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Brain Exercise – New York Press

Written by Leo Woer on May 2, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Authors Michael J. Gelb and Kelly Howell recently released a new book about Improving Your Mind As You Age

Authors Michael J. Gelb and Kelly Howell recently released Brain Power: Improve Your Mind As You Age, a book that attempts to demystify the long-standing belief that memory declines with age and offers simple tricks and techniques to improve brain activity and enhance overall mental well-being.

Gelb, who leads seminars around the world on the subject, has written 12 books, including How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day and Innovate Like Edison: The Five-Step System for Breakthrough Business Success. He has won a number of awards, including the Brain Trust Charity’s “Brain of the Year” award. A former professional juggler, Gelb once performed with The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan.

We spoke with Gelb about their new book, the biggest misconception people have about memory and aging and the different methods people can use to increase their mental acuity. Read more in the original article…….

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Categories: Uncategorized

Five steps to keeping your mind healthy

Written by Leo Woer on April 18, 2012 · Leave a Comment

I found this article By Valerie Nahmad Schimel published in The Miami Herald, which I find very interesting, as it is in line with most of the other articles on this site. It covers the necessity of training both the brain and the body, and also discuss the importance of the food you digest.

Furthermore, a near relative, has just recovered from 6 weeks in coma, and during this got a severe surgery – to do it short, the person has lost the colon and got a bypass, and all this could have been avoided if the person had taken a little more care of both the mental and the physical health.

“Everybody ages, but it’s about healthy aging,’’ says Dr. Claes Wahlestedt, professor of psychiatry and associate dean for therapeutic innovation at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

“Dementia is extraordinarily common in the 70, 80s and 90s. Good brain health is the ability to think clearly and to continue to live your life as you have before.”

The bad news? Researchers are still unsure of exactly what causes cognitive impairment. Diagnosis is often late and treatments remain elusive. “Alzheimer’s is our main nemesis,” says Wahlestedt, who notes that dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are milder forms of deteriorating brain health.

The good news?

Our understanding of the diseases and how to prevent them is evolving rapidly.

The brain as a computer

“Before we thought the brain was a very static thing, that you were born with a number of cells and that the brain was unable to repair,” says Dr. Carlos Ramirez-Mejia, a neurologist in Baptist Hospital’s neuroscience department.

“But now we know that up to a certain age the brain is able to create new connections and activate different areas when you create a need for them.”

“Think of nerve cells as a computer in the brain,” explains Wahlestedt. “All the wires have to be there for it to work. Nerve cells connect to other nerve cells and create these networks. If some of the cells die off, the networks will not be complete or functional.”

Accordingly, prevention efforts revolve around building strong, healthy nerve cells — from day one.

Early Prevention

“We make it clear that you’re never too young to start thinking about good health,” adds Dr. Ralph Sacco, professor and chairman of neurology at University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and immediate past president of the American Heart Association.

“The risk of cognitive impairment goes up with age, but it takes many years of unregulated behaviors to impact it — start doing something now versus doing something later.”

Did this motivate you ? then read on :

Here are five ways to start improving your brain health today.

• Eat a healthy diet

“Studies have shown that people who have a heart healthy, Mediterranean-style diet of mostly fish, legumes, vegetables and olive oil tend to have better brain health,” reports Dr. Po-Heng Tsai, a neurologist at Cleveland Clinic Florida.

A healthy brain diet looks a lot like a healthy heart diet. Avoid foods rich in cholesterol and bad fats and load up on fruits, vegetables, good fats and antioxidants.

• Exercise often

“Exercise keeps your brain healthy,” Wahlestedt says. “The brain is dependent on blood from the body, so it’s not a good thing if your arteries are really bad at supporting the brain.”

Specific recommendations vary by individual, but in general, longer durations and higher intensities are advised.

“Physical activity is always the trickiest recommendation,” Sacco says. “People who are older may not be as physically active, but if you’re doing less, do it a little longer.”

