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The Antidepressant In Your Garden
Plus: intermittent fasting for women over 50
The 10almonds Team
May 04, 2023
Today’s almonds have been activated by:
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⏰ 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:
There is a microbe in soil that triggers the brain to produce more serotonin!
You can get your daily dose by doing some gardening
Bonus if you grow your own food!
Blinkist offers something we know you love: condensed knowledge in an easily digestible format (see our sponsor section below for details)
People with depression face 1.5 times risk for 29 health conditions
Remote aerobic walking training can improve cognitive processing speed impairment in people with multiple sclerosis
Early life abuse may be linked to greater risk of adult premature death
Beta-blockers may not help reduce further risks for heart attack patients
Intermittent fasting is a good, science-based way to trim the fat and slow aging (amongst other health benefits), and/but a lot is based on men’s physiology, and women are a little different. Today’s book of the day is about this!
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
Why do we have crooked teeth when our ancestors didn’t? - G. Richard Scott
According to the fossil record, ancient humans usually had straight teeth, complete with wisdom teeth. In fact, the dental dilemmas that fuel the demand for braces and wisdom teeth extractions today appear to be recent developments. So, what happened? While it’s nearly impossible to know for sure, here’s the prevailing scientific consensus:
Prefer text? Click here for a text-based version!
👩🌾 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 😎
❝What is Mediterranean diet which book to read?❞
We did a special edition about the Mediterranean Diet! So that’s a great starting point.
As to books, there are so many, and we review books about it from time to time, so keep an eye out for our daily “One-Minute Book Review” section. We do highly recommend “How Not To Die”, which is a science-heavy approach to diet-based longevity, and essentially describes the Mediterranean Diet, with some tweaks.
❝I'm interested in the benefits of gardening. I read something about how important it is for humans to have a connection with soil, with dirt. That its benefits go way beyond growing food to eat or getting exercise. I'd like to find out more.❞
You’re quite right! There are bacteria in soil (specifically: Mycobacterium vaccae) that work similarly to antidepressants.
When something is described as having an effect similar to antidepressants, it’s usually hyperbole. In this case, it's medicine, and literally works directly on the serotonergic system (as do many, but not all, antidepressants).
While many antidepressants are selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (i.e., they slow the rate at which your brain loses serotonin), Mycobacterium vaccae increases the rate at which you produce serotonin. So, you feel happier, more relaxed, while also feeling more energized.
^this one’s a mouse study, but we’re including it because it covers exactly how it works in the brain, which is something that the ethics board wouldn’t let them do on humans.
As to how to enjoy its benefits? Gardening! You don’t have to go to the length of eating dirt or anything; so long as you’re not gardening while wearing a biohazard containment suit, you will get “infected” by the friendly bacteria in the soil.
Want to level up your benefits? Grow your own food, and you’ll get it that way, too (yes, even if you wash and cook it)
❝I’d like to read articles on gut health and anxiety❞
We hope you caught yesterday’s edition of 10almonds, which touched on both of those! Other past editions you might like include:
We’ll be sure to include more going forward, too!
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
Blinkist: Powerful Ideas in 15 Minutes
Here at 10almonds, we love offering condensed knowledge that’s easy to digest, with pointers of where to go if you want to know more. And that’s what Blinkist does, too.
If your to-read list is the size of the Library of Alexandria and stands about the same chance of getting read in its entirety, Blinkist can help! How, you ask?
Blinkist gives 15-minute book summaries (for example, a one-page summary of each chapter’s key ideas) in both text and audio-format. You can then get the actual book if you want it, or if what you got from those notes is enough, you can just save them to a folder and move on to another book.
Sound like a good way to get through the recommendations from our One-Minute Book Reviews, right?
Best of all, they’re currently offering your first seven days for free, so you can test out their service without any long-term commitments.
🌏 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
Intermittent Fasting for Women Over 50: boost metabolism and delay aging - by Emma Sanchez
Intermittent fasting is promoted as a very healthful (evidence-based!) way to trim the fat and slow aging, along with other health benefits. But, physiologically and especially metabolically, the average woman is quite different from the average man! And most resources are aimed at men. So, what's the difference?
Emma Sanchez gives an overview not just of intermittent fasting, but also, how it goes with specifically female physiology. From hormonal cycles, to different body composition and fat distribution, to how we simply retain energy better—which can be a mixed blessing!
We're given advice about how to optimize all those things and more.
She also covers issues that many writers on the topic of intermittent fasting will tend to shy away from, such as:
mood swings
risk of eating disorder
impact on cognitive thinking
...and she does this evenly and fairly, making the case for intermittent fasting while acknowledging potential pitfalls that need to be recognized in order to be managed.
Lastly, the "over 50" thing. This is covered in detail quite late in the book, but there are a lot of changes that occur (beyond the obvious!), and once again, Sanchez has tips and tricks for holding back the clock where possible, and working with it rather than against it, when appropriate.
All in all, a great book for any woman over 50, or really also for women under 50, especially if that particular milestone is on the horizon.
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May the Fourth be with you,
The 10almonds Team