It is that time of year when people make plans to improve their personal or professional life, or both. It goes without saying that clarity of thought will be an important prerequisite to successfully developing and executing one’s plans. What follows is part 1 of 3 in our Whole Person Brain Health series.
What is Whole Person Brain Health? In addition to exploring lifestyle habits that directly affect brain performance, Whole Person Brain Health also explores how brain performance is impacted by other body parts.
Part 1 examines the effects that different body systems have on brain performance. Part 2 will investigate healthy whole body habits that have an effect on brain performance and part 3 will explore lifestyle habits that have a direct effect on brain performance.
- Move it or lose it.
It goes without saying that reading, crossword puzzles, and other brain exercises can improve cognitive function – but what about exercising the rest of your body? It should seem self-evident that the musculoskeletal system is closely connected to the brain and nervous system. Recently, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School discovered a molecule called irisin, produced during endurance exercise, which has neuroprotective effects. Irisin also increases the level of brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), which stimulates the growth of new brain cells (1). In other words, endurance exercise not only protects current brain cells from degeneration, it also encourages the growth of new brain cells.
What does this mean outside of the test tube? Author of “The Athlete’s Way,” tells us that moderate to vigorous exercise just once a week can increase one’s likelihood of maintaining cognitive function by 30%, compared to not exercising at all (2).
- Get the wind out of your liver.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) often classifies neurological symptoms and diseases as liver issues. Convulsions, body tremors, stroke and Parkinson’s Disease are sometimes diagnosed as Liver Wind or Liver Yang Hyperactivity. Western Medicine has yet to make a strong link between the liver and nervous system, but there does seem to be some biochemical support for TCM’s theory.
One of the biomolecules that may support this connection is glutathione. Glutathione is an important anti-oxidant which helps prevent and reverse damage from free radicals. There are several neurological diseases associated with free radical injury – including dementia, Parkinson’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis (3).
Many tissues throughout the body use Glutathione but the liver’s ability to detoxify, and the brain’s ability to prevent free radical damage, seem to depend heavily on the chemical. Some genetic researchers believe gene defects involved in processing glutathione control, not if, but when they will get Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s (5).
The blood-brain barrier contains abundant glutathione receptors, suggesting the brain likely looks to the blood stream if the brain itself has low levels of glutathione. The liver secretes more usable glutathione into the blood stream when the liver is not under a lot of stress (6) so it stands to reason that decreasing the burden on your liver can have an indirect effect on your brain health. Alcohol, obesity, diabetes, smoking, overuse of medication, pesticides and heavy metals are all examples of things that may put a strain on your liver. Consuming liver-supportive foods such as dandelion, cabbage, broccoli, kale and cauliflower may help improve one’s liver function, thereby potentially improving brain function.
- Burn the Belly Fat
Several studies have shown a link between belly fat and brain function. For example, a study in 2008 with over 6500 participants found the greater amount of belly fat one has, the greater chance they have of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s. In fact, the individuals with the most abdominal fat were three times more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s compared to their skinniest counterparts (7).
It also appears that abdominal and visceral fat may be inversely connected to brain volume. In 2011 researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine compared abdominal CT scans with MRI brain scans of 733 individuals and found the more belly fat an individual had, the smaller their brain volume was (8).
You don’t need a CT scan to know if you are at risk. Women with a waist circumference of over 35 inches or above, and men with a waist circumference of 40 inches or above are at increased risk of having excess visceral fat. A BMI above 25 would also put you in the “at risk” category.
- Being able to reason is reason enough to maintain a healthy heart.
A previous president of the American Heart Association explained the simple connection between the heart and brain. The heart supplies blood to the brain. The brain needs blood to function. If the pipes from here to there are clogged, bye-bye cognitive function (9).
The “decreased blood flow leads to decreased cognitive function” theory is all we really need to support the argument that cognitive function hinges on a healthy heart, but the Institute of HeartMath would have us believe there are many other ways the heart influences brain function.
They explain there are four ways the heart communicates with the brain: through nerves, pulse waves, hormones and the electromagnetic field generated by the heart. It is still unclear the exact effect these lines of communication from the heart have on the brain, but they do appear to affect cognitive performance.
The Institute of HeartMath conducted a small study (30 people) which showed that individuals who used techniques to increase their heart rhythm coherence had faster reaction times when performing a discrimination task (10).
Heart rhythm coherence, is the analysis of how one’s heart rate fluctuates over time; the more regular the fluctuations in one’s heart rate, the more “coherence” one achieves. More erratic heart rate fluctuations lead to less “coherence.”
The study suggests using techniques to improve one’s heart rhythm coherence, which may improve one’s cognitive performance. If you are interested in improving your heart rhythm coherence, check out HeartMath’s EmWave.
- Improving your ability to digest food may improve your ability to digest thoughts.
The rate at which researchers find new connections between the gut and brain is mind-boggling. One set of researchers recently showed in mice that the bacteria in the gut, or the lack thereof, may influence the blood-brain barrier.
The blood-brain barrier controls what is allowed to move from the blood into the brain. If this barrier is compromised, toxins and other chemicals in the blood can get into the brain causing multiple neurological symptoms. This condition is called “leaky brain syndrome” and symptoms include depression, anxiety, fatigue, brain fog, ADD/ADHD, chronic pain and other mental illnesses.
The researchers mentioned above found that baby mice bred to have no bacteria in their intestines developed “leaky brain” which would persist into adulthood. Interestingly, if these mice were given fecal implants, which would place bacteria back into their intestines, their leaky brain would significantly improve (4).
Not ready to explore whether a fecal implant will boost your brain function? Consider taking a probiotic and increase your intake of fermented foods to help increase the beneficial bacteria living in your gut.
To summarize, if you want to improve brain function, cut the fat, increase muscle movement and keep your heart, liver and gut happy. Stay tuned for more tips to support a better brain.
- Cell Metabolism, Wrann et al.: “Exercise induces hippocampal BDNF through a PGC-1/FNDC5 pathway.”
- Marks’ Basic Medical Biochemistry: A Clinical Approach. 2nd Edition. Page 439.
- Viorica Braniste et al. The gut microbiota influences blood-brain barrier permeability in mice. Science Translational Medicine. November 19, 2014.
- Human Molecular Genetics, 2003, Vol. 12, No. 24 3259-3267
- N. Kaplowitz The importance and regulation of hepatic glutathione. Yale J Biol Med. 1981 Nov-Dec; 54(6): 497–502.
- Whitmer RA1, Gustafson DR, Barrett-Connor E, Haan MN, Gunderson EP, Yaffe K. Central obesity and increased risk of dementia more than three decades later. Neurology. 2008 Sep 30;71(14):1057-64. doi: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000306313.89165.ef. Epub 2008 Mar 26.
- Stéphanie Debette, MD, PhD,1 Alexa Beiser, PhD,1,2 Udo Hoffmann, MD,3 Charles DeCarli, MD,4 Christopher J. O’Donnell, MD, MPH,5 Joseph M. Massaro, PhD,2 Rhoda Au, PhD,1 Jayandra J. Himali, MS,1,2 Philip A. Wolf, MD,1Caroline S. Fox, MD, MPH,3,5 and Sudha Seshadri, MD, DM1 Visceral fat is associated with lower brain volume in healthy middle-aged adults
Ann Neurol. Aug 2010; 68(2): 136–144.
- Influence of afferent cardiovascular input on cognitive performance and alpha activity [Abst.]. Rollin McCraty, Ph.D. andMike Atkinson.
In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Pavlovian Society, Tarrytown, NY, 1999.