Super Health Bonus
An apple a day can significantly cut your risk of heart disease. Apples, apple juice, and apple cider vinegar contain the nutrient chlorogenic acid. According to the journal Biochemical Pharmacology, chlorogenic acid helps prevent LDL cholesterol, also known as the “bad cholesterol,” from oxidizing, and oxidation is an important step in the progression of heart disease.35 And adding apple cider vinegar to your daily diet has been shown in research to help you lose weight. According to research in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, apple cider vinegar can help reduce the number of calories eaten at a meal by between 200 and 275.36 Additional study results published in the journal Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry also showed that apple cider vinegar helped with weight loss in obese individuals.37
60-SECOND BRAIN HEALTH TIP #21:
Enjoy Ginger to Take Down Inflammation
Ginger offers brain protection and reduces inflammation linked to brain diseases.
Not just great in stir-fries, ginger is one herb that can do more than add flavor and spice to just about any dish; it also exhibits antioxidant effects and the ability to lessen the formation of inflammation in the brain. Ginger contains gingerols—potent anti-inflammatory compounds that are responsible for the herb’s magic. A study in the journal Life Sciences found that ginger offers protection against free radicals, which have the potential to be a serious threat to brain health.
A study conducted by Dr. Honlei Chen and his colleagues at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health suggests that inflammation plays an important role in the development of Parkinson’s disease.38 Inflammatory processes also appear in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, foods that contain anti-inflammatory compounds play an important role in the prevention of brain diseases and maintenance of a healthy brain.
According to Dr. Krishna C. Srivastava of the University of Southern Denmark, ginger is superior to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in alleviating inflammation. NSAIDs work on one level, blocking the substances that cause inflammation, while ginger works on at least two mechanisms: (1) ginger blocks the formation of inflammatory compounds, and (2) ginger has antioxidant properties that actually break down inflammation and acidity in the body.39 This is promising research because anti-inflammatory drugs are being considered for use with inflammation-related brain diseases.
Research also shows that ginger reduces harmful cholesterol in your blood, thereby reducing your risk of stroke. Researchers studied 95 people with high triglycerides, high LDL cholesterol (known as the “bad cholesterol”), and low HDL cholesterol (known as the “good cholesterol”). They divided the participants into two groups: The first group took 1,000 milligrams of ginger three times a day; the other group took a placebo. After 45 days, participants taking the ginger had a greater drop in LDL cholesterol and a greater increase in HDL cholesterol than the group taking the placebo.40
How to Benefit
The easiest way to enjoy the benefits of ginger is to grate 2 tablespoons of fresh ginger and add it to a cup of boiling water. Steep and strain. Enjoy a cup of this warming ginger tea with a touch of honey or a few drops of stevia. You can also add freshly grated ginger to soups, stir-fries, vegetables, and other dishes to pack extra brain health into your meals. Additionally, you can purchase ginger supplements to help you obtain a higher dosage of this excellent anti-inflammatory herb. Follow package instructions.
Super Health Bonus
If you’re suffering from joint or muscle pain, you will likely experience a reduction in pain because the gingerols in ginger are also powerful pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory compounds.
60-SECOND BRAIN HEALTH TIP #22:
Give Your Brain an Oil Change
Boosting your omega-3 consumption strengthens brain cells and ensures the healthy transmission of memories between brain cells.
Humans really are fatheads, and I don’t mean that in a nasty way: About 60 percent of the human brain is fat. To maintain proper brain health, you need to get adequate fat from your diet. But not just any fat will do. Some fats damage your brain. The Standard American Diet, high in trans and hydrogenated fats, worsens inflammation in your body, and this inflammation can damage delicate brain tissues. These unhealthy fats are found in fried foods, shortening, lard, margarine, baked goods, and processed and prepared foods. But trans fats and hydrogenated fats are not the only problems.