• Reduce stress

“Every time you’re under stress you produce a lot of hormones that are used in response to threat,” Ramirez-Mejia. “These hormones go to the brain and are very toxic. When you expose a rat to discharges of those chemicals, parts of the brain start to die.”

Reduce stress when possible by removing yourself from stressful situations, exercising, listening to music and/or practicing breathing techniques.

• Sleep better

“It is critical for the brain to process information while you’re sleeping,” Ramirez-Mejia says. “Your body seems to be at rest, but your brain is actually quite active storing memories and processing information from the day. If you’re not sleeping well, your memory and brain function will be impaired.”

• Be mentally, socially active

“The brain needs to learn new things,” Ramirez-Mejia says. “The moment it stops learning new things it goes into this mode where it becomes really efficient at the simple activities of daily living but doesn’t make any effort to make new connections. A brain that has more connections is a more efficient brain and is less prone to Alzheimer’s and dementia”

Learning can be learning a new language, acquiring a new skill, playing an instrument, doing mathematical calculations, exploring the world or planning things for the future — seeing life in the long-term.

Looking Ahead

“Right now because of the aging population, the predictions for the year 2050 are pretty bleak,” Sacco says. “The number of people living into 70s and 80s are going way up, so projections for Alzheimer’s, dementia and strokes are projected to increase unless we can do something by changing some of these behaviors.”

“The goal now is to produce more connections and build a more dense network,” Ramirez-Mejia adds.

“In the future there will be medications. For now we need to try to induce our body to produce them so we get the benefits.”

Hope You have enjoyed this article.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/14/v-fullstory/2752109/five-steps-to-keeping-your-mind.html#storylink=cpy

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Categories: Healthy Brain, healthy brain food, healthy diet brain, Uncategorized

Avoid Locking In Bad Memories And Emotions

Written by Leo Woer on January 19, 2012 · Leave a Comment

If you sleep after a traumatic event you might risc to lock in your bad memories and emotions from that event. A new study done by researchers from University of Massachusetts at Amherst has found that sleep is closely combined with memory and emotions – even more there are now also considerations that when you grow older you sleep less and this could in fact be the reason for lack of memory in the old age.

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst asked more than 100 healthy adults to rate their emotional responses to a series of images, some depicting unsettling scenes. Twelve hours later, they rated the images again. The difference: Half of the subjects slept during the break; the other half did not.

“Not only did sleep protect the memory, but it also protected the emotional reaction,” said Rebecca Spencer, a neuroscientist at UMass Amherst and co-author of the study that was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Study subjects who stayed awake for 12 hours had a weaker emotional response to the unsettling images the second time around, suggesting sleep serves to preserve and even amplify negative emotions. Their memories were also weaker than those of their well-rested counterparts, as they struggled to remember whether they had seen the images before.

Picture from ABCNEWS.com

“It’s true that ‘sleeping on it’ is usually a good thing to do,” said Spencer, citing evidence that sleep boosts memory and other cognitive functions. “It’s just when something truly traumatic or out of the ordinary happens that you might want to stay awake.”

Spencer said people often find it difficult to sleep after a traumatic event.

“This study suggests the biological response we have after trauma might actually be healthy,” she said. “Perhaps letting people go through a period of insomnia before feeding them sleeping meds is actually beneficial.”

As Spencer said “Just because we have a bad day doesn’t mean we should stay awake, we need to maintain some memories and emotional context to know what to avoid. We do learn something from them.”

And as mentioned she plans to study the connection between age and memory in the context of aging. So imagine that we might found out that our elderly people just need to sleep a little more to preserve the memory – what a scenario to think of.

Next, Spencer plans to study the link between sleep and memory in the context of aging. With age, the amount of time spent sleeping drops dramatically.

“We want to know if those changes actually underlie some of the cognitive and behavioral changes that occur with age,” she said.

