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Diet Tips to Increase your Brain Power
Author: Sacha TarkovskyDid you know that poor diet does more than make you fat? It also makes you stupid!
According to Dr. Alan Logan, in his new book The Brain Diet, he finds the individuals in the United Sates and Canada eat foods that do not contribute to healthy brain function.
In other words, eating well can make you smart, and opposite is also true, eating poorly can make you stupid.
Dr. Logan concluded that the overall diet in the US and Canada is based on an excess of nutritionally poor calories, and a lack of consumption of the proper foods that protect brain cells.
In other words, the foods that make us fat also make us stupid; and not only, also he found these foods contribute to neurodegenerative diseases.
Doctors and books have been reminding us for decades now how a proper diet can assist protect our bodies from cardiovascular disease and cancer, but now the link to mental and neurological health needs also to be stressed.
Dr.Logan is a naturopathic physician and professor at Harvard Universitys Mind-Body Medical Institute.
He pointed out in his book that it appears to have overlooked how many nutrients are directly linked with alternation in both psychiatric and neurological conditions.
Quite interestingly, he concluded that although we have our genetic predispositions, they can be somehow influenced by the way and what we eat. Also to blame is that doctors are not taught this fact in medical school.
Can an incorrect diet lead to Alzheimers?
According to Dr. Logan, yes.
Things like eating packaged candy when one is tired in the afternoon, can certainly increase the diabetes and heart disease, but he pointed out that the increased insulin secretions associated with a sugary diet increase the risk for Alzheimers and depression.
It seems the most harm is done by eating the combination of the incorrect types of fat with too much sugar in the same diet.
This diet produces a fat that becomes part of brain cells surrounding membranes. Brain cells are normally flexible.
However, a diet that includes an excess of trans fat, Omega-6 fatty acids, and saturated fats, can cause the brain cells to be inflexible. What does this do? It disrupts brain cell communication and affects our cognitive abilities.
Dr. Logan sited one study where animals that consumed an excess of trans fats had a much greater risk of getting Alzheimers and had a much decreased cognitive ability. He mentioned that a poor diet sets the stage from anything like ADHD to schizophrenia.
Dr. Logans Brain Diet.
There is a very worthy brain diet cited, but of utmost importance, if nothing else is done, is to increase ones intake of Omega-3 fatty acids.
These will assist not only ones cardiovascular system, but also protect a person from neurological disorders.
Dr. Logan also states that increasing your Omega-3 fatty acids can have a worthy effect on your mental abilities, mood and act as an anti-depressant.
Citing recent studies, Dr.Logan concluded that nutrition can have both positive effects (if correct) and very negative ones (if incorrect) on your cognitive abilities.
Examine what you eat. Are you foods full of trans fats?
Are you eating only processed and packaged foods with over-doses of sugars, incorrect fats, and chemicals? T
hese could not just be making you stupid, but could be setting the stage for early mental decline and even an untimely death.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/diet-tips-to-increase-your-brain-power-91975.html
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Keywords:
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