Archive for the 'Brain Food' Category
September 10th, 2008 -- Posted in Brain Food, Mental Health |
The brain is like any other muscle in the body that gets stronger with proper exercise and shrivels if neglected. To keep the brain functioning at its full potential, researchers say there are specific lifestyle adjustments which can be made that can benefit many important brain functions.
Memory, one of the pivotal functions the brain performs, can be enhanced by staying mentally active, eating right, and participating in some form of physical exercise on a daily basis.
Mental exercise
Working out the mind with strategies to increase memory capacity are not just for the aging, but can also be used by the younger generations for some short-term payoffs, UCLA memory researchers said.
Recent studies have found that after normal adults are thought to use these strategies for remembering, their brain activity has become more efficient according to scans, said Gary Small, professor of clinical psychiatry at UCLA.
These mental exercises can be easily remembered as the “look, snap and connect,” Small said.
The first step in remembering is to look and focus your attention on your subject, he added.
“You should never multitask since it hurts your ability to attend to information and will cause you not to remember,” Small said.
The next step, snap, involves creating a visual image of the subject matter that you are trying to remember, he added. This helps to recall and retrieve the information later.
Medical school students often use these sorts of techniques when required to memorize complex anatomy, said Linda Ercoli, director of geriatrics psychology at the UCLA Semel Institute.
“The idea is to associate them with things that you already know that have meaning for you,” Ercoli said. “This will allow the processing to happen on a more meaningful level.”
The final step is to connect, which consists of putting the newly learned information into context, Small said.
“If you just memorize facts, it will be in and out,” Small said. “You need to rehearse and repeat the information; a good way to do this in class is to take good notes in class and write summaries after.”
If strategies like this are applied to everyday life, people can bring their memory abilities up to their full potential and even prevent future degenerative conditions of the brain, Small added.
Diet
The brain is affected by everything you put into your body, including your diet.
Recent studies have found that a well-balanced diet can help ward off the appearance of all kinds of mental disorders, including those that involve memory loss like Alzheimer’s.
Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, professor of neurosurgery at UCLA, analyzed 160 studies to understand how food can impact the brain.
“The basic idea of the research is that the capacity of the brain depends on the type of life we have,” Gomez-Pinilla said. “Essentially, the simple things we do may have an important influence on the brain.”
It was discovered that omega-3 fatty acids, found in salmon, kiwi, and walnuts can improve memory abilities and prevent mental disorders as well.
Gomez-Pinilla focused also on the synapses in the brain, which connect brain cells, where it is believed learning and memory occur.
Another study found that children exposed to a diet rich with this brain vitamin, omega-3, performed better in school and had fewer behavioral problems.
Other brain enriching foods include spinach, rich with folic acid which is essential for brain function, Gomez-Pinilla said.
There are foods to stay away from that can cause damage to many systems in the brain, including memory, Gomez-Pinilla said.
Junk foods that are high in saturated fats have been shown to negatively impact the synapses of the brain, he added. Certain fruits, like blueberries, have the opposite effect since they are rich antioxidants and prevent oxidative damages which accumulate in the brain.
Healthy diets are essential not only for physical well-being, but also for the mind, Gomez-Pinilla said.
Exercise and stress
Getting your blood pumping through exercise has been linked to increased brain function and memory.
Several studies using animal models have found exercise can help increase cognitive function in animals as well as reduce the mental decay which occurs with aging, said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, professor of neurosurgery at UCLA.
“Doing 30 minutes of running exercise a day can make a big short-term difference in memory and mental function,” Gomez-Pinilla said.
The best type of exercise is cardiovascular since it is good for the heart, hence good for the brain, said Gary Small, professor of clinical psychiatry at UCLA.
This form of exercise, like running, gets more blood flowing to the brain, he added.
However, there may be other reasons why exercise has been shown to work wonders for getting the brain in shape.
The endorphin rush which hits the body during exercise may also be a brain-strengthening mechanism.
