Staring at the labels, I silently recited the drug names to myself in the hospital parking lot. Whatever brought you to Genius Foods, you've come to the right place.
My Investigation
I became interested in the latest research in nutrition and cardiovascular health, which I hoped would help maintain the network of small blood vessels that supply oxygen and other nutrients to the brain. And while this wasn't my original goal, I actually managed to lose stubborn fat and get into the best shape of my life – a welcome bonus.
Reclaim Your Cognitive Birthright
The concept of lifelong neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to change until death—was born, and with it a unique opportunity to exploit this landmark discovery for greater health and performance. The other half—the control group—. After the first two years, initial findings were published that revealed striking results.
A Genetic Master Controller—You!
In the past, these differences may have driven the evolution of our species, serving as advantages in our mysterious ancestral world. This book will ensure you're one of the 20 percent as we discuss how to keep your brain and blood vessels healthy (and even check a few boxes for cancer prevention and weight loss while we're at it).
Inflammation
In recent years it has been recognized that this plays a crucial role in causing or initiating many of the chronic, degenerative diseases that plague modern society. This may be why systemic inflammation significantly correlates with increased waist size.4 In coming chapters, we will definitively link these same factors to brain disease, brain fog, and depression.
Overfeeding
Nutrient Deficiency
Toxic Exposure
Chronic Stress
Physical Stagnation
Our bodies are designed to move, and ignoring that fact causes our brains to suffer.
Sleep Loss
In 1967, a review of dietary causes of heart disease was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). One of the flock's more absurd products came out in the late 1990s: potato chips formulated with the olestra molecule.
Polyunsaturated Fats: The Double-Edged Sword
Night of the Lipid Dead
Many Genius foods are beneficial in part because they increase the body's production of its own cleansing molecules.). When these oils are extracted and used to make packaged foods, they represent one of the major toxins in our food supply.5.
A Brain on Fire
This can be achieved by sticking to wild-caught fish, pasture-raised eggs and grass-fed or pasture-raised meats, which are higher in omega-3s and lower in omega-6s. The Japanese dietary pattern is known to include lots of vegetables and copious amounts of fish, the latter being a rich source of omega-3s both DHA and EPA.
Sane in the Membrane
Unfortunately, omega-6 fats and omega-3 fats are like highly competitive football rivals, both fighting for the same trophy—in this case, the limited real estate in cell membranes. Researchers have observed that children with lower intakes of omega-6 fats perform significantly better in
ALA—The Plant Omega-3
In the case of people who get little preformed EPA and DHA and a lot of omega-6 from their diets (vegans who consume a lot of processed foods, for example), the brain may actually be deficient in omega-3 for this reason. On days you are unable to get your dose of preformed EPA and DHA, supplemental fish, krill, or plant-based algae oil can help.
Monounsaturated Fats: Your Brain’s Best Friend
Just to put that into perspective, one liter of olive oil contains over 8,000 calories - more than half a week's worth of calories for a grown man. Both groups—those who adhered to the diet supplemented with added nuts and those who supplemented with added olive oil—not only maintained their cognitive function after six years, but also improved, with the olive oil group coming out slightly ahead.
Saturated Fats: Stable and Able
Get to know the grassy, peppery taste of a good EVOO (preferably organic) by swishing it at the back of your throat—and tasting it often. Welcoming saturated fats (like coconut oil, grass-fed butter, and ghee) back to the kitchen is a biologically relevant, real-world application that can have a huge benefit to your health.
A Fat Framed?
But unlike the toxic fats we've traded them in for (grain and seed oils like canola, corn, and soybean oil), saturated fats are chemically more stable and more suitable for use in higher-heat cooking. up. As it turns out, most of the saturated fat levels circulating in the body originate in the liver, where they are produced in response to carbohydrates—a process called lipogenesis, or the creation of fat.
Saturated Fat and the Brain: Friends or Foes?
Thanks to these studies, we have some clues as to why people who adhere more to the high-sugar and high-fat Standard American Diet tend to have smaller hippocampi – the structure in the brain that processes our memories.37 These studies also tell us that the combination of sugar and saturated fat (common in fast food) can cause inflammation and drain BDNF from the brain.38. The question that remains is how much saturated fat should be consumed in a brain-optimal diet.