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Categories: Healthy Brain

Healthy Eating Via Brain Changes

Written by Leo Woer on January 16, 2012 · Leave a Comment

It turns out that not only do we get slimmer when exercising for weight loss but at the same time we strengthen Brain Changes so that we are more able to resist all the fatty temptations.

Exercise Enhances Your Brain’s “Inhibitory Control” Making it Easier to Eat Healthy

Often regular exercise and a healthy diet go hand-in-hand, and this may not be a coincidence. Researchers have revealed that regular exercise enhances your brain’s resources that facilitate inhibitory control, helping to compensate for the onslaught of temptations that encourage unhealthy eating (junk food advertisements, fast-food restaurants on every block, and so on).

Exercise also appears to make your brain more sensitive to signs that you are full, offering a short-term benefit on top of the long-term, behavior-oriented benefits noted above. As stated in Obesity Reviews:

“This impulsive eating drive may be counteracted by physical activity due to its enhancement of neurocognitive resources for executive functions and goal-oriented behaviour. By enhancing the resources that facilitate ‘top-down’ inhibitory control, increased physical activity may help compensate and suppress the hedonic drive to over-eat. Understanding how physical activity and eating behaviours interact on a neurocognitive level may help to maintain a healthy lifestyle in an obesogenic environment.”

Exercise Even Alters Your Gut Hormones, Helping to Regulate Food Intake

Adding to the brain benefits, separate research presented at the 2011 meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB) revealed another way that exercise may help control your body weight: by altering the hormones released by your gut after a meal.

In rats that exercised, increased levels of an inhibitory feeding hormone, amylin, were released when a meal was eaten, and a more rapid rebound of ghrelin occurred after the meal. Further, exercised rats treated with a gut hormone called CCK, which limits meal size, decreased their food intake more so than sedentary rats.

As one of the study’s authors told Science Daily:

“Our new results indicate that the beneficial effects of exercise to control body weight might occur by altering the way in which meals release gut hormones that regulate food intake, and also by changing the sensitivity of individuals to these gut hormone signals.”

Exercise is already known to increase sensitivity to leptin, the “satiety hormone” involved in appetite regulation, providing even more reason to make physical activity a regular part of your life. And as mentioned, there is far more to exercise and weight loss than simply burning calories! Not to mention, aside from the weight loss connection, exercise also offers profound benefits to your brain health, including helping to preserve your brain function as you age.

And so the good news !!

The article further states what we might have heard before – Your Weight Loss will be more effective with 20 minutes exercising than 40 minutes.

One of the reasons why people continue to struggle with their weight despite engaging in regular exercise, aside from dietary mistakes, is because they’re not doing the right kind of exercise! Several studies have confirmed that exercising in shorter bursts with rest periods in between burns more fat than exercising less intensely for longer periods. So, if you want to lose weight, cancel your hour-long treadmill session and replace it with 20-minute, high-intensity interval training like Peak Fitness instead!

An added bonus: you can cut the duration of your exercise session in half. Yes, one 2007 study showed you can burn more fat exercising for 20 minutes than for 40 minutes!

In their trial, women either exercised for 20 minutes, alternating 8 seconds of sprinting on a bike with 12 seconds of exercising lightly, or exercised at a regular pace for 40 minutes. After exercising three times a week for 15 weeks, those who did the 20-minute, alternating routine lost three times as much fat as the other women.

The researchers believe this type of exercise works because it produces a unique metabolic response. Intermittent sprinting produces high levels of chemical compounds called catecholamines, which allow more fat to be burned from under your skin and within your muscles. The resulting increase in fat oxidation is thought to drive the increased weight loss.