Other findings suggest that high amounts of stress, which release the stress hormone, cortisol, in to the body can interfere with memory production and storage, Small said.
In terms of test taking and study habits, Small said that cramming is one of the worst methods, especially due to the elevated levels of stress in addition to lack of sleep.
Small added that many students can get by fine cramming, partying on the weekends, and getting little or no sleep because the teenage years up to the early 20s are the prime time for learning and brain power.
But, cramming may work now, but it won’t a few years down the line, Small said.
So the time is now to start taking care of your memory, Small added.
Source: University of California, Los Angeles (http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2008/sep/08/choose-healthy-lifestyle-keep-your-brain-peak-shap/)
August 18th, 2008 -- Posted in Brain Food, Life Extension, Osteoporosis / Bone Health, Physical Health |
Researchers at Johns Hopkins are reporting what is believed to be the most conclusive evidence to date that inadequate levels of vitamin D, obtained from milk, fortified cereals and exposure to sunlight, lead to substantially increased risk of death.
In a study appearing in the Archives of Internal Medicine online Aug. 11, the Johns Hopkins team analyzed a diverse sample of 13,000 initially healthy men and women participating in an ongoing national health survey and compared the risk of death between those with the lowest blood levels of vitamin D to those with higher amounts. An unhealthy deficiency, experts say, is considered blood levels of 17.8 nanograms per milliliter or lower.
Of the 1,800 study participants known to have died by Dec. 31, 2000, nearly 700 died from some form of heart disease, with 400 of these being deficient in vitamin D. This translates overall to an estimated 26 percent increased risk of any death, though the number of deaths from heart disease alone was not large enough to meet scientific criteria to resolve that it was due to low vitamin D levels.
Yet researchers say the finding does highlight a trend, with other studies linking shortages of vitamin D to increased rates of breast cancer and depression in the elderly. And earlier published findings by the team, from the same national study, have established a possible tie-in, showing an 80 percent increased risk of peripheral artery disease from vitamin D deficits.
Researchers note that other studies in the last year or so in animals and humans have identified a connection between low levels of vitamin D and heart disease. But these studies, they say, were weakened by small sample numbers, lack of diversity in the population studied and other factors that limited scientists’ ability to generalize the findings to the public at large.
“Our results make it much more clear that all men and women concerned about their overall health should more closely monitor their blood levels of vitamin D, and make sure they have enough,” said study co-lead investigator Erin Michos.
“We think we have additional evidence to consider adding vitamin D deficiency as a distinct and separate risk factor for death from cardiovascular disease, putting it alongside much better known and understood risk factors such as age, gender, family history, smoking, high blood cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, lack of exercise, obesity and diabetes,” she said.
Vitamin D is well-known to play an essential role in cell growth, in boosting the body’s immune system and in strengthening bones.
“Now that we know vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor, we can better assess how aggressively to treat people at risk of heart disease or those who are already ill and undergoing treatment,” said Michos, who added that test screening for nutrient levels is relatively simple. It can, she said, be made part of routine blood work and be done while monitoring other known risk factors, including blood pressure, glucose and lipid levels.
Heart disease remains the nation’s leading cause of death, killing more than a million Americans each year. Nearly 10 percent of those with the condition have not one identifiable, traditional risk factor, which the experts say is why a considerable extent of the disease goes unexplained.
Michos, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart and Vascular Institute, recommends that people boost their vitamin D levels by eating diets rich in such fish as sardines and mackerel, consuming fortified dairy products, taking cod-liver oil and vitamin supplements and in warmer weather briefly exposing skin to the sun’s vitamin D — producing ultraviolet light.
Aware of the cancer risks linked to too much time spent in the sun, Michos says that as little as 10 to 15 minutes of daily exposure to the sun can produce sufficient amounts of vitamin D to sustain health. The hormonelike nutrient controls blood levels of calcium and phosphorus, essential chemicals in the body.