Healthy fats help keep the lining of brain cells flexible so that memories and other brain messages can pass easily between cells. Both omega-6 and omega-3 fats are important to brain health and should be eaten in a 1-to-2 to a 2-to-1 ratio to each other. However, the average North American eats these foods in a 20-to-1 to a 40-to-1 ratio, causing a huge imbalance and resulting in an omega-3 deficiency. At this ratio, omega-6 fats can cause or worsen inflammation, leaving you with insufficient omega-3 fats to keep that inflammation under control. The typical diet, if it contains any healthy essential fatty acids, usually includes fats found in meats and poultry, or occasionally from nuts and seeds. Most of these fats are omega-6 fatty acids.
Omega-6 fatty acids are found in the highest concentrations in corn, sunflower, and safflower oils. But you are more than what you eat. I read somewhere that “you are what you eat eats.” So that means if you eat a diet containing meat or poultry that was fed corn or other grains high in omega-6s, you’re getting lots of omega-6s indirectly.
The best sources of omega-3 fatty acids include flaxseeds and flaxseed oil, walnuts and walnut oil, some types of algae, krill oil, and fatty cold-water fish, particularly wild salmon. Docosahexaenoic acid, a type of omega-3 fatty acid, makes up a large part of the lining of brain cells, helps to keep the cellular lining flexible enough to allow memory messages to pass between cells, promotes nerve transmission throughout your central nervous system, and protects the energy centers of your cells (called mitochondria) from damage.
Fish that contain high levels of this omega-3 fatty acid include mackerel, sardines, albacore tuna, salmon, lake trout, and herring. But be aware: Some of these fish have become contaminated with mercury and, as you learned in Chapter 2, some research links mercury to the development of brain disease. So it is important to avoid fish that consistently show up high on the mercury radar, including predatory fish like swordfish and shark, as well as sea bass, northern pike, tuna, walleye, and largemouth bass. Farmed salmon also frequently shows up with high levels of mercury, not to mention that farmed salmon often contains antibiotic residues and lower levels of the important omega-3 fatty acids.
How to Benefit
Avoid all trans fats, margarine, fried foods, and processed and prepared foods, because these are among the worst sources of brain-damaging fats. Instead, try to get a daily dose of omega-3 fatty acids from flaxseeds, flaxseed oil, chia seeds, hemp seeds, raw walnuts, mackerel, sardines, albacore tuna, salmon, lake trout, or herring. If you opt for the vegetarian options, be sure to get at least 2 teaspoons of flaxseed oil or 2 tablespoons of freshly ground flaxseeds, chia seeds, or hemp seeds daily. Also, a handful of walnuts makes a great omega-3–rich snack. If you choose to eat the fatty fish, try to eat a minimum of 4 ounces twice a week.
Super Health Bonus
Hydrogenated and trans fats aggravate inflammation in your body. Simply eliminating foods that contain these fats will help to quell inflammation elsewhere, too, including your joints. And by replacing these fats with beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, you’re giving your body an anti-inflammatory boost. If you suffer from pain, you’ll probably notice an improvement.
60-SECOND BRAIN HEALTH TIP #23:
Go Nuts to Boost Your Memory
Walnuts are nutritional powerhouses that protect against brain-damaging inflammation.
For better brain health, it’s time to go nuts—walnuts, that is. Walnuts offer numerous brain health benefits. To start, they are packed with omega-3 fatty acids that help protect the fatty portion of your brain and quell brain inflammation, to
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Research in the Journal of Nutrition found that walnuts also contain natural polyphenolic compounds that act as antioxidants to destroy free radicals that could otherwise have a damaging effect on the brain. These same polyphenolic compounds reduce brain inflammation, improve signals between brain cells, and increase the generation of brain and nerve cells. As if that wasn’t enough reason to start snacking on walnuts, research also shows that these compounds in walnuts have the ability to contain toxic substances so they are less likely to damage the brain.41
Walnuts are such powerful brain protectors that new research published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease found that eating only 1 to 11⁄2 ounces of walnuts daily improves memory and learning, while also decreasing anxiety. The researchers indicated that the nuts are a possible preventive remedy against Alzheimer’s disease.42
How to Benefit
Eating walnuts in your banana bread or brownies simply isn’t the best way to benefit from their brain-protective properties. And it would be best to skip the little packets of walnuts found in the baking section of your grocery store. Most of these nuts have been processed at high temperatures or have been sitting around for excessive amounts of time. When the oils in walnuts go rancid or are heated to high temperatures, as they often are during processing and packaging, they taste bitter. When I tell my clients to eat more walnuts, most of them tell me they can’t stand them. But time and again, when I’ve asked them to eat only raw, unsalted walnuts found in the refrigerator section of their health food store, they report that they love them. In this natural state, walnuts have a buttery, rich flavor that is as delicious as the nuts are nutritious. You can snack on a handful daily, top your favorite salads with them, or add them after you’ve finished cooking your favorite stir-fry.
