How