Vitamin C (Drinkable) vs Vitamin C (Chewable) – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing vitamin C (drinkable) to vitamin C (chewable), we picked the drinkable.

Why?

First let’s look at what’s more or less the same in each:

  • The usable vitamin C content is comparable
  • The bioavailability is comparable
  • The additives to hold it together are comparable

So what’s the difference?

With the drinkable, you also drink a glass of water

If you’d like to read more about how to get the most out of the vitamins you take, you can do so here:

Are You Wasting Your Vitamins? Maybe, But You Don’t Have To

If you’d like to get some of the drinkable vitamin C, here’s an example product on Amazon

Enjoy!

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  • When You “Can’t Complain”

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    A Bone To Pick… Up And Then Put Back Where We Found It

    In today’s Psychology Sunday feature, we’re going to be flipping the narrative on gratitude, by tackling it from the other end.

    We have, by the way, written previously about gratitude, and what mistakes to avoid, in one of our pieces on positive psychology:

    How To Get Your Brain On A More Positive Track (Without Toxic Positivity)

    “Can’t complain”

    Your mission, should you choose to accept it (and come on, who doesn’t like a challenge?) is to go 21 days without complaining (to anyone, including yourself, about anything). If you break your streak, that’s ok, just start again!

    Why?

    Complaining is (unsurprisingly) inversely correlated with happiness, in a self-perpetuating cycle:

    Pet Peeves and Happiness: How Do Happy People Complain?

    And if a stronger motivation is required, there’s a considerable inverse correlation between all-cause happiness and all-cause mortality, even when potential confounding factors (e.g., chronic health conditions, socioeconomic status, etc) are controlled for, and especially as we get older:

    Investing in Happiness: The Gerontological Perspective

    How?

    You may have already formulated some objections by this point, for example:

    • Am I supposed to tell my doctor/therapist “I’m fine thanks; how are you?”
    • Some things are worthy of complaint; should I be silent?

    But both of these issues (communication, and righteousness) have answers:

    On communication:

    There is a difference between complaining, and giving the necessary information in answer to a question—or even volunteering such information.

    For example, when our site went down yesterday, some of you wrote to us to let us know the links weren’t working. There is a substantive difference (semantic, ontological, and teleological) between:

    • The content was great but the links in “you may have missed” did not work.❞ ← a genuine piece of feedback we received (thank you!)
    • Wasted my time, couldn’t read your articles! Unsubscribing, and I hope your socks get wet tomorrow! ← nobody said this; our subscribers are lovely (thank you)
    • Note that the former wasn’t a complaint, it was genuinely helpful feedback, without which we might not have noticed the problem and fixed it.
    • The latter was a complaint, and also (like many complaints) didn’t even address the actual problem usefully.

    What makes it a complaint or not is not the information conveyed, but the tone and intention. So for example:

    “You’ve only done half the job I asked you to!” → “Thank you for doing the first half of this job, could you please do the other half now?”

    Writer’s anecdote: my washing machine needs a part replaced; the part was ordered two weeks ago and I was told it would take a week to arrive. It’s been two weeks, so tomorrow I will not complain, but I will politely ask whether they have any information about the delay, and a new estimated time of arrival. Because you know what? Whatever the delay is, complaining won’t make it arrive last week!

    On righteousness:

    Indeed, some things are very worthy of complaint. But are you able to effect a solution by complaining? If not, then it’s just hot air. And venting isn’t without its own merits (we touched on the benefits of emotional catharsis recently), but that should be a mindful choice when you choose to do that, not a matter of reactivity.

    Complaining is a subset of criticizing, and criticizing can be done without the feeling and intent of complaining. However, it too should definitely be measured and considered, responsive, not reactive. This itself could be the topic for another main feature, but for now, here’s a Psychology Today article that at least explains the distinction in more words than we have room for here:

    React vs Respond: What’s the difference?

    This, by the way, also goes the same for engaging in social and political discourse. It’s easy to get angry and reactive, but it’s good to take a moment to pick your battles, and by all means fight for what you believe in, and/but also do so responsively rather than reactively.

    Not only will your health thank you, but you’re also more likely to “win friends and influence people” and all that!

    What gets measured, gets done

    Find a way of tracking your streak. There are apps for that, like this one, or you could find a low-tech method you prefer.

    Bonus tip: if you do mess up and complain, and you realize as you’re doing it, take a moment to take a breath and correct yourself in the moment.