Super Health Bonus
In addition to all of the brain health benefits of eating more walnuts, you’ll reap heart rewards from enjoying these amazing nuts. That’s because walnuts also quell the inflammation linked to heart disease.
60-SECOND BRAIN HEALTH TIP #24:
Make like Popeye for a Powerful Brain
High in vitamin P, spinach prevents age-related brain decline.
Do you remember episodes of the popular cartoon Popeye? I do. And the main thing I remember is how spinach powered up this character’s muscles. The show’s writers obviously knew that spinach was a serious nutritional superpower. Today’s research shows that spinach doesn’t just boost muscle function, it also powers up brain health.
Plant foods contain more than 4,000 naturally occurring substances called flavonoids (or vitamin P), all of which have tremendous medicinal properties. (Learn more about the brain-boosting properties of flavonoids in 60-Second Brain Health Tips #12 and #30, which discuss cherries and pitted fruits.) One specific group of flavonoids, polyphenols, is found in colorful fruits and vegetables, and they’re present in particularly high amounts in spinach.
Polyphenols prevent oxidative damage in your brain. That means they prevent free radicals from damaging brain cells and the spaces between them. A study of rats fed extracts of blueberries, strawberries, and spinach for 8 weeks showed that these potent polyphenol-rich foods reversed some effects of age-related brain decline.43 Other research shows that flavonoids also work with vitamin C to prevent the vitamin from breaking down in your body, allowing it to continue working as an antioxidant to protect your brain against free radicals.
The Journal of Neuroscience has published other studies of middle-aged rats fed diets with added spinach, strawberry extract, or vitamin E. After 9 months, they found that spinach proved to be the most potent at protecting nerve cells in two parts of the brain against the effects of aging.
While spinach contains particularly high levels of polyphenols, it isn’t the only green vegetable with high amounts of this phytonutrient group. Other green veggies also contain high levels and are excellent choices for protecting your brain against disease.
How to Benefit
You may be wondering how to get more spinach into your diet, particularly if you’re not a fan of it. Fortunately, you can forget what you may have felt about spinach in the past and start to enjoy it today. Here are some of my favorite ways to enjoy this brain-boosting superfood.
■Enjoy a spinach or arugula salad with your favorite cooked or raw mushrooms, hard-boiled egg, and raw cashews. Top it with a delicious salad dressing, such as one of the many recipes included in Part III of this book.
■Add a handful of raw spinach or other leafy greens, such as spring mix or kale, to your morning or afternoon fruit smoothie. It adds a powerful punch of nutrients without changing the taste too much. The color may look less than appetizing, but the flavor will be masked by the fruit.
■Lightly sauté spinach, kale, or collard greens in a little olive oil with some freshly minced garlic. Remove from the heat and toss with a little fresh lemon juice. Even clients who can’t stand cooked greens frequently tell me how much they enjoy them prepared this way.
Super Health Bonus
Spinach and other leafy greens are also packed with vitamin A, which helps maintain healthy eyes and vision. I’ve had numerous clients report an improvement in night vision after they started eating spinach on a regular basis. Leafy greens also contain high amounts of alpha lipoic acid—one of the best defenders of brain health and fighters of fatigue. Alpha lipoic acid protects the energy centers of your cells to ensure that they remain intact for optimum energy production. You can thank lipoic acid for the energy boost you’ll likely feel when you make leafy greens a regular part of your diet.
