Your Brain on Food | Healthy Aging Series: S10 E5

A Real Man?

It was a cartoon. Really, it was an advertisement for Joe Weider Protein Powder that was circulating when I was a high school junior. It might’ve been on the back cover of the Boys Life Magazine. The advertisement picture was of a young man and woman at the beach under an umbrella. There was another man who was muscular, kicking sand in their faces. When the man under the umbrella asked him to stop, the muscular man says, and I quote, “Shut up, you skinny runt.”
The “skinny runt” is an early version of the real Joe Weider and he spends the next weeks and months working out, building muscle and then confronts the bully on the beach. Mind you, I don’t advocate this way of dealing with bullies! And, I don’t want to suggest that muscular men are real men and non-muscular men are not real men. Having said that, Joe Weider confronts him and says, “Here’s something I owe you,” as he punches the bully in the face. “Oh, Joe,” his female companion says, “you are a real man after all.”

First, there are so many things wrong about this cartoon. It’s a horrible way to deal with bullies. And, “might does not make right.” Plus, real men are more than superficial muscle-bound gym rats.

A Stronger You

Having said that, growing muscle and being physically strong and fit are very important, especially as you age. When I was in my late 50s, I was using a Personal Trainer to help me prepare for my 60s. He asked what my goal was for when I would be 60. As I racked the 35-pound dumbbells after finishing the bicep curls, I said confidently, “I want to be a badass.” Here’s what I meant: I want to be able to hike and backpack into and out of the Grand Canyon. I want to be able to summit Mount Sterling in the Smoky Mountains with a 35-pound backpack. I want to look and feel good and stand tall. I want to be able to haul 50 or 60 bags of mulch in and out of my jeep for landscaping the front lawn. Being a badass, for me, is more of an attitude. It’s the “get busy living or get busy dying” way of life. It’s the difference between “dying to live and living to die.” It’s the opposite of living a life of quiet desperation. It’s refusing to throw in the towel or tapping out during hardships. It’s the “never give up, never surrender” philosophy of life. I’m talking about mental badassery. Mental badassery means being mentally sharp and mentally fit until the end, and to be mentally fit, you have to have healthy brain. 

Taking care of your brain is what I’m calling BrainCare and in a previous episode we looked at “your brain on exercise.” Now we’ll look at your brain on food.

Let’s look at nutrition and its effect on having a healthy brain. I want to share the results of several studies without boring you about all the details, so stay with me as I look at what it means to eat a good, healthy brain diet.

First was the Seven Countries Study that took place during the 1950s and studied 10,000 men in Seven Countries.
Conclusion: Those men eating Mediterranean-type diets lived longer and suffered the least cognitive decline and disease. After the 10,000 men were studied and their diets reverted back to pre-study patterns, and became more like traditional diets of the United States, they became less physically active and their risk of heart disease increased.

Second was the Epic Study, which was a collaboration between 10 European countries, the National Institute of Health, and AARP. This study took place in the 1960s.
Conclusion: People who ate a Mediterranean-style diet, lived longer, healthier lives. Also, this type of diet was associated with less cardiovascular disease and cancer. They also found that the Mediterranean diet, “potentially prevented cancer initiation in progress.”

Third was the Lyons Diet Heart Study (1998). This study took 300 heart attack victims and randomly assigned them to eat the Mediterranean diet and 300 to eat the Standard Western diet. The study was supposed to last five years, but was stopped after 27 months because the control group rate of dying significantly increased, and they felt like it was unethical to continue the study.
Conclusion: the Mediterranean Diet decreased the risk of mortality.

Fourth, the PREDIMED Study (NIH). This study followed 7000 people on three different diets, one of which was the Mediterranean Diet.
Conclusion: Five years after initiating this study the Mediterranean diet-group members were doing significantly better than the control groups.

Fifth, the Dash Diet: This is a diet that was developed to address the issues of hypertension. It involves eating lots of fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grains, fish, poultry, and nuts. It decreased the intake of red meats, sweets, and sugary drinks. 

Conclusion: Recently, researchers used a new brain diet called the Mind Diet, which is a hybrid between the Mediterranean Diet and the Dash Diet, and the study demonstrated that participants were 50% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disorder. That’s a big claim, and it will be interesting to follow future studies on this particular diet.

In preparation for upcoming blogs, I have been reading a lot about strokes, Alzheimer’s, and ALS. Without exception, every book, every podcast, and every textbook highlights the importance of good nutrition as a part of preventive measures. This goes back to what I have talked about throughout this season which is, “What’s good for the heart is good for the brain.” 

If you want to have a healthy brain, you’ve got to provide it the nutrition that will feed it and you have to avoid those things that promote inflammation and micronutrient deficits.

True North Diet

Here is my simple, easy to follow diet for a healthy brain:

1. Watch your portion size. People in Europe typically eat half the portion sizes that we eat here in the United States

2. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. How difficult is that? Add fruit and vegetables to every meal. There are vegetable supplements that you can add to drinks and smoothies. I buy baby-food squeeze packs (fruit and veggies and protein) and that’s my lunch. It’s one way I get my micronutrients.

3. Eat lean protein. Eat as much as you want. Eat eggs.

4. Stay away from processed foods. Eat real food. Stay out of the center section of the grocery store. Especially, stay out of most of the freezer section. 

5. Stay away from sugar, and avoid eating any foods, or processed foods with added sugar.

6. Limit your dairy. I don’t consider eggs dairy, even though they’re in the dairy section. I’m not afraid of eating eggs. Eggs are good for you.

7. According to the Mediterranean diet you can drink red wine on a daily basis, 1-2 drinks. I stopped drinking months ago. I feel better, sleep better, and was able to drop 10 lbs. with little effort. I have an upcoming episode on your brain on alcohol.

I’m going to be presenting an entire episode on the Mediterranean\Dash Diet, which has been called the Mind Diet.

Stewardship of Your Brain
I’ve been focusing a lot these past months on being a good steward of my body. That means taking care of it and keeping it well maintained. Maybe, the idea of being a good steward of your body will help you focus on a diet that promotes a healthy brain.