Michos says that if vitamin supplements are used, there is no evidence that more than 2,000 international units per day do any good. Study results show that heart disease death rates flattened out in participants with the highest vitamin D levels (above 50 nanograms per milliliter of blood), signaling a possible loss of the vitamin’s protective effects at too-high doses.
The U.S. Institute of Medicine suggests that an adequate daily intake of vitamin D is between 200 and 400 international units (or blood levels nearing 30 nanograms per milliliter). Previous results from the same nationwide survey showed that 41 percent of men and 53 percent of women are technically deficient in the nutrient, with vitamin D levels below 28 nanograms per milliliter.
Michal Melamed, study co-lead investigator, who started the research as a clinical fellow at Johns Hopkins, says that no one knows yet why or how vitamin D’s hormonelike properties may protect the heart, but she adds that there are plenty of leads in the better known links the vitamin has to problems with muscle overgrowth and high blood pressure, in addition to its control of inflammation, which scientists are showing plays a stronger role in all kinds of heart disease. But more research is needed to determine the nutrient’s precise biological action.
Researchers say their next steps are to test various high doses of vitamin D to find out if the nutritional supplementation results in fewer deaths and lower incidence of heart disease, including heart attack or moments of prolonged and severe chest pain.
The team also plans to investigate what biological triggers, such as obesity or hypertension, might offset or worsen the action of vitamin D on heart muscle, or whether vitamin D sets off some other reaction in the heart.
Melamed says that because vitamin D levels are known to fluctuate in direct proportion with daily physical activity, the growing epidemic of obesity and indoor sedentary lifestyles lend more urgency to act on the vitamin D factor.
Funding for this study was provided by the National Institutes of Health, P.J. Schafer Cardiovascular Research Fund and Paul Beeson Physician Faculty Scholars in Aging Program. Michos has received previous consulting fees from vitamin D therapeutics manufacturer Abbott Pharmaceuticals. The terms of these arrangements are being managed by The Johns Hopkins University in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.
Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in this study, conducted solely at Johns Hopkins, were Wendy Post and Brad Astor. Melamed is now an assistant professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
Source: John Hopkins Medicine, David March (http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2008/18aug08/18vitamind.html)
August 8th, 2008 -- Posted in Brain Food, Life Extension, Physical Health |
Herbs and spices are rich in antioxidants, and a new University of Georgia study suggests they are also potent inhibitors of tissue damage and inflammation caused by high levels of blood sugar.
Researchers, whose results appear in the current issue of the Journal of Medicinal Food, tested extracts from 24 common herbs and spices. In addition to finding high levels of antioxidant-rich compounds known as phenols, they revealed a direct correlation between phenol content and the ability of the extracts to block the formation of compounds that contribute to damage caused by diabetes and aging.
“Because herbs and spices have a very low calorie content and are relatively inexpensive, they’re a great way to get a lot of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory power into your diet,” said study co-author James Hargrove, associate professor of foods and nutrition in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences.
Hargrove explained that when blood sugar levels are high, a process known as protein glycation occurs in which the sugar bonds with proteins to eventually form what are known as advanced glycation end products, also known as AGE compounds. The acronym is fitting because these compounds activate the immune system, resulting in the inflammation and tissue damage associated with aging and diabetes.
The researchers found a strong and direct correlation between the phenol content of common herbs and spices and their ability to inhibit the formation of AGE compounds. Spices such as cloves and cinnamon had phenol levels that were 30 percent and 18 percent of dry weight, respectively, while herbs such as oregano and sage were eight and six percent phenol by dry weight, respectively. For comparison, blueberries – which are widely touted for their antioxidant capabilities – contain roughly five percent phenol by dry weight.
Study co-author Diane Hartle, associate professor in the UGA College of Pharmacy, said various phenols are absorbed differently by the body and have different mechanisms of action, so it’s likely that a variety of spices will provide maximum benefit.
“If you set up a good herb and spice cabinet and season your food liberally, you could double or even triple the medicinal value of your meal without increasing the caloric content,” she said.