60-SECOND BRAIN HEALTH TIP #25:
Opt for Olives to Protect Your Brain
Olives and olive oil give your brain an important omega-9 boost.
The exotic names of olives—Moroccan, kalamata, niçoise, picholine, and Manzanilla—sound almost as good as these varieties of olives taste. But taste is only one of the reasons to enjoy them. Olives are an excellent source of healthy monounsaturated fats and vitamin E. Monounsaturated fats have a beneficial role to play in maintaining the outer membranes of brain cells and protecting your body’s genetic material and the energy-producing cellular components (mitochondria) that help fuel your brain.
Vitamin E offers antioxidant protection to the fatty components of your brain and can lower your risk of damage and inflammation. This vitamin is also your body’s primary fat-soluble antioxidant, meaning that it neutralizes damaging free radicals in all the fat-rich areas of your body, including your brain and the protective coating of your nerves. And you may recall from an earlier discussion that more than 60 percent of your brain is fat, making vitamin E a significant contributor to brain health. Like other types of monounsaturated fats, vitamin E also helps protect the energy production centers in your cells to ensure that your cells are capable of creating adequate energy for your many bodily processes and brain functions.
Olives also help prevent the oxidation of cholesterol. Oxidized cholesterol has been linked to stroke. The anti-inflammatory actions of monounsaturated fats, vitamin E, and beneficial plant chemicals called polyphenols help lessen the likelihood of inflammation in your brain. Olive oil is also rich in omega-9 fatty acids, which are important to your brain.
Because olive oil is extracted from olives, it has the same beneficial properties as olives. However, be sure to use only organic, cold-pressed, extra-virgin olive oil, since it retains more beneficial nutrients and lacks potentially brain-damaging pesticides.
How to Benefit
When cooking with any type of oil, including olive oil, it is important to be sure that the oil never smokes. If it does, it has reached the oil’s “smoke point,” which is different for every type of oil. The smoke point is the point at which the oil will have a damaging effect on your body. Most types of vegetable oils available in grocery stores are heated to over 500°F during processing, which is well beyond the smoke point even before they get to your kitchen. That means they should be completely avoided.
Extra-virgin olive oil is the rare exception that tends to be processed at lower temperatures and is therefore fine for cooking at low temperatures. Remember this when you’re cooking with any type of oil: If it smokes while you are heating it, it is essential that you throw it out and start over. Otherwise, the benefits of the oil are destroyed by the heat and it becomes capable of damaging cells in your brain through free radicals and inflammatory processes. Also, be sure to choose olives that are free from sulfites, as many commercial brands contain these and other chemical preservatives.
Super Health Bonus
In addition to protecting against brain disease, vitamin E works as a powerful antioxidant that reduces the damage caused by pollutants. It may also protect against colon cancer.
60-SECOND BRAIN HEALTH TIP #26:
Reap Rosemary for Brain Health Rewards
Research shows that rosemary is valuable for the prevention and treatment of dementia.
Not just great for meat dishes, now there are more reasons than ever before to enjoy rosemary and the brain health benefits this fragrant herb offers.
I keep a rosemary topiary in a pot at my front door. Because its fragrant aroma is absolutely delightful, I frequently run my hands through its branches to send the smell wafting through the air. Rosemary’s name, Rosmarinus officinalis, means “dew of the sea,” which is probably linked to its native region—the Mediterranean. Rosemary has been used in many cultures as a symbol for remembering those who have passed away; sprigs of the herb are placed on coffins or tombstones. It is cited in Shakespearean literature when Ophelia petitions Hamlet with, “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you love, remember.” This is a reference to rosemary’s long-standing reputation for enhancing memory. In ancient Greece, students inserted rosemary sprigs into their hair when studying for exams.
Boost Your Brain Power in 60 Seconds Page 11