Proper diet improves intelligence and cognitive ability, researchers say
Nutrition works on the brain as medicine. There is a fascinating opportunity to increase cognitive ability, protect the brain, and slow down the aging process, "said Dr. Fernando Gómez-Pinilla, a Chilean neurobiologist who works at California State University in Los Angeles.
He analyzed the results of more than 160 studies on the effects of diet on brain function. The researcher summed it up in the professional magazine "Nature Reviews Neuroscience" and came to a groundbreaking conclusion: the relatively easy ways anyone can improve brain performance. Gómez-Pinilla even claims that diets affect the health of entire nations.
He is one of the pioneers investigating how to "feed" the brain to work optimally. They are trying to find the answer to a very important question - can you increase your intelligence by eating?
Investigations in this field are not easy. An apple or ginkgo leaf, an asian tree, contains over a thousand different substances that can become biologically active. Only some have been tested to a sufficient degree, others remain completely unknown. The body can react to them in different variants, send or block signals to the brain, activate or silence genes, produce energy, change the structure of membrane nerve cells. Maybe not react at all. Ginkgo biloba leaves are sold in pharmacies as a remedy for memory loss. However, the experts failed to find evidence of this. Ginkgo was helping some mice with a stroke to cure them. It is not known, however, whether it works well for people.
One of the most significant studies was conducted by Canadian scientists. They surveyed over 4,500 diets. fifth-graders. They took into account factors such as parent income or school level. It turned out that the more varied the diet (a lot of vegetables and fruits, less saturated fatty acids), the better the results in science.
Dr. Jane Durga from the Dutch Wageningen University and his team recommend older people (50-70 years) abundant spinach, drunk with orange juice. In these products
folic acid is present.
Analyzes conducted by Wageningen experts over the past three years have demonstrated that folic acid improves seniors' memory, and also has a beneficial effect on speech fluidity. It has been previously reported that folic acid deficiency can cause clinical depression.
Richard Wurtman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology pharmacologist from Cambridge, thinks that through diet, he can overcome Alzheimer's, a terrible disease in which entire regions of the brain are destroyed, and his personality is annihilated. Wurtman and other researchers have long since noticed that people in India rarely suffer from this disease. Perhaps because they eat a lot of curry, a spice mixture made from turmeric. This perennial plant contains curcumin, which probably protects the brain. Rats, which were added to curcumin food for four weeks, recovered much faster after cerebral shock than normal fed rats.
Wurtman came to the conclusion that it was possible to create a specific "brain fertilizer" to prevent Alzheimer's disease, consisting of three components:
- Uricid monophosphate, found in carrots and beetroot.
Choline, in which eggs are rich. - Unsaturated fatty acid DHA from fish.
Mice fed with such a mixture developed 30-40% more synapses, that is, the connections between nerve cells that suffer from Alzheimer's first are destroyed. Danone is interested in "fertilizer for the brain". Patients at the first stage of the disease in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium already have this unusual combination. So far the results have been modest.
Food manufacturers believe, however, that good food for the brain, brain food, will provide them
fantastic profits.
The German company Hipp has launched a range of baby foods enriched with unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids. Swiss Nestlé will spend 25 million francs on research into the relationship between diet and brain, which will lead researchers from the Brain Mind Institute in Lausanne.
Specialists are associated primarily with docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). It is a polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acid. Its best source is fish fat, in smaller amounts DHA also occurs in some algae and in flax seed. DHA is found, in large numbers, in the membranes of human brain cells. It makes up 30% of all fatty acids. Participating in signaling, it guarantees the smooth functioning of the brain.
The human body almost does not produce this substance, it must get DHA along with food, especially with fatty fish, such as salmon. Some paleontologists believe that only access to this food source has put the evolutionary process into effect, which results in modern man. When hominids in Africa learned to fish, their brain began to grow rapidly. Deficiency of DHA and other unsaturated fatty acids can lead to disturbed concentration, dyslexia and even to schizophrenia and dementia.
Dr. Fernando Gómez-Pinilla, who systematically consumes various salmon recipes, claims that the health of the brains of entire nations depends on their diet. In many European countries over the past hundred years, the consumption of unsaturated fatty acids has dramatically decreased, but the number of depressive disorders has increased dramatically. In Japan, where raw fish in various forms is a national dish, the "black sadness disease" attacks rarely, least in Okinawa. The inhabitants of this southern island are the true recorders in the consumption of fish, even for the Japanese conditions.
Research on the relationship between fish consumption and brain efficiency was undertaken by scientists from Norway, a maritime state in which fisheries are a key industry. They conducted a survey on the daily diet of over 2,000 people. Both sexes aged between 70 and 74 years. Then they asked the participants to solve various tests on thinking and intelligence. It turned out that very good results were achieved by seniors, eating at least 10 grams of fish a day, while the efficiency of the intellect increased with the dose. They mastered the tests of the person eating
75 grams of fish a day.
These positive effects are due to the fact that unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids act directly on nerve cells. According to Dr. Gómeza-Pinilli, DHA improves the smoothness of membranes in neurons, meaning their ability to transmit signals as well as plasticity, which makes membranes more prone to change.
Rats treated with these substances for four weeks were much better at dealing with nerve damage. "Junk food" has the opposite effect. Rodents fed with food rich in sugar and saturated fats simply stupid, and became more sensitive to brain damage.
Evolutionary biologist James Joseph of the Tufts University in the United States gets two cups of berries and 30 grams of walnuts a day. The latter contain unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids, while in blueberries there are polyphenols, also found in grapes and red wine (polyphenol is also curcumin). Polyphenols are rich in antioxidants that seem to alleviate harmful cellular processes and protect synaptic neurons. Recently, research has emerged that question the beneficial effects of antioxidants, but most scientists trying to find brain food refer to such views skeptical.
James Joseph and Fernando Gómez-Pinilla stress that the brain is the most energy-intensive organ of the body. In this "thinking center", energy processes in cells are extremely intense. As a consequence, especially numerous
free oxygen radicals,
damaging cell structures, especially fatty, in the membranes of neurons. The person whose diet is abundant in berries can count on improving brain performance. At least, Dr. Joseph, referring to an experiment whose results have not yet been officially published. Elderly people, already having their first memory problems, took part. For 12 weeks, seniors were drinking two glasses of ordinary berry juice from the supermarket each day. At the end of this juice therapy, participants experienced better cognitive performance tests.
varied diet. It's all in the mix, says Dr. Fernando Gómez-Pinilla of Los Angeles.