She added that controlling blood sugar and the formation of AGE compounds can also decrease the risk of cardiovascular damage associated with diabetes and aging. She explained that high blood sugar accelerates heart disease partly because AGE compounds form in the blood and in the walls of blood vessels. The AGE compounds aggravate atherosclerosis, which produces cholesterol plaques.
The UGA researchers tested for the ability to block AGE compounds in a test tube, but animal studies conducted on the health benefits of spices lend support to their argument. Cinnamon and cinnamon extracts, for example, have been shown to lower blood sugar in mice. Interestingly, cinnamon lowers blood sugar by acting on several different levels, Hargrove said. It slows the emptying of the stomach to reduce sharp rises in blood sugar following meals and improves the effectiveness, or sensitivity, of insulin. It also enhances antioxidant defenses.
Hargrove said their findings suggest it’s likely that the herbs and spices they studied will provide similar benefits in animal tests. He points out that because humans have been consuming herbs and spices for thousands of years, they come without the risk of possible side effects that accompany medications.
“Culinary herbs and spices are all generally recognized as safe and have been time-tested in the diet,” he said. “Indeed, some of spices and herbals are now sold as food supplements because of their recognized health benefits.”
Study co-author Phillip Greenspan, associate professor in the College of Pharmacy, noted that most people don’t get their recommended five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Rather than seasoning their food with salt – which provides no beneficial phenols and has been linked to high blood pressure – he recommends that people use a variety of herbs and spices to help boost the nutritional quality of their meals.
“When you add herbs and spices to food, you definitely provide yourself with additional benefits besides taste,” Greenspan said.
Source:Science Daily (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080805153830.htm)
August 4th, 2008 -- Posted in Brain Food, Mental Health, Physical Health |
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Food does more than satisfy hunger; it provides fuel for the body and mind, too. So as you make a list of school supplies to buy for the upcoming school year, don’t forget to consider the items at your local supermarket that can also help prepare your child for the classroom.
Catherine Kraus, RD, M.Ed, CHES, a dietitian at the University of Michigan Health System, says that a balanced, healthy diet enables chemical messengers in the brain — known as neurotransmitters — to function more efficiently. This produces better concentration and memory.
Parents can take several steps to create well-balanced meals and snacks that provide children the energy and nutrition they need to perform well at school, notes Kraus, a member of the Pediatric Comprehensive Weight Management Center at U-M C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.
Breakfast. Research has demonstrated that students who skip breakfast in the morning don’t perform as well as students who do eat breakfast. Kraus recommends serving a healthy breakfast that consists of a whole grain cereal, oatmeal or bread with a form of protein, such as peanut butter or a hard-boiled egg.
Pairing the meal with whole fruit instead of a fruit juice offers a way to add more vitamins, minerals and fiber into a diet. Kraus adds that dairy products are an acceptable addition to your child’s breakfast, as long as they are in the form of fat-free or low-fat milk, yogurt or cheese.
Lunch. While many schools are making efforts to include healthier items on lunch menus, high-calorie items still exist — including pizza, nachos and sweetened drinks. If you are concerned about your child’s cafeteria choices, Kraus recommends packing a lunch.
“When children consume a high-fat, high-sugar meal, their bodies will crash, and they will be come very tired and lethargic — which is not going to help them perform at their best level in school,” explains Kraus.
When packing a lunch, variety is best; choose an assortment of fruits and vegetables in various colors and sizes. This ensures that kids receive a mix of vitamins and minerals, and it will prevent them from becoming bored with the same packed lunch routine every day. Kraus recommends including a type of whole grain product in the meal, such as tortillas or bread, with a lean protein, such as tuna, turkey or chicken.
She also notes that sweetened beverages are full of empty calories and don’t provide any nutritional value. Opt for a beverage that does not contain added sugars — such as water, fat-free or low-fat milk, or 100 percent fruit juice.
