 After my video on dates blew my mind, showing that even just a few dates can significantly reduce the duration of labor during childbirth and improve the progression of labor. When I saw that there were randomized controlled trials showing that peanut balls could decrease the length of labor, I didn't bat an eye, but no, this is the peanut ball they were talking about. But there are some surprising benefits attributed to nuts and randomized controlled trials. It's like, how about a study on the effects of almond consumption on wrinkles, where they even come up with the idea? Well, population studies have found that healthy diets are associated with less facial wrinkles, like a meat-and-junk predominant eating pattern was associated with more wrinkles, whereas a fruit predominant pattern was associated with fewer wrinkles. In terms of single foods, yellow vegetables, and soy appeared protective, but wine may make things worse. They're thinking that it might be the antioxidants in healthy foods decreasing the oxidative stress load, or the anti-inflammatory benefits, or protection from sun damage, or improved collagen production, or better DNA repair. I've got videos on most of those topics. The bottom line is that eating healthier may reduce wrinkling, which could actually save lives if people started eating healthier to maintain a more youthful appearance and get all the chronic disease benefits as a happy side effect. Other studies have found the same thing. Eating recommendations for more healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Here's another study that landed on yellow vegetables and greens as well. In this study, a high intake of vegetables, beans, and olive oil appeared to be protective against spots of pre-cancerous sun damage, whereas a high intake of meat and dairy may make things worse. Prunes, apples, and tea seemed particularly good, but this is a cross-sectional study, meaning just a snapshot in time, maybe people who eat more meat are out barbecuing in the sun, or people who eat more prunes just use more sunblock. I mean, you can't know for sure if food's actually effect-wrinkling until you put them to the test, but we had no such studies until now. Why study almonds? Because it was paid for by the Almond Board, of course. The researchers didn't know who was in the nut group, though, and who was in the control group when they were looking at the results. The nut group were given two ounces of nuts a day, like two palmfuls of nuts, and the control group was instead given nut-free snacks to eat instead, like nut-free granola bars or pretzels. Before and after, they got high-res facial photographs to quantify facial wrinkled depth and severity using a computer-based photographic analysis, and boom! The almond group had significantly decreased wrinkle severity compared with the control group by the end of the 16-week study. The paper concludes, our study demonstrates that daily almond consumption may reduce wrinkle severity. Now, they used a relatively large dose of two ounces a day, whereas you can get cardio-protective benefits of nuts from even less than a half an ounce. So, who knows? Maybe they could have gotten away with using less. Here's the low-dose nut study they referenced, showing a significant drop in LDL cholesterol within six weeks, eating just a few almonds a day. 10 grams is just like eight almonds a day. That's the nice thing about healthy foods, they just have good side effects. So, global disease prevention strategies might benefit from emphasizing that a healthy diet is also linked to less facial wrinkling, and maybe vanity will help us prevent a few heart attacks in the bargain.