Very promising that we now can reduce some of the time in gym, however, even how little time we spend here it is still a matter of will and persistence to do it. Fire up the mood – learn to love to go to gym, make peak exercises, eath healthy, and you will not only see a weight loss, but also the benefit of a more healthy brain and better memory

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Categories: Healthy Brain, healthy brain exercises

Healthy Mood Promotes Healthy Brain And Healthy Body

Written by Leo Woer on January 10, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Now when Christmas and New Years Eve are over, and we face lifes realities again – such as unpaid bills, lack of sun, and grey weather, we all tend to have the winter blahs. Research has shown that for the most part it is lack of vitamins especially D-vitamins – but also to some extent A and C, so to enhance your digestion with these vitamins together with some exercises, will help you to get a more healthy mood – and we know from other researches that healthy mood promotes healthy brain and healthy body.

Mood foods have an impact on the brain, either positive or negative. The effect is based on the components in the food and how they’re absorbed by the brain and the chemical reaction that takes place in the brain, says Patricia Muzzi, a personal chef with a background in chemistry.

Food can enhance well-being and calmness or it could cause lack of concentration, moodiness and irritability.

“Food really does help fuel the brain and the brain is really the powerhouse of who we are.”

January can feel like a longer month with gloom, bad weather and potential illness, said Muzzi, who has two daughters, aged 11 and seven.

“At this time of year, there is a lack of vitamin D from reduced sunlight. We need to get it from our foods. A lot of colds and viruses are going around so we want to keep our immune system intact. The brain is looking after that, so keeping the brain fit and healthy with good mood foods is really important.”

Being active also helps with mood and this can sometimes be difficult to achieve in the cold weather.

“You need that oxygen flow, the blood flowing because that helps carry the nutrients to the brain.”

Muzzi – the founder of Mood Food Culinary – did the research about this subject several years ago while she was studying to become a chef, as she suffered herself from the winter blahs and began to experiment with the connection between mental health and food.

“I applied a lot of what I learned to my personal lifestyle and became very mindful of what I ate. I noticed a huge, huge difference. I noticed I wasn’t getting colds any more. I felt extremely energetic and the levels are very consistent.”

Now, as the founder of Mood Food Culinary based in Mississauga, Ont., she tries to raise awareness among her clients about how to achieve a state of balance through keeping up a constant energy source with wholesome food. A portion of the proceeds of the mood food classes she teaches goes to the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario to help with their support services and research.

Sometimes people think they feel good when they experience a sugar rush from consuming candy or cola, but it is actually a result of the brain’s release of seratonin to combat the rush of adrenaline.

“We can’t have adrenaline rushing through our body the whole time. It would wreak havoc on our heart, our organs, the immune system, etc. … The release of seratonin calms you down, you have that instant rush and then it calms you down. Imagine doing that three, four, five times a day. You’re wreaking havoc on your body.

“But with mood foods it’s a long-lasting effect. An hour after you’ve had a specific mood food you’re just starting to feel it. It kicks in and it feels good. Then you continue with lunch and snack and dinner and you’re constantly infusing your body with mood foods.

“You’re going to feel great, balanced because you’re not going to have that up and down, up and down.”

To function, the brain needs vitamins, hydration, protein and carbohydrates, which can be obtained from unprocessed, whole, natural foods, like fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, quinoa and proteins. Avoid additives and food colourings, which can cause “brain fog,” Muzzi says.

Besides the obvious choice of Apples as they contain vitamins such as A and C, flavonoids and beta-carotene, Muzzi suggests a dish prepared with apples or turkey together with whole wheat, flax seed or spelt pasta, which over a short period makes you feel better and more concentrated – on average it takes about 28 days to change the blueprint, she says.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we in due time could digest her suggested dishes – maybe we should not replace the entire Christmas dinner with these, but we could do it days before and days after.

Pictures delivered as curtesy from Free Digital Photos

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Categories: Healthy Brain, healthy brain food

Physical Activity Supports Academic Performance

Written by Leo Woer on January 4, 2012 · Leave a Comment

This new study from Holland shows how Physical Activity Supports Academic performace.

Dutch researchers reviewed 14 previous studies from different parts of the world that looked at the relationship between physical activity and academic performance. Their review is published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.The data from the studies “suggests there is a significant positive relationship between physical activity and academic performance,” wrote the authors, led by Amika Singh of the Vrije Universiteit University Medical Center’s EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research in Amsterdam.