Trans Fats: A Fat to Be Feared
Man-made trans fats are highly inflammatory, promoting insulin resistance and heart disease (they can raise total cholesterol while lowering protective HDL). A recent meta-analysis (a study of studies) found that consumption of trans fats was associated with a 34 percent increased risk of all-cause mortality, meaning early death from any cause.
Fat: The Nutrient Ferry
Certain nutrients in vegetables are not absorbed unless in the presence of fat - so salads and vegetables should always contain a source of healthy fats. Today, there is an epidemic of vascular disease, not just in the form of heart disease, but as vascular dementia, which is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's.
Energy Dense, Nutrient Poor
MICRONUTRIENTS GONE MIA
But vitamin D (produced when our skin is exposed to the sun's UVB rays) is a steroid hormone that affects the function of nearly a thousand genes in the body, many of which are involved in inflammation, aging, and cognitive function. That's because magnesium is a mineral needed by more than three hundred enzyme reactions in the body with tasks ranging from creating energy to repairing DNA.
Sugar and Carbs 101
But energy storage is only one part of the story—this process is also responsible for controlling the damage caused by too much sugar in your blood. Eat the sugar, insulin gets it out of the bloodstream—no harm, no foul, right.
The Rising Tide of Sweet Stickiness
The “healthiness” of grains typically has been assessed with a metric called the glycemic index. This is a measure of
Total glycemic load, which takes portion size into account, may be a better measure of meal quality than the glycemic index of any food. Although brown rice contains more fiber and micronutrients than white rice, it is not a great source of either and may be difficult for some people to digest.
Glycation = Glucose Exposure x Time
Glycation clearly plays a role in this process, and it partly explains why elevated blood sugar increases the risk of dementia, even among non-diabetics.11. Unaffected by the varying lifespan of red blood cells, this test can be useful in analyzing a discrepancy with A1C ie. when the average blood sugar changes rapidly due to dietary adjustment.
Added Sugar: The Brain Bane
Fructose, on the other hand, actually provoked more eating—in a way, it made the mice hungrier. The lesson to be learned is that sugar, and perhaps especially fructose, can actually make you overeat (more on that below).
Foods Uniquely Designed to Screw Up Your Brain
What no one tells us as we peruse the aisles lined with inflated bags of bliss is that these foods are literally designed to create insatiable overconsumption, engineered in laboratories by well-paid food scientists to be hyperpalatable. Salt, sugar, fat, and often wheat flour are combined to maximize pleasure, driving your brain's reward system to an artificial "happiness point" that simulates the addictive properties of controlled substances.
Don’t Get “Fruct” Over by Fructose
No! Table sugar (organic or not) and high-fructose corn syrup are both roughly 50 percent glucose and 50 percent
The combined effects of fructose may add up to altered gene expression in the brain. But what surprised the researchers the most was that close to a thousand genes in the brains of the fructose-fed rats were changed.
Human Foie Gras
NAFLD has been associated with cognitive deficits, which increase with the severity of the disease. In mice overfed to develop NAFLD, brain changes associated with Alzheimer's disease begin to appear, and mice that already had Alzheimer's-related abnormalities (not a perfect model of human Alzheimer's, but interesting nonetheless) show worsening signs of disease and greater inflammation when fed concentrated fructose.23.
A Gut-Brain Terrorist
In an attempt to find out whether blood sugar can increase the production of amyloid plaque (a central feature of Alzheimer's disease), researchers attached glucose clamps to mice that had been genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's-like symptoms. The researchers then measured levels of the amyloid plaque precursor protein in the animals' spinal fluid.
The Sour Truth about Sweet Fruit
In one, higher fruit intake in cognitively healthy older adults was associated with less volume in the hippocampus.29 This finding was unusual, as people who eat more fruit typically show the benefits associated with a diet healthy. Another study from the Mayo Clinic saw a similar inverse relationship between fruit intake and the volume of the cortex, the large outer layer of the brain.30 Researchers in the latter study noted that excessive consumption of high-sugar fruits (such as figs , dates, etc. mangoes, bananas and pineapples) can induce metabolic and cognitive disorders equal to processed carbohydrates.