Snacks. When it comes to snack foods, Kraus says that the proper adage to follow is, “Out of sight, out of mind.”
“When you are grocery shopping, keep in mind that if a snack is in the home, your children will likely eat it. So keep healthy food in the house at all times to ensure that they will always have healthy snack options. If you keep candy bars and fruit in the home, most children would pick the candy bar. So just keep it out of the house,” she says.
Focus on finding snack foods that will keep your kids satisfied until dinner and energized for homework and studying. For optimal energy and hunger satisfaction, Kraus recommends pairing protein with a high fiber carbohydrate; serve up string cheese or peanut butter with whole grain crackers or prepare a half-sandwich made with whole grain bread or pita. Another tasty treat option is creating a homemade smoothie by blending yogurt and fruit together.
She also suggests that parents take time each day to wash and slice fresh fruits and vegetables. Remember to place the produce on the counter or at eye level in the refrigerator so it is more accessible to children.
Dinner. “A smart dinner will help your child’s brain function. If they are satisfied after dinnertime then they will sleep through the night, and a child needs at least eight to nine hours of sleep a night in order to function while in school the next day,” explains Kraus.
She says that half of a “smart” dinner plate should be made up of fruits and vegetables, and a quarter of the plate should consist of a lean protein. Fill the remaining quarter with whole grains, such as brown rice or whole wheat pasta.
Overall Kraus says that encouraging your children to eat smart during the school day can help them develop healthy habits for life.
“Childhood is a crucial time when bodies are growing and brains are developing,” she says. “It’s so important to fuel the body with good nutrition, and teaching children smart eating habits at a young age is a great idea. It starts with the parents serving as the role model.”
July 31st, 2008 -- Posted in Arthritis / Joint Pain, Brain Food, Life Extension, Mental Health, Physical Health |
If Bruce Lipshutz has his way, you may soon be buying bottles of water brimming with the life-sustaining coenzyme CoQ10 at your local Costco.
Lipshutz, a professor of chemistry at UC Santa Barbara, is the principal author of an upcoming review, “Transition Metal Catalyzed Cross-Couplings Going Green: in Water at Room Temperature,” which will be published in Aldrichimica Acta in September. In it, Lipshutz and post-doctoral researcher Subir Ghorai discuss how recent advances in chemistry can be used to solubilize otherwise naturally insoluble compounds like CoQ10 into water.
Never heard of CoQ10? Lipshutz says you’re not alone. “If you don’t know anything about it,” Lipshutz said during a recent interview, “that’s not surprising to me. Much of the public hasn’t heard of it.” But he’s on a mission to correct what he views as a major oversight. “In a sense, I’m just a messenger. People need to not only know about CoQ10, they need to take it.”
Like vitamin C, CoQ10 is a compound that’s vital to our survival. It’s a coenzyme that our cells synthesize, albeit in 21 steps, and it’s in every cell. This contrasts with a vitamin, such as vitamin C, which is not made by the body. Both CoQ10 and vitamin C are “compounds of evolution,” Lipshutz said. “Everybody accepts the importance of vitamin C. The reason the public does not fully appreciate it is that there’s no Linus Pauling for CoQ10. There is no champion.”
Pauling, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, was also an advocate for greater consumption of vitamin C. “CoQ is not really in that category of public awareness yet,” Lipshutz said.
While the body produces its own CoQ10, that production decreases with age. “Nature gave us, through 2.5 billion years of evolution, a number of fundamental anti-aging, free-radical scavengers that helped us to survive, on average, only to about 40 years of age, until modern medicine came along,” Lipshutz said.
A large percentage of the body is made up of water, “but there are also the lipophilic portions of our cells that make up the non-aqueous part,” Lipshutz explained. At some point in our evolution, the water-soluble antioxidant vitamin C was produced in vivo, or what would technically be “coenzyme C.” Eventually, “a mutation took place that now prevents humans from making it,” he said. “However, evolution chose not to mutate out CoQ10.”