While they didn’t examine the reasons why the relationship may exist, the authors, citing previous research, said regular physical activity seems to be linked to better brain function. The effect on the brain could be the results of a number of factors, including increased flow of blood and oxygen to the brain as well as higher levels of chemicals that help improve mood.

This study, which shows that the students gain better brain activity through physical activities, comes at a time when schools across USA debate cutting physical education from their curriculum or have already eliminated it because of budget constraints – by now only 5 states require physical education, which is sad because at the same time we know that child obesity is a huge problem all over.

The studies we see now are not new knowledge even if we think so, allready in 2010 studies were made which came to similar conclusions.

But in addition to the latest research review, a 2010 literature review done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that out of 50 studies, more than half showed a positive association between school-based physical activity — such as physical education, recess and extracurricular sports — and academic performance and about half found no effect. Only a few showed a negative relationship that could be attributable to chance.

Some of the research reported that concentration, memory, self-esteem and verbal skills were among the improvements noted in students who participated in school-based physical activity.

With all these studies, all pointing in the same direction, it is amazing to see that we due to budgetary concerns still not make it mandatory in all schools to have physical activities as a part of the lessons. I believe that the spending here will give paramount return.

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Categories: Healthy Brain

Live 1000 Years And Develop Improved Memory

Written by Leo Woer on January 3, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Maybe the headline is extremely exaggerated, however, studies show that we with the right mix of nutritions and exercises will be able to maintain a healthy brain and a healthy body for a very long time – like the 82 years old runner Earl Fee mentioned here in this article.

Some recent studies with mice shows that the right ingredients i the food help the mice to develop improved memory. The mice were fed with a mix of vitamins, ginseng, and garlic and not only did the mice improve their memory they also lived longer.

It might be possible to cure aging, say scientists who’ve found that lab mice get smarter and more agile as they age when fed a mix of nutritional supplements.

The diet and supplement plan isn’t a conventional “cure.” But the animal results at McMaster University in Hamilton illustrate how investigators aim to slow down the aging process to avoid the physical and mental declines that often come as more candles are added to the birthday cake.

At Prof. David Rollo’s biology laboratory, mice that ate bagel bits soaked in a cocktail of supplements such as B vitamins, vitamin D, ginseng and garlic lived longer than those not taking the special mice chow.

“If you put them on a supplement, they actually learn better as they age,” Rollo said. “They still don’t live much longer but their brain function is remarkable.”

Also this video from 2010 supports the results

Live 100 years ?

Like Rollo, British gerontologist Aubrey de Grey of Cambridge is optimistic about the potential to extend human life span, but he takes a different approach. He’s not trying to eliminate aging but to extend how long people can be fit and healthy.“We know that with simple man-made machines like cars and airplanes, we don’t have a limit,” said de Grey said, who acknowledged that humans are more complicated.

“We can keep these machines going … just by doing sufficiently comprehensive repair and maintenance reasonably often and that is going to be exactly the same for the human body.”

By bringing the molecular and cellular damage that accumulates throughout life under medical control, de Grey suspects that human life spans could be vastly extended.

“If you reach age 26, what is the chance of not reaching 27? The answer is less than one in a thousand. So if you maintain that risk then clearly you [can] live a four-digit lifespan. You will live 1,000 years or more.”

Earl Fee of Mississauga, Ont., has a more modest goal: to live to 120.

Fee was a runner in his youth and then stopped for years. He resumed running at the age of 57 and now competes.

“I am 82 but I don’t feel much different than when I was 32, so that is a very good feeling,” he said.

Earl credited his intense training regime, healthy diet, enjoying a glass or two of red wine before dinner and the fortune of good genes for his vitality.

“Before I ran, I wasn’t as energetic or as vibrant,” he recalled.

