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- Can Ginkgo Tea Be Made Safe? (And Other Questions)
Can Ginkgo Tea Be Made Safe? (And Other Questions)
Plus: the answer to yesterday's brainteaser
The 10almonds Team
October 06, 2023
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
Answer to yesterday’s brainteaser:
Yesterday we asked you:
❝You’re searching an attic when you find 5 short chains each made of 4 gold links. It occurs to you that if you combined them all into one big loop of 20 links, you’d have an incredible necklace. So you take it to a jeweler, who tells you the cost of making the necklace will be $10 for each gold link that she has to break and then reseal. How much will it cost?❞
A little over a third of you said $40, and a little under a third of you said $50, with fewer people saying $60 or $30.
One approach would be to break a link on the end of each of the five chains, and then reattach the link to the back of the next chain in the loop. This would cost you $50 for the five links that were broken and resealed.
But it can be done for $40! Instead of breaking one link in each chain, break all four links in one of the chains and then use those four links to attach the remaining four chains together 🙂
⏰ 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:
Ginkgo biloba seeds are especially poisonous; do not eat them. The leaves are less poisonous, and their toxins can be reduced with proper preparation, such as in the production of ginkgo biloba tea.
However, there are still many risks, and we are not advising it.
See today’s main feature to learn how to a poison test is done, though!
When it comes to personal healthcare, not knowing about one’s health status is half the problem. And, it can be tricky to remember everything we’re supposed to be doing!
Today’s sponsor, Together by Renee, are offering a totally free app that can scan your face for some seconds and accurately tell you your blood pressure, blood oxygen, heart rate, heart rate variability, and more
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
5 Brain-Damaging Foods that Worsen Cognitive Function (12:30)
Timestamp menu:
Prefer text? Here’s some further reading: Nutrient patterns and brain biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease in cognitively normal individuals
❓ MAIN FEATURE
It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small 😎
❝I'd be interested in OTC prostrate medication safety and effectiveness.❞
Great idea! Sounds like a topic for a main feature one day soon, but while you’re waiting, you might like this previous main feature we did, about a supplement that performs equally to some prescription BPH meds:
❝I recently hit 65 and try to get regular check-ups, but do you think home testing can be as reliable as a doctor visit? I try to keep as informed as I can and am a big believer in taking responsibility for my own health if I can, but I don’t want to miss something important either. Best as a supplemental thing, perhaps?❞
Depends what’s being tested! And your level of technical knowledge, though there’s always something to be said for ongoing learning.
If you’re talking blood tests, urine tests, etc per at-home test kits that get sent off to a lab, then provided they’re well-sourced (and executed correctly by you), they should be as accurate as what a doctor will give, since they are basically doing the same thing (taking a sample and sending it off to a lab).
If you’re talking about checking for lumps etc, then a dual approach is best: check yourself at home as often as you feel is reasonable (with once per month being advised at a minimum, especially if you’re aware of an extra risk factor for you) and check-ups with the doctor per their recommendations.
If you’re talking about general vitals (blood pressure, heart rate, heart rate variability, VO₂ max, etc), then provided you have a reliable way of testing them, then doing them very frequently at home, to get the best “big picture” view. In contrast, getting them done once a year at your doctor’s could result in a misleading result, if you just ate something different that day or had a stressful morning, for example.
PS: if it’s that latter, you’ll also love our sponsor today 😉
❝Was very interested in the article on ginko bilboa as i moved into a home that has the tree growing in the backyard. Is there any way i can process the leaves to make a tea out of it.❞
Glad you enjoyed! First, for any who missed it, here was the article on Ginkgo biloba:
Now, as that article noted, Ginkgo biloba seeds and leaves are poisonous. However, there are differences:
The seeds, raw or roasted, contain dangerous levels of a variety of toxins, though roasting takes away some toxins and other methods of processing (boiling etc) take away more. However, the general consensus on the seeds is “do not consume; it will poison your liver, poison your kidneys, and possibly give you cancer”:
The leaves, meanwhile, are much less poisonous with their ginkgolic acids, and their other relevant poison is very closely related to that of poison ivy, involving long-chain alkylphenols that can be broken down by thermolysis, in other words, heat:
However, this very thorough examination of the potential health benefits and risks of ginkgo tea, comes to the general conclusion “this is not a good idea, and is especially worrying in elders, and/or if taking various medications”:
In summary:
Be careful
Avoid completely if you have a stronger-than-usual reaction to poison ivy
If you do make tea from it, green leaves appear to be safer than yellow ones
If you do make tea from it, boil and stew to excess to minimize toxins
If you do make tea from it, doing a poison test is sensible (i.e. start with checking for a skin reaction to a topical application on the inside of the wrist, then repeat at least 6 hours later on the lips, then at least 6 hours later do a mouth swill, then at least 12 hours later drink a small amount, etc, and gradually build up to “this is safe to consume”)
For safety (and legal) purposes, let us be absolutely clear that we are not advising you that it is safe to consume a known poisonous plant, and nor are we advising you to do so.
But the hopefully only-ever theoretical knowledge of how to do a poison test is a good life skill, just in case 🙂
📊 POLL
We turn the tables and ask you a question…
We’ll then talk about this tomorrow:
What's your policy on sun exposure? |
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
Your free personal healthcare assistant: Together
Together is a free personalized digital healthcare assistant, that comes with quite an array of powerful tools, but perhaps the most impressive is its face-based vitals feature:
How it works: you hold your camera phone up to your face as though taking a selfie, and the app measures your...
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🌍 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
Exposure to air pollution linked to increased risk of stroke within 5 days
Skin behind the ears and between the toes can host a collection of unhealthy microbes
A deep look into the progression of Parkinson's Disease
Could plant-based phytonutrients be the secret weapon against obesity?
SARS-CoV-2-associated sepsis was more common and more deadly than previously thought, study finds
Blood tests for long COVID could lead to better treatments
Sexual activity and vaginal dilation associated with fewer side effects after cervical cancer treatment
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope – by Johann Hari
Johann Hari had a long journey through (and out of!) depression, and shares his personal findings, including his disappointment with medical options, and a focus on the external factors that lead to depression.
And that's key to this book—while he acknowledges later in the book that there are physiological factors involved in depression, he wants to look past things we can't change (like genes accounting for 37% of depression) or things that there may be unwanted side-effects to changing (as in the case of antidepressants, for many people), to things we genuinely can choose.
And no, it's not a "think yourself happy" book either; rather, it looks at nine key external factors that a) influence depression b) can mostly be changed.
If the book has a downside, it's that the author does tend to extrapolate his own experience a lot more than might be ideal. If SSRIs didn't help him, they are useless, and also the only kind of antidepressant. If getting into a green space helped him, a Londoner, someone who lives in the countryside will not be depressed in the first place. And so forth. It can also be argued that he cherry-picked data to arrive at some of his pre-decided conclusions. He also misinterprets data sometimes; which is understandable; he is after all a journalist, not a scientist.
Nevertheless, he offers a fresh perspective with a lot of ideas, and whether or not we agree with them all, new ideas tend to be worth reading. And if even one of his nine ideas helps you, that's a win.
Bottom line: if you'd like to explore the treatment of depression from a direction other than medicalization or psychotherapy, then this is will be a good book for you.
What did you think of today's newsletter?We always love to hear from you, whether you leave us a comment or even just a click in the poll if you're speeding by! |
Wishing you the very best of health today and every day,
The 10almonds Team