If one doesn’t get vitamin C, the consequences can be dire. “It’s essential for several cellular processes. For example, everyone knows about scurvy,” Lipshutz said. “You can last 30 days, maybe 60 days, as your cells deteriorate.”
On the other hand, CoQ10 – much of which is in the mitochondria of our cells – is essential for cellular respiration and ATP (adenosine triphosphate) production. “You wouldn’t last 30 minutes without CoQ10,” he said. “Thus, evolution teaches us that CoQ10 is as important as vitamin C. But who’s teaching this to our aging population? Nobody.”
Lipshutz has a history of CoQ10 research at UCSB. Initially, he retooled the chemistry that would produce the supplement via synthesis instead of fermentation, which is what Japan used to become the world leader in CoQ10 production. But China’s entry into the CoQ10 market only a few years ago changed everything.
“The price of CoQ for over 30 years was about $1,600 per kilo as produced by the Japanese,” Lipshutz said. “The Chinese came along and, for the time being, have dramatically altered the market by deciding at the government level that they were going to own this important area of dietary supplements. CoQ10 can now be purchased for as little as $400 a kilo, which in principle is great news for consumers.”
When the supply of CoQ10 grew faster than demand, Lipshutz went into the lab to study what else could be done with this life-enriching compound. After all, CoQ is now readily available. At Costco or drug stores, you can buy CoQ10 formulated into softgels that deliver the nutrient in various strengths. It’s marketed as helping to provide a boost in energy as well as a healthy heart. But, Lipshutz notes, you absorb only10-15 percent of CoQ10 in the softgel form. How, he asked, could this become more available and bioefficient?
“The future is not about access to CoQ10 anymore,” he said. “It’s not about, ‘Do we have the best synthesis?’ or ‘Can we compete with the Chinese?’ It’s about getting it into water, so that we can get it into our mitochondria.”
Quite a challenge since CoQ10 is water insoluble. The answer? Go nano.
“We do it with nano-micelle-forming technology,” Lipshutz said. He starts by putting a known, inexpensive molecule called PTS into water, which spontaneously forms a nanosphere about 25 nanometers (one nanometer is equal to one billionth of a meter) in diameter. This sphere has a lipophilic portion tied to a hydrophilic portion through a linker. The lipophilic portion, which is actually vitamin E, goes to the center. “The vitamin E portion associates in the middle with itself because it doesn’t have any solubility, any energy-lowering interactions, with the water around it,” Lipshutz said. “But the external or hydrophilic portion associates with water.
“So, on the outside is the water-loving portion, while the lipophilic, or grease-loving portion, is on the inside. When you add the CoQ, it says, ‘Where would I rather be?’ Since like dissolves like, the CoQ10 goes inside the micelle. It’s 25 nanometers and it’s crystal clear. And, it’s stable at room temperature.”
That’s nanotechnology. It delivers twice the amount of the compound into the bloodstream, and the concentration in water can be adjusted, he said. This approach can be applied to a broad range of nutraceuticals, including omega-3s, carotenoids like lutein and beta-carotene, and resveratrol. “We can also take pharmaceuticals, like Taxol, an anti-tumor agent, and put them into just water or saline using this PTS,” he said.
By taking advantage of this micellar technology, synthetic chemistry can also be done inside the nano-containers. That translates into doing chemistry in pure water, and at room temperature. “That’s green chemistry,” Lipshutz said.
The amount of heat usually needed in reactions, and the waste created by organic solvents, are dramatically reduced. Lipshutz hopes that when his processes are looked at on a much larger scale, a savings of metric tons of solvent, currently released into the environment, will be realized.
“We aim to get organic solvents out of organic reactions,” he said. “And we’re already looking into next-generation possibilities. All of our green chemistry has come out of being able to put CoQ10 and other dietary supplements into water.”
Lipshutz sees this as his most significant contribution to an already illustrious career as an organic chemist.
“It’s an opportunity to affect every person on the planet,” he says proudly.
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