A Call to Action
Keep your answer in mind as we venture into one of the greatest cons of our time in the next chapter. Flavonoids are a class of polyphenolic compounds found in many of the Genius Foods (you may remember oleocanthal, in extra virgin olive oil, a type of phenol).
Origins of a Myth
But did Keys attribute the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet to the wrong food group? "consequences" of the Mediterranean diet, such as the government-sanctioned DASH diet for lowering high blood pressure).
The Problem with “Chronic Carbs”
About one in two people in the United States has problems with blood sugar control, including prediabetes or type 2 diabetes. Power we now know that abnormal blood sugar is actually a late marker of chronically elevated insulin.
Priorities for a Different Time
One result of increased insulin for lean and overweight is that the release of stored fat for fuel - a process called lipolysis - is blocked. Even the brain can use fat as fuel once fat is broken down into chemicals called ketone bodies.
You Age at the Rate You Produce Insulin
In fact, people with one copy of a gene that makes their FOX03 more active are twice as likely to live to be a hundred years old. The empowering news here is that we can mimic many of these benefits in part by keeping a tight rein on our body's insulin production.
Gumming Up the Works
Most of the brain's guardianship work happens while we're in la-la land. For it to be flushed out, it requires the protein to remain soluble so it can be distributed in the cerebrospinal fluid that pulsates throughout the brain.
Diabetes of the Brain
In the brain, a reduced ability to 'hear' insulin can negatively impact aspects of your cognition, including executive function and your ability to store memories, concentrate, feel a sense of reward and feel positive mood to enjoy. It can be calculated using two simple tests that your doctor can perform: your fasting blood sugar level and your fasting insulin.
Fasting Glucose (Mg/Dl) x Fasting Insulin / 405
Alzheimer's patients tend to have higher levels of the inactive form of this protein (and lower levels of the active form) in their blood, so researchers at the National Institute on Aging wondered if a simple blood test could be used to identify those which develops a risk for Alzheimer's disease before the onset of symptoms. What they found was striking: higher levels of the inactive form of IRS-1 (which indicates impaired insulin signaling in the brain) predicted the development of Alzheimer's disease in patients with 100 percent accuracy.20 Even more stunning, the difference in these blood markers were evident ten years before the appearance of symptoms.
The Glycemic Lie
Some research even suggests that fast-releasing carbohydrates—especially in the absence of fat—can be handled more quickly by the body, with a short, rapid insulin spike, rather than elevated insulin for several hours after a mixed meal of , say, a baked potato with butter. Case in point: mice fed diets with added gluten gained more weight than mice fed the same diets without gluten.24 These mice had decreased metabolic activity and increased markers of inflammation compared to control mice fed exactly the same number of calories, carbohydrates, and fat - the only difference was that they consumed gluten.
Making Changes that Last
Gluten is already present in most breads, cakes, pasta, pizza and beer and is also added to a wide variety of other products for its sticky, mouth-pleasing ability, but mouths may be the only thing gluten makes happy. Thus, given their shared omnivorous nature, humans and mice share strong similarities,” researchers addressing the question of the utility of mouse models in gut studies wrote in the journal Disease Models & Mechanisms.25 This adds to the growing body of evidence that suggests that gluten's impact extends far beyond the digestive tract – a fact I will explore in depth in Chapter 7.
Get Your Sleep, and Meditate When Stressed
Before the obesity epidemic caused by these foods, people maintained a healthy weight without counting calories or paying for expensive gym memberships. With the following guiding principles, which apply to both Dr. Paul and me, it becomes possible to avoid dense sources of sugar and carbohydrates, and possibly even achieve weight loss, without counting calories or creating an obsessive relationship with food.
Curate the Food Environment
When eating out, try to check the menu beforehand and choose a restaurant that you know will have healthy options.
Create an Inner “Rule Book” and Write Down Your Goals
A recent University of Texas study that attempted to evaluate this unfortunate recipe found that greater dietary diversity, as defined by less similarity between the foods people eat, is associated with lower diet quality and poorer metabolic health.27 Translated to English: Participants who followed the "eat everything in moderation" rule ate fewer healthy foods, such as vegetables, and more unhealthy foods, such as grain-fed meats, desserts, and sodas. "Americans with the healthiest diets actually eat relatively little healthy food," observed Dr.