Maybe we will still not have the ability to become 1000, but we know for sure that it is possible to live longer with a sharp mind and with reasonably good body functions.
Read the original article, where also the ingredients in the mice mix are listed.

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Categories: Healthy Brain, healthy brain food, healthy diet brain

Healthy Tips For 2012

Written by Leo Woer on January 2, 2012 · Leave a Comment

First of all Happy New Year to you all. Now that the new year approches and we have set our goals, this very optimistic article with Healthy Tips shows us that there are a lot of pleasant ways we can secure both healthy brain and healthy body.

» Want to lose weight or improve your fitness? Make it easier by finding something that doesn’t feel like work. Let the music move you in a Zumba class, pull your own weight by taking up rock climbing, strap on a pair of roller skates or take a low-impact water aerobics class. Research shows if you have fun and enjoy what you’re doing, you’re more likely to stick with it.

» Drink up! Recent analysis of years of studies shows drinking moderate amounts of wine and beer a day (5 to 10 ounces of wine and 12 to 24 ounces of beer) significantly promotes cardiovascular health.

» Have sex. To help you ditch the bedtime electronics, use that time for sex. Believe it or not, research shows that having sex is associated with lower stress levels, a reduced risk of prostate cancer in men, a stronger immune system and better sleep, among other benefits. So go ahead and do it. Just make sure you’re protected against sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy.

» Hit the slopes. Snowboarding, skiing and tubing are great ways to get moving this winter. For families with children, 22 ski resorts in Pennsylvania are offering free lift tickets to fourth- and fifth-graders.

All in all lovely enjoyable exercises, and here is also something around your digestion.

» Go meatless at least one day a week. Not only can this encourage you to incorporate more varied foods into your diet, including legumes, grains, fruits and vegetables, it might also reduce your risk of heart disease and help control your weight. A study of 500,000 people by the National Cancer Institute found that people who consumed 4 ounces or more of red meat daily had a 30 percent higher mortality rate than people who consumed less. You’ll also save money, since meat tends to be more expensive than other sources of protein.

» Drink fewer calories. Many juices, sodas and coffee beverages are loaded with sugar and/or fat. A 12-ounce Frozen Mocha Cappucino from Wawa contains 490 calories, 20 grams of fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol and 60 grams of sugar. So help your weight-loss efforts — and your overall health — by avoiding beverages like these.

» Become a home chef. Not only will cooking meals at home save you money, but you can better control portion sizes and where your food comes from (organic, free-range, locally grown, etc.). Learn recipes made with items you can easily stock in your kitchen and look for ways to stretch one meal into several.

Also social items matter – visit friends, listen to some good music, go to the local coffee shop and get your daily latte.

» Go beyond social media. Meet a friend or family member for lunch, coffee or brunch at least once a week. Being lonely is associated with higher levels of stress hormones as well as poorer immune and cardiovascular function.

» Turn up the tunes. Music has been shown to improve the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, have a calming effect on the brain, help combat depression and lower anxiety. Plus, if it gets you moving, it’s doing even more for your health.

» Get your fix. Coffee is (probably) good for you in moderation. Despite some negative studies, convincing evidence shows coffee drinkers are less likely than their non-java-jolting counterparts to develop type 2 diabetes, dementia or Parkinson’s disease, and have fewer cases of stroke, certain kinds of cancers and heart rhythm disturbances.

Very enjoyable and good advice – I am sure that most of us can keep these New Years promises, and you don’t need to follow them all, so it should be possible – don’t you think ?

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Categories: Uncategorized

Better Brain Health In The Later Years

Written by Leo Woer on December 29, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Omega 3 fatty acids and other nutrients such as vitamins C, D, E, and B, can prevent brain shrinkage and give Better Brain Health in the later years according to the December issue of the journal Neurology.

Researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University found a possible combination between nutrients found in vitamin and Omega 3 rich foods and the brain.

Together, the omega-3s, vitamins, and trans fat levels, as measured by a recently developed blood test, accounted for over 70 percent of the variation in the scores of cognitive tests taken by the study subjects, the researchers reported.

