Week 1/4
After reading Paolo Coelho´s book, ”The Alchemist,” when I was in my 30´s, I have been made aware and experienced many times that thoughts can move forces in the universe to align and bring to our reach things we wish for. Thus, it did not surprise me that I recently found on the Web an online course “Biohacking your Brain´s Health” from Emory University on Coursera.org, after I thought about how I could help me and others to take care of our brains as we grow older, and perhaps have a better chance of avoiding dementia or Alzheimer´s diseases.
My other motivation for taking the course is to understand better what has happened to my mother (who lives in the Philippines) and what measures my family and I can take to improve her health.
Mama suffered a stroke almost three years ago, which paralyzed partly the right hand side of her body. Although Mama was hopeful because she heard about the concept of “plasticity of neural networks” or the plasticity of the brain in general from her doctor in northern Philippines, she has complained about how hard it has been for her to train her body´s right side to be back to where it was before the stroke happened. Nevertheless, she has made much improvements, after she got some professional physical therapy for some time after her stroke. She could now speak audibly, swallow better, and could move better her right hand and right leg. She gets frustrated she could not yet walk like before, nor write with her right hand like before. We have told her that is because she needs to practice doing those steps, perhaps more than a thousand times, thereby training both her brain and her muscles to coordinate in new ways, using newly created or creating new neural pathways in the process, since the old ones were apparently damaged by the strokes she had.
The first week of the Cousera course takes up the topic: ”Nutrition and the Brain.” Just a few hours ago, I read about newer researches and findings that debunk some of the things I learned about three decades ago. Here are some of the newer information I have picked up from the course that are most relevant and interesting to me:
* The brain is ”very plastic,” and works like muscles. The more you use it, the bigger it can get. When you do no use the brain, it can atrophy, like muscles do when they are not used for a long time.
* There has been strong data in recent years that debunk the link between dietary fat and not only heart disease, but also brain disease in the form of strokes. However, the American Heart Association continues to recommend 10% or less saturated fat in one´s daily diet.
* Insulin is essential for metabolism. When the body is functioning properly, insulin promotes neurogenesis and prevents apoptosis or neuronal cell death.
* Insulin resistance is dangerous. This is when cells in the muscles, fat, and liver don’t respond well to insulin and can not easily take up glucose (sugar) from the blood.
* Too much sugar in the blood that comes from eating too much carbohydrates, especially from processed foods and sugars, can cause insulin resistance.
* Insulin resistance promotes inflammation and inhibits the cleanup process of proteins (like A-beta protein and Tau protein) from the brain. When these proteins accumulate in the brain, they can be toxic, as one sees in Alzheimer’s disease.
* Brain insulin resistance eventually leads to causes cognitive decline and ultimately causes cell death and loss of brain tissue.
* Insulin resistance increases the risk of recurrent strokes.
* Insulin resistance is also linked to mood disorders and depression.
* The good news is: insulin resistance can be reversed via some dietary interventions that also promote brain and heart health. Some of these are the Mediterranean diet, the Ketogenic diet, and intermittent fasting.