    Take care!

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  • The Book of Lymph – by Lisa Levitt Gainsely

    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.

    The book starts with an overview of what lymph is and why it matters, before getting into the main meat of the book, which is lymphatic massage techniques to improve lymphatic flow/drainage throughout different parts of the body, and in the context of an assortment of common maladies that may merit particular attention.

    There’s an element of aesthetic medicine here, and improving beauty, but there’s also a whole section devoted to such things as breast care and the like (bearing in mind, the lymphatic system is one of our main defenses against cancer). There’s also a lot about managing lymph in the context of chronic health conditions.

    The style is light pop-science; the science is explained clearly throughout, but without academic citations every few lines as some books might have. The author is, after all, a practitioner (CLT) and/but not an academic.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your lymphatic health, whether for beauty or health maintenance or recovery, this book will walk you through it.

    Click here to check out The Book of Lymph, and give yours some love!

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  • Sauerkraut vs Pickled Cucumber – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing sauerkraut to pickled cucumber, we picked the sauerkraut.

    Why?

    Both of these fermented foods can give a gut-healthy microbiome boost, but how do they stack up otherwise?

    In terms of macros, sauerkraut has more protein, carbs, and fiber. They are both low glycemic index foods, so we’ll go with the one that has more fiber out of the two, and that’s the ‘kraut.

    In the category of vitamins, sauerkraut has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, C, E, and choline, while pickled cucumbers have more of vitamins A and K. An easy win for sauerkraut.

    When it comes to minerals, sauerkraut has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc, while pickled cucumbers are not higher in any mineral, except sodium (on average, pickled cucumbers have about 2x the sodium of sauerkraut). Another clear win for sauerkraut.

    In short, enjoy either or both in moderation, but it’s clear which boasts the most nutritional benefits, and that’s the sauerkraut!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

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

    Take care!

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  • Purpose – by Gina Bianchini

    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.

    To address the elephant in the room, this is not a rehash of Rick Warren’s best-selling “The Purpose-Driven Life”. Instead, this book is (in this reviewer’s opinion) a lot better. It’s a lot more comprehensive, and it doesn’t assume that what’s most important to the author will be what’s most important to you.

    What’s it about, then? It’s about giving your passion (whatever it may be) the tools to have an enduring impact on the world. It recommends doing this by leveraging a technology that would once have been considered magic: social media.

    Far from “grow your brand” business books, this one looks at what really matters the most to you. Nobody will look back on your life and say “what a profitable second quarter that was in such-a-year”. But if you do your thing well, people will look back and say:

    • “he was a pillar of the community”
    • “she raised that community around her”
    • “they did so much for us”
    • “finding my place in that community changed my life”
    • …and so forth. Isn’t that something worth doing?

    Bianchini takes the position of both “idealistic dreamer” and “realistic worker”.

    Further, she blends the two beautifully, to give practical step-by-step instructions on how to give life to the community that you build.

    Check Out This Amazing Book On Amazon Today!

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  • Calm Your Inflammation – by Dr. Brenda Tidwell

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    The book starts with an overview of inflammation, both acute and chronic, before diving into how to reduce the latter kind (acute inflammation being usually necessary and helpful, usually fighting disease rather than creating it).

    The advice in the book is not just dietary, and covers lifestyle interventions too, including exercise etc—and how to strike the right balance, since the wrong kind of exercise or too much of it can sabotage our efforts. Similarly, Dr. Tidwell doesn’t just say such things as “manage stress” but also provides 10 ways of doing so, and so forth for other vectors of inflammation-control. She does cover dietary things as well though, including supplements where applicable, and the role of gut health, sleep, and other factors.

    The style of the book is quite entry-level pop-science, designed to be readable and comprehensible to all, without unduly dumbing-down. In terms of hard science or jargon, there are 6 pages of bibliography and 3 pages of glossary, so it’s neither devoid of such nor overwhelmed by it.

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    Click here to check out Calm Your Inflammation, and indeed calm your inflammation!

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  • When Doctors Make House Calls, Modern-Style!

    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 Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you foryour opinion of telehealth for primary care consultations*, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

    • About 46% said “It is no substitute for an in-person meeting with a doctor; let’s keep the human touch”
    • About 29% said “It means less waiting and more accessibility, while avoiding transmission of diseases”
    • And 25 % said “I find that the pros and cons of telehealth vs in-person balance out, so: no preference”

    *We specified that by “primary care” we mean the initial consultation with a non-specialist doctor, before receiving treatment or being referred to a specialist. By “telehealth” we mean by videocall or phonecall.