The study, involving 104 people who were 87 years old on average, was a follow-up to research that indicated that taking blood measurements solves the problem that occurs when people, filling out study questionnaires, inaccurately remember what they’ve eaten.

The results show how physicians may be able to help individual patients reach personal dietary goals to help their brain health in their later years, said study author Gene Bowman, an assistant professor of neurology at Oregon Health and Science University.

Still a lot of uncertainty however !

Researchers not involved in the study said the findings show promise for a new avenue of research, as well as confirming current ideas on maintaining a healthy brain with age.

While the study is promising, said Christy Tangney, a nutrition researcher at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, further work is needed for the new biomarkers the researchers measured to be seen as an effective research tool.

What’s needed, said Tangney, is to determine whether these markers correspond with good dietary patterns over the long term, or whether they simply indicate that someone has eaten well over the past few days.

“I think people think that just because they take a biochemical marker, there’s no problem with those,” she said.

While blood markers may overcome the problem of recall on diet surveys, they are not perfect, said Tangney, who wrote an editorial published in the journal with the study.

Tangney said she has sent tubes of her own blood to different labs for tests of nutrient markers and found the results differ enough that a doctor could give different medical advice based on them.

“I think it’s timely in that we have other studies showing a connection between, for example, overweight or obesity and dementia risk,” said Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Longevity Center and co-author of “The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program” (Workman Publishing, 2011). “You can see there is clearly a connection between what we eat and how well we think as we age.”If confirmed, the findings of the study could allow doctors to determine whether patients with low levels of nutrients should add certain foods to their diet to protect against cognitive decline, Small said.

Even if we still see a lot of studies proving that one or another diet is the correct one if you want to have a Healthy Brain for many years and stay mentally fit also in an old age, we still have a lot of unanswered questions. Never the less the different studies still prove that we need to think about what we eat and how much we exercise both physically and mentally.

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Categories: Healthy Brain, healthy brain food, healthy diet brain

Healthy Brain Obtained With Herbs and Spices

Written by Leo Woer on December 28, 2011 · Leave a Comment

More and more studies prove that the right mix of nutrition, exercises, and healthy emotional habits can help maintain a Healthy Brain. These habits even also help people with Parkinson’s Disease or other brain related disorders to have a more enjoyable life.

Author Anne Cutter Mikkelsen, who knows how it is to live with a very close relative with Parkinson’s Disease has written a book “Take Charge of Parkinson’s Disease: Dynamic Lifestyle Changes to Put You in the Driver’s Seat” where she walk us through with what to do from the first diagnosis to a very late stage like the one her husbond is in. Anne Mikkelsen who at the same time is trained in French cooking present more than 80 of her recipes which contain a variety of herbs and spices known to favorably impacting the brain.

Powerfully, Anne tells the personal story of how she and Mike – an award-winning potter and sculptor – learned to live vibrantly since his 1993 PD diagnosis. The couple wishes to help cut the learning curve for others facing down a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. According to Anne, food has been her most effective tool in her quest to create an atmosphere of optimism and anticipation for “whatever is coming next” through the stages of Mike’s PD.

Mikkelsen, who studied cooking in Provence, France at L’Ecole des Trois Gourmandes with Simone Beck, co-author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking I and II, also is a former TV cooking show personality. In her “Take Charge” recipes, Anne uses familiar ingredients and introduces key ingredients – among them, “curcumin,” a component in the spice “turmeric,” heavily researched for potential neuroprotective properties, and the piney-scented herb, rosemary, shown to improve circulation and stimulate the brain. Family chefs and foodies alike will be comfortable and intrigued with the culinary and, preparation techniques, and brain healthy pantry stocking recommendations.

As Anne Mikkelsen tells – ” You must take charge and put yourself in the drivers seat”. This is off course a great load to face the relatives with, however, is this load more difficult than seeing ones close relatives slowly waste away ?