How To Avoid Killing Your Brain – OHR #446

Want to avoid killing your brain?

Avoid these foods!

1. Commercial baked goods. That’s store bought doughnuts, croissants, and cookies as they have a trifecta of bad bad bad stuff: trans fats, empty calories – no fiber, minimal vits or minerals, and sugar. They cause inflammation in your blood and brain, poison your gut biome, that leads to mood alterations, brain fog, anxiety, loss of focus, and reduced cognitive ability.
2. High glycemic foods. These are highly processed foods like breakfast cereals and bars, packaged snacks and desserts, and high sugar dairy products. These franken “foods” spike blood sugar, raise insulin, cause body fat accumulation and cause depression in older woman. See The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in August 2015. Depression has wide-ranging effects on quality of life, but it’s also associated with cognitive decline with age, notes additional research in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in September 2021. Eat whole fruits and vegetables with high fiber that supports both blood sugar and gut biome health.
3. Alcohol is a cellular toxin. That’s why after a couple of drinks you feel a bit out of present time and after a few more your liver might show inflammation too. A September 2019 study in JAMA Network Open looked at more than 3,000 adults aged 72 and older and found that those with mild cognitive impairment who drank more than 14 alcoholic drinks a week were 72 percent more likely to progress to dementia than those who had less than one drink a week.
4. Artificial food dye. Dyes are chemicals that can cause brain cell inflammation and injury. Eating real food, unpackaged is the way to go. The SMILES trial, published in BMC Medicine in January 2017, showed that when people with depression who ate an overall poor diet switched to a Mediterranean-style eating pattern, one-third went into full remission (compared to just 8 percent of the control group). “These individuals added in more fish and plants to their diet and decreased their processed food consumption by 21 servings per week,” he says.
5. Fake meat. Sorry Bill Gates. These faux meats are highly processed, often pesticide glyphosate laden, GMO and artificial. They are not good for you. Don’t be fooled by the propaganda that these “plant based” concoctions are good for the planet and good for you. They are not. Our ancestors ate real meats of all kinds and when free of hormones and antibiotics and free range, have been good foods for us for millions of years. The main thing is eat real. Your body knows what a peach or a lamb chop is, but what’s a triscuit? Poison chemicals and GMO grains, bad oils, and chemical preservatives.

At LifeWorks I put people on an autoimmune Paleo Diet that includes all organic, meat, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Organic butter is permitted. We avoid nightshade vegetables, all grains, all other dairy. For the vast majority, brain health improves, gut health improves and people are satisfied and excited about how they feel.

Food is your best medicine. By avoiding these “killers” you avoid bad medicine.

To your health!

Dr. David I Minkoff, MD

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