Why Fasting Protects the Brain From Inflammation and Aging

Brain Degeneration and Cognitive Decline 0:00

In today's video, I'm talking about the best meal to heal the brain. So what are the best foods to heal your brain and how to put them together for the best nutrients? Synergies to get the best brain healing results. When we talk about brain degeneration. When people develop dementia, Alzheimer's disease, this is a process of chronic inflammation that shows up their brain tissue, causing major damage. And so short term, in the early stages, people might notice issues, for example, trouble sleeping at night, or they might have poor short term memory lose, you know, forget where their keys are, forget where this is, have trouble with memory recalling and remembering different words that they want to say.

But over time it progressively gets worse and literally for the brain to really degenerate into late stage Alzheimer's. We're looking at a 30 to 50 year disease process that's at its terminal stage. And so when people develop early cognitive decline, even the early cognitive decline, where they're just having short term memory issues, that's usually a 7 to 10 year process before they advance into more of a, you know, a early Alzheimer's disease or kind of a late stage cognitive decline. It's can take 7 to 10 years.

And the damage degeneration starts in their medial temporal lobe, and then it starts to progress into their lateral temporal lobe and into their parietal lobe, where they start forgetting where things are. They start not being able to identify different objects, as effectively. And they start having more problems with kind of day to day tasks. And then eventually that degeneration spreads into their frontal lobe. And now they start having impulse activity and they start doing like really crazy things.

And if you've ever had a family member that has dementia or Alzheimer's, you know, here are some really tragic stories of different behaviors that these individuals exhibited as their brain continued to regenerate. And then finally, at the end, it spreads into their occipital lobe

Wild-Caught Salmon and Pasture-Raised Eggs 2:06

in the back of their brain, and they actually can lose their ability to see right, and kind of know where they're at in space. And so this is a really big problem in our society today. Alzheimer's disease, dementia is on the rise and it's bankrupting our country. And so we've got to do something about it. And there are some great foods and nutrients that support overall brain health. And so where I start, this meal is going to be looking at my best protein that's going to be coming from something like wild caught sockeye salmon.

Why is wild caught sockeye salmon so good for reducing inflammation and improving brain health? Because it's got omega three fatty acids, particularly long chain EPA and DHEA which down regulate inflammation. And they really support cell membrane health and mitochondrial function in the brain. On top of that, salmon has this really powerful antioxidant called Asta zanten. It's actually what gives salmon their pink color. The salmon will eat red algae in the ocean. And when they eat that red algae, that's what gives them, again their pink color, that red algae is full of acids.

And then as xanthan helps strengthen the mitochondria, it has a great effect at buffering oxidative stress, allowing the mitochondria to produce more energy. You think about a salmon. It's one of the only species that swims upstream against the rapids. It's able to pretty so much energy and its mitochondria. It swims upstream against the current, and it's able to jump out of the water up to ten feet. That's incredible. Mitochondrial energy production assays aren't there. And omega threes are some of the key compounds within the salmon that allow it to have that level of strength.

And that's going to support your brain health. Also, I love eggs, pasture raised eggs, eggs are rich in things like choline, which helps with increasing acetylcholine in our brain, which is our compound, our neurotransmitter that's in our temporal lobe. That's associated with memory, with with memory recall and formation of memories. And so, choline, one of the best food sources is pasture raised eggs. Also, there's phospholipids in their phosphate. Are choline in their phosphate. That'll serine that help support and create great structure for the cell membranes in our brain.

So eggs are really powerful. You also have vitamin K2, vitamin A, vitamin D in there as well as zinc, all really powerful for brain health. So pasture raised eggs as well as wild caught salmon. So you're thinking maybe some scrambled eggs or sunny side up egg with a salmon fillet

Brain-Healthy Salad Ingredients 4:39

and then I like to make sure that I've got some colorful fruits and vegetables. So arugula is a green leafy vegetable that I love because it's low oxalate oxalates can be damaging for the brain. This is low oxalate. It's a bitter herb, so it helps stimulate digestive juices like stomach acid, bile, and pancreatic enzymes for better digestion, better nutrient assimilation. And it's also rich in chlorophyl. And that chlorophyl helps detoxify our blood. So rubella is really good. And I like to add in tomatoes and cucumbers.

Tomatoes are rich in lycopene, which has been shown to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation in the brain, also rich in vitamin C as well. And the cucumbers have a lot of different trace minerals in there, as well as electrolytes and hydrating fluids that help hydrate our body and help provide for good blood flow, good circulatory health. So tomatoes and cucumbers in the salad. And then I like to make sure I've got a really good high quality, high polyphenol extra virgin olive oil. Olive oil is rich in oleo candles and hydroxy tyrosine hydroxy Tyr sol is a polyphenol that crosses the blood brain barrier and has profound benefits for brain health.

Alfio canthal is called nature's ibuprofen because it's so powerful at reducing inflammation in our body and reducing pain and also inflammation in our brain as well. Alejo Cantos also extra virgin olive oil is rich in vitamin E as well. One of the most powerful fat soluble antioxidants. So a 2022 study out of the journal nutrients found that extra virgin olive oil helped close and seal the blood brain barrier, protecting it from, you know, inflammatory compounds and heavy metals and things like that from getting into the brain.

