 Green for lutein

Lutein is especially important for the eyes and [the rest of the] brain, to the point that there’s now an Alzheimer’s test that measures lutein concentration in the eye:

Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

Green peppers have most of this important carotenoid, though the others all have some too. See also:

Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!

💛 Yellow for vitamin C

Yellow peppers are technically highest in vitamin C, but all of them contain far more than the daily dose per fruit already, so if there’s any color of pepper that’s nutritionally the most expendable, it’s yellow, since any other color pepper can take its place.

Watch out, though! Cooking destroys vitamin C, so if you want to get your Cs in, you’re going to want to do it raw.

🧡 Orange for zeaxanthin and cryptoxanthins

Similar in their benefits to lutein, these antioxidant carotenoids are found most generously in orange peppers (20x as much as in yellow, 10x as much as in red, and slightly more than in green).

❤️ Red for vitamins A & B6

Red peppers are richest by far in vitamin A, with one fruit giving the daily dose already. The others have about 10% of that, give or take.

Red peppers also have the most vitamin B6, though the others also have nearly as much.

❤️ Red for lycopene

We must do a main feature for lycopene sometime, as unlike a lot of antioxidant carotenoids, lycopene is found in comparatively very few foods (most famously it’s present in tomatoes).

Red is the only color of pepper to have lycopene.

10almonds tip: to get the most out of your lycopene, cook these ones!

Lycopene becomes 4x more bioavailable when cooked:

Lycopene in tomatoes: chemical and physical properties affected by food processing ← this paper is about tomatoes but lycopene is lycopene and this applies to the lycopene in red peppers, too

And the overall winner is…

You! Because you get to eat all four of them

Enjoy!