Have an “Accountabilibuddy” (Real or Digital)
A Final Word
Delivering these precious nutrients to your brain is the name of the game in the next section, which begins with a journey into vascular vibrancy. We were in the kitchen of our apartment in New York City when my mother whipped up an egg to make me an omelet.
The Diet-Heart Debacle
Ronald Krauss, a top nutrition expert in the United States who helped write many of the early dietary guidelines, concluded in a meta-analysis that “there is no significant evidence to conclude that saturated fat in the diet is associated with an increased risk of heart failure. [coronary heart disease] or CVD [cardiovascular disease].”2. The corn oil group also had twice as many heart attacks over the five-year period compared to the saturated fat group.
Cholesterol and the Brain
It is needed to make bile acids, which are essential for the absorption of brain-building fats and protective fat-soluble nutrients. Cholesterol is used to synthesize many hormones that protect the brain, such as testosterone, estrogen, progesterone and cortisol.
The Cholesterol-Disease Connection
In the first unadapted scenario, LDL particles can be damaged either by oxidation (a function of time spent in the bloodstream and exposure to oxidative byproducts) or. Once insulin sensitivity is restored, insulin can be used to "turn on" the liver's LDL recycling machinery.
Can Heart Disease Begin in the Gut?
Gluten (a protein found in wheat and added to many processed foods) can widen the "pores" in the intestinal lining. Now, when my doctor talks about “good cholesterol” and “bad cholesterol,” my eyes still glaze over, but for a different reason—because once you go down the rabbit hole, the good/bad analogy becomes ridiculously simplistic.
Statins: The Brain Drain
If you try to lower cholesterol by taking drugs that are attacking the cholesterol synthesis machinery in the liver, that drug also goes to the brain. The key concept here, however, is that most of those people who are put on a statin for high cholesterol would never have had a heart attack in the first place.
Free-range > Conventional
Since egg yolks contain a lot of valuable fats and cholesterol that are vulnerable to oxidation, I recommend keeping the yolk runny or more custard-like, instead of cooking it through (eg hard-boiled). For scrambled eggs and omelets, this means using low heat and keeping the eggs creamy or soft instead of dry and hard.
Punished at the Pump
One of the byproducts of glucose metabolism is the creation of compounds called reactive oxygen species or free radicals. These damaged zombie molecules are the same as those described in chapter 2, and their presence is a normal and unavoidable aspect of life.
Opening Up the Ketone Firehose
Once an obedient servant – and Seymour in our Store of Horrors analogy – the liver initiates a process called gluconeogenesis, which translates to "making new sugar." When adipose tissue, the fat that lies under our skin and around our waists, breaks down during starvation, fatty acids are released into the bloodstream to be converted by the liver into fuel called ketone bodies, or simply ketones.
The Solution to Pollution?
Their presence in the brain has been shown to turn on gene pathways that increase levels of BDNF, the "growth hormone" that can facilitate healthy mood, learning and plasticity, further protecting our neurons from the wear and tear of living. mentioned in the previous chapter, they also positively affect the blood supply to the brain, increasing blood flow up to 39 percent. 9. Filled with stored energy before birth in the third trimester, the fatness of human babies is unprecedented in the mammalian world.
Intermittent Fasting
It will make use of the body's natural rhythms to optimize ketone creation among other positive things. But few meat eaters are not the only group that can benefit from it: the body's ability to produce creatine and supply it to the brain can decrease with age.17.
The Ketogenic Diet
One surprising study in elderly omnivores found that creatine supplementation did indeed increase cognition.18 Finally, carriers of the Alzheimer's risk gene, the ApoE4 allele, have lower levels of creatine in the brain.19 They and those at risk or already experiencing cognitive symptoms, the neuroprotective aspects of creatine and energy conservation may benefit. The ketogenic diet has been in clinical use for over eighty years as a powerful treatment for epilepsy, where it can dramatically reduce the incidence of seizures and calm inflammation in the brain.
The Genius Plan