    So, what does the science say?

    A quick note first

    Because telehealth was barely a thing (statistically speaking) before the first stages of the COVID pandemic, compared to how it is now, most of the science for this is young, and a lot of the science simply hasn’t been done yet, and/or has not been published yet, because the process can take years.

    Because of this, some studies we do have aren’t specifically about primary care, and are sometimes about specialists. We think this should not affect the results much, but it bears highlighting.

    Nevertheless, we’ll do what we can with the science we have!

    Telehealth is more accessible than in-person consultations: True or False?

    True, for most people. For example…

    ❝Data was found from a variety of emergency and non-emergency departments of primary, secondary, and specialised healthcare.

    Satisfaction was high among recipients of healthcare, scoring 9-10 on a scale of 0-10 or ranging from 73.3% to 100%.

    Convenience was rated high in every specialty examined. Satisfaction of clinicians was high throughout the specialities despite connection failure and concerns about confidentiality of information.❞

    Dr. Wiam Alashek et al.

    whereas…

    ❝Nonetheless, studies reported perception of increased barriers to accessing care and inequalities for vulnerable patients especially in older people❞

    Ibid.

    Source: Satisfaction with telemedicine use during COVID-19 pandemic in the UK: a systematic review

    Now, perception of those things does necessarily equate to an actual increased barrier, but it is reasonable that someone who thinks something is inaccessible will be less inclined to try to access it.

    The quality of care provided via telehealth is as good as in-person: True or False?

    True, ostensibly, with caveats. The caveats are:

    • We’re going offreported patient satisfactionnot objective patient health outcomes (we found little* science as yet for the relative incidence of misdiagnosis, for example—which kind of thing will take time to be revealed).
    • We’re also therefore speaking (as statistics do) for the significant majority of people. However, if we happen to be (statistically speaking) an insignificant minority, well, that just sucks for us personally.

    *we did find some, but it wasn’t very helpful yet. For example:

    An electronic trigger to detect telemedicine-related diagnostic errors

    this one does look at the incidence of diagnostic errors, but provides no control group (i.e. otherwise-comparable in-person consultations) for comparison.

    While most oft-considered demographic groups reported comparable patient satisfaction (per racegender, and socioeconomic status, for example), there was one outlier variable, which was age (as we quoted from that first study above).

    However!

    Looking under the hood of these stats, it seems that age is not the real culprit, so much as technological illiteracy, which is heavily correlated with age:

    ❝Lower eHealth literacy is associated with more negative attitudes towards I/C technology in healthcare. This trend is consistent across diverse demographics and regions. ❞

    Dr. Raghad Elgamal

    Source: Meta-analysis: eHealth literacy and attitudes towards internet/computer technology

    There are things that can be done at an in-person consultation that can’t be done by telehealth: True or False?

    True, of course. It is incredibly rare that we will cite “common sense”, (as sometimes “common sense” is actually “common mistakes” and is simply and verifiably wrong), but in this case, as one 10almonds subscriber put it:

    ❝The doctor uses his five senses to assess. This cannot be attained over the phone❞

    ~ 10almonds subscriber

    A quick note first: if your doctor is using their sense of taste to diagnose you, please get a different doctor, because they should definitely not be doing that!

    Not in this century, anyway… Once upon a time, diabetes was diagnosed by urine-tasting (and yes, that was a fairly reliable method).

    However, nowadays indeed a doctor will use sightsoundtouch, and sometimes even smell.

    In a videocall we’re down to two of those senses (sight and sound), and in a phonecall, down to one (sound) and even that is hampered. Your doctor cannot, for example, use a stethoscope over the phone.

    With this in mind, it really comes down to what you need from your doctor in that consultation.

    • If you’re 99% sure that what you need is to be prescribed an antidepressant, that probably doesn’t need a full physical.
    • If you’re 99% sure that what you need is a referral, chances are that’ll be fine by telehealth too.
    • If your doctor is 99% sure that what you need is a verbal check-up (e.g. “How’s it been going for you, with the medication that I prescribed for you a month ago?”, then again, a call is probably fine.

    If you have a worrying lump, or an unhappy bodily discharge, or an unexplained mysterious pain? These things, more likely an in-person check-up is in order.

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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