Many people don’t realize that your brain is very sensitive to your nutrition, and works best when it gets the nutrients it needs. Many of my patients, and perhaps you, may not get enough brain food. These include good fats like those from fish, nuts, olives, etc. Studies have shown that Omega-3 fats, particularly the DHA portion of them, are particularly beneficial to your brain health and memory.
Your brain is also about 75% water and thrives on you being optimally hydrated. When you’re dehydrated, your thinking becomes fuzzy; you become confused, and can’t seem to connect your thoughts very well.
Your brain also needs glucose (sugar) to function correctly. If you’ve ever gone on a low carb diet for more than a few days, you may have noticed that your mood and your clear thinking took a nose dive. That’s because your brain needs measured amounts of glucose to power its functions. Your body processes glucose from the foods you eat. On a low carbohydrate diet, it takes your body much longer to break down proteins into glucose.
But that doesn’t mean that eating a high carbohydrate diet will be better for your brain function. If your brain is bombarded by high levels of sugar in your blood from a high carbohydrate/sugar diet, it has just the opposite effect. Your short term memory (where you put your car keys) becomes impaired, it takes you much longer to retrieve stored information (someone’s name), and it becomes harder to concentrate or learn anything.
In short, all your cognitive functions become impaired with higher blood sugar levels. Lately, researchers have been proving it over and over. For example, German researchers out of Charite-University in Berlin recently looked at mental functioning and brain structure of middle aged and elderly adults. They found that for every point increase in Hemoglobin A1c (measures blood sugar averages over 3 months), there was a corresponding decrease in the participants recall, learning ability and memory consolidation.
They also found that the participant’s brain structure changed as well. MRI brain scans revealed that the brains of those with chronically elevated glucose levels lost volume, specifically in the hippocampus areas. This is the area of the brain associated with cognitive functions like learning and memory. These researchers concluded that lifestyle changes to control blood sugar levels could likely help prevent age-related cognitive decline.
healthyliving January 3rd, 2017
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Dr. Mark Rosenberg received his doctorate from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1988 and has been involved with drug research since 1991.