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Cherries' Very Healthy Wealth Of Benefits!
Plus: put your feet up! (against a wall; here are 20 reasons why)
The 10almonds Team
May 27, 2024
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
Top tip: the steps you take don’t have to be big; they just have to be in the right direction!
In A Rush?
Today’s 30-Second Summary
If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:
Cherries are, like most fruits, very good for us
Today’s main feature examines their impressive antioxidant and antiflammatory capabilities, their antidiabetic potential, and their use not just as a post-exercise recovery booster, but also an athletic performance enhancer!
They’re also great for sleep—they’re not sedatives, but they do help the brain to give us measurably better sleep when the time comes.
As we age, our collagen levels tend to get depleted more easily. Collagen is important not just for youthful good looks, but also for the health of bones and joints
Today’s sponsor NativePath are offering high-quality collagen without additives or harmful impurities
Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive
A Word To The Wise
Watch and Learn
Put Your Feet Up! (Against A Wall)
Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!
Monday’s Research Review
Cherry’s Health Benefits Simply Pop
We wrote recently about some of the health benefits of cherries, in our “This or That” challenge, pitting them against strawberries:
We said there that we’d do a main feature on cherries sometime soon, so here it is!
Sweet & Sour
Cherries can be divided into sweet vs sour. These are mostly nutritionally similar, though sour ones do have some extra benefits.
Sweet and sour cherries are closely related but botanically different plants; it’s not simply a matter of ripeness (or preparation).
These can mostly be sorted into varieties of Prunus avium and Prunus cerasus, respectively:
Sour cherry varieties include morello and montmorency, so look out for those names in particular when doing your grocery-shopping.
You may remember that it’s a good rule of thumb that foods that are more “bitter, astringent, or pungent” will tend to have a higher polyphenol content (that’s good):
Juiced up
Almost certainly for reasons of budget and convenience, as much as for standardization, most studies into the benefits of cherries have been conducted using concentrated cherry juice as a supplement.
At home, we need not worry so much about standardization, and our budget and convenience are ours to manage. To this end, as a general rule of thumb, whole fruits are pretty much always better than juice:
Antioxidant & anti-inflammatory!
Cherries are a very good source of antioxidants, and as such they also reduce inflammation, which in turn means ameliorating autoimmune diseases, from common things like arthritis…
…to less common things like gout:
This can also be measured by monitoring uric acid metabolites:
Anti-diabetic effect
Most of the studies on this have been rat studies, and the human studies have been less “the effect of cherry consumption on diabetes” and more a matter of separate studies adding up to this conclusion in, the manner of “cherries have this substance, this substance has this effect, therefore cherries will have this effect”. You can see an example of this discussed over the course of 15 studies, here:
A Review of the Health Benefits of Cherries ← skip to section 2.2.1: “Cherry Intake And Diabetes”
In short, the jury is out on cherry juice, but eating cherries themselves (much like getting plenty of fruit in general) is considered good against diabetes.
Good for healthy sleep
For this one, the juice suffices (actual cherries are still recommended, but the juice gave clear significant positive results):
Pilot Study of the Tart Cherry Juice for the Treatment of Insomnia and Investigation of Mechanisms ← this was specifically in people over the age of 50
Importantly, it’s not that cherries have a sedative effect, but rather they support the body’s ability to produce melatonin adequately when the time comes:
Post-exercise recovery
Cherries are well-known for boosting post-exercise recovery, though they may actually improve performance during exercise too, if eaten beforehand/
For example, these marathon-runners who averaged 13% compared to placebo control:
As for its recovery benefits, we wrote about this before:
Want to get some?
We recommend your local supermarket (or farmer’s market!), but if for any reason you prefer to take a supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon 🍒
Enjoy!
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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free
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This Or That?
Vote on Which is Healthier
Yesterday we asked you to choose between fluoride toothpaste and non-fluoride toothpaste—we picked the fluoride toothpaste (click here to read about why), as did 50% of you!
Now for today’s choice:
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Click on whichever you think is better for you!
Bonus (Sponsored) Recommendation
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You (Also) May Have Missed
How To Reduce The Harm Of Drinking (Without Abstaining)
JoyFull: Cook Effortlessly, Eat Freely, Live Radiantly (book)
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One-Minute Book Review
The Starch Solution: Eat the Foods You Love, Regain Your Health, and Lose the Weight for Good! – by Dr. John McDougall & Mary McDougall
Carb-strong or carb-wrong? We’ve written about this ourselves before, and it comes down to clarifying questions of what and how and why. Even within the general field of carbs, even within the smaller field of starch, not all foods are equal. A slice of white bread and a baked potato are both starchy, but the latter also contains fiber, vitamins, minerals, and suchlike.
The authors make the case for a whole-foods plant-based diet in which one need not shy away from starchy foods in general; one simply must enjoy them discriminately—whole grains, and root vegetables that have not been processed to Hell and back, for examples.
The style is “old-school pop-sci” but with modern science; claims are quite well-sourced throughout, with nine pages of bibliography at the end. Right after the ninety-nine pages of recipes!
Bottom line: if you’re a carb-enjoyer, all is definitely not lost healthwise, and in fact on the contrary, this can be the foundation of a very healthy and nutrient-rich diet.
Penny For Your Thoughts?
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Wishing you the most well-informed start to the week,
The 10almonds Team