And it helped her. It helped improve the overall clearance of amyloid plaque and these neurofibrillary tangles that are associated with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. And the individuals that were using extra virgin olive oil, they noticed that they had improvement when they when they tested them out on their cognitive impairment scores, that they saw improvement in and their overall cognition and their mood. And they were using this for individuals with dementia, and they were seeing these positive changes.

And so really powerful study. They're a 2024 study. This is actually a systemic review. They looked at all the different cell studies, animal studies, human studies. And what they found was the polyphenols in antioxidant compounds that are in high quality extra virgin olive oil have a profound effect at protecting the blood brain barrier and reducing brain inflammation and reducing the overall risk of developing cognitive impairment. And so it's it was shown that the researchers said in this study

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Benefits 7:31

that using extra virgin olive oil, high polyphenol, extra virgin olive oil may be one of the most powerful tools for preventing against brain degeneration. And so we've got to make sure we're getting high quality, high polyphenol, extra virgin olive oil. It's usually going to be a little bit more pricey. That's because we're using the green olives, which are really rich in aloe candles and hydroxy Theresa's all those polyphenols. But you don't produce as much oil when you press green green olives as opposed to black olives.

Black olives are ripe olives. You produce a lot of fats, mono unsaturated fats, which are healthy, but you don't get as much of the polyphenols. So when you go to the grocery store and you see, okay, a bottle of olive oil for 8.99, it's probably the black olives, low polyphenol, extra virgin olive oil that will still be beneficial compared to using a seed oil like corn, soybean, safflower, cotton seed, one of these toxic seed oils that we absolutely want to avoid. But it's not going to be as beneficial as getting the more high priced, high quality, high polyphenol, extra virgin olive oil.

You want to look for a polyphenol count. You want to look for fresh pressed olive oil. And that's going to be really helpful. I'll have a link in the show notes for the high quality, high polyphenol extra virgin olive oil that I personally use and I recommend, so you can check that out there. And so high quality extra virgin olive oil definitely should be a staple. And then what are some colorful fruits you can add in? Well, I really like blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and pomegranate as some of the best fruit that you can add in for really healthy brain function.

So blueberries are rich in anthocyanins. Raspberries are rich in a thick acid, which helps stimulate your olefin A in your intestines to produce healthy mitochondria right within the intestinal lining, which helps protect against inflammation throughout the body. Anthocyanins that are in the blueberries, as well as resveratrol in blueberries, are really anti-aging and great for brain health. Strawberries, you know, lots of powerful compounds within the strawberries as well. And then pomegranate, which is also rich in oligarch acid, like I mentioned, with the raspberries and other powerful antioxidants, including anthocyanins.

And so those are some of my favorite antioxidant rich fruit that you can add into this meal. One other thing will be walnuts. Now, some people do well with nuts. Some people don't. Walnuts do. Just like all nuts have oxalates and lectins and things like that. But if you look at a walnut, it looks like two hemispheres of the brain. And in natural medicine we say like improves like, right? So if it looks like the brain, it probably will have beneficial impacts on the brain. And what do we find in walnuts?

We find a high amount of vitamin E. Vitamin E is a great antioxidant that protects

Berries, Walnuts, Herbs, and MCT Oil 10:20

the blood vessels and allows for better circulatory health into the brain. We also find that in the extra virgin olive oil and it also has short chain omega three. I mentioned long chain omega threes. In the wild caught salmon, the EPA and the DHEA where you have short chain omega three is Ala. That's in the walnuts. And a body, if you're healthy can convert Ala into EPA. And so for some individuals they do really really well with walnuts. So you can add those into your salad as well. You can also add lemons limes or vinegar as a kind of a dressing.

And then add Mediterranean herbs like basil, oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, all of those herbs that smell good activate parts of your brain. The actual aromatherapy of them helps to activate parts of your brain. An increase is something called brain derived neurotrophic factor, which actually is like miracle gro for your brain, and it helps protect against neurodegenerative conditions and so your food should smell good and taste good. And all of those herbs are great for gut health. They're antimicrobial, so they help kill off bad bacteria.

They help support your immune system. And rosemary has rosemary acid, which is really powerful for brain health. And it helps support a C to choline production, which again is this neurotransmitter that's associated with memory memory formation in your brain. So make sure you're getting rosemary. Make sure you're getting all of your Mediterranean herbs your oregano basil, thyme sage right. All of those great herbs into your diet. Put that on your salad on your meat. Right. Make sure you're using high quality extra virgin olive oil.

One extra bonus is a C8 only MCT oil. C8 only MCT oil turns quickly into ketones in your bloodstream. That helps protect your blood brain barrier, and also provides a great fuel source for your brain. So you can add you can actually cook in that if you want, or you can add it as a salad dressing or on your meat or whatever it is. But I recommend MCT oil, particularly C8 only MCT oil, which is like acid because it has the most beneficial effects for increasing ketones in your brain and in your body.

So try that out. Tasty meals. This kind of meal that I consume on a regular basis, it's going to help protect your brain from degeneration. It's going to allow your brain to really function and thrive at its best, and allow you to be at your best. So try that out today.