Triphala Against Cognitive Decline, Obesity, & More

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Ayurveda, India’s traditional medicine system, has made many contributions to modern science; one of them is bringing triphala to attention

  • Today’s main feature explores its utility against cognitive decline, for good health, and in weight management (particularly in the belly area, because the main mechanism of action by which it fights obesity is by modulating insulin sensitivity)

• At 10almonds, we often mention that “diversity is good”; usually we’re talking about diet and exercises, but the same goes for more things!

  • Today’s sponsor, Money, is giving a timely opportunity to diversify your portfolio one of the most stable investments, gold—which historically can be a very solid bet in uncertain times.

• Today’s featured book is about living a fulfilling life now, instead of wondering where the days went.

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

10 Simple Japanese Habits For Healthier & Longer Life

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Research Review Monday

Triphala Against Cognitive Decline, Obesity, & More

Triphala is not just one thing, it is a combination of three plants being used together as one medicine:

1. Alma (Emblica officinalis)

2. Bibhitaki (Terminalia bellirica)

3. Haritaki (Terminalia chebula)

…generally prepared in a 1:1:1 ratio.

This is a traditional preparation from ayurveda, and has enjoyed thousands of years of use in India. In and of itself, ayurveda is classified as a pseudoscience (literally: it doesn’t adhere to scientific method; instead, it merely makes suppositions that seem reasonable and acts on them), but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still have a lot to offer—because, simply put, a lot of ayurvedic medicines work (and a lot don’t).

So, ayurveda’s unintended job has often been finding things for modern science to test.

For more on ayurveda: Ayurveda’s Contributions To Science (Without Being Itself Rooted in Scientific Method)

So, under the scrutiny of modern science, how does triphala stand up?

Against cognitive decline

It has most recently come to attention because one of its ingredients, the T. chebula, has been highlighted as effective against mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by several mechanisms of action, via its…

Read in full: The potential of Terminalia chebula in alleviating mild cognitive impairment: a review

The review was quite groundbreaking, to the extent that it got a pop-science article written about it:

New review suggests evaluating Tibetan medicinal herb as potential treatment for mild cognitive impairment

We’d like to talk about those 11 active constituents in particular, but we don’t have room for all of them, so we’ll mention that one of them is quercetin, which we’ve written about before:

Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin

For gut health

It’s also been found to improve gut health by increasing transit time, that is to say, how slowly things move through your gut. Counterintuitively, this reduces constipation (without being a laxative), by giving your gut more time to absorb everything it needs to, and more time for your gut bacteria to break down the things we can’t otherwise digest:

A comparative evaluation of intestinal transit time of two dosage forms of Haritaki [Terminalia chebula Retz.]

For weight management

Triphala can also aid with weight reduction, particularly in the belly area, by modulating our insulin responses to improve insulin sensitivity:

Efficacy of [triphala], a combination of three medicinal plants in the treatment of obesity; A randomized controlled trial

Want to try some?

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Enjoy!

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This Or That?

Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between pineapple and passion fruit—both excellent options, but ultimately we picked the passion fruit (click here to read about why), as did 34% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

One-Minute Book Review

Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts – by Oliver Burkeman

We previously reviewed this author’s “Four Thousand Weeks”, but for those who might have used a lot of those four thousand weeks already, and would like to consider things within a smaller timeframe for now, this work is a 28-day daily reader.

Now, daily readers are usually 366 days, but the chapters here are not the single page chapters that 366-page daily readers usually have. So, expect to invest a little more time per day (say, about 6 pages for each daily chapter).

Burkeman does not start the way we might expect, by telling us to take the time to smell the roses. Instead, he starts by examining the mistakes that most of us make most of the time, often due to unexamined assumptions about the world and how it works. Simply put, we’ve often received bad lessons in life (usually not explicitly, but rather, from our environments), and it takes some unpacking first to deal with that.

Nor is the book systems-based, as many books that get filed under “time management” may be, but rather, is simply principles-based. This is a strength, because principles are a lot easier to keep to than systems.

The writing style is direct and conversational, and neither overly familiar nor overly academic. It strikes a very comfortably readable balance.

Bottom line: if you’d like to get the most out of your days, this book can definitely help improve things a lot.

Click here to check out Meditations For Mortals, and live fulfilling days!

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Wishing you the most well-informed start to the week,

The 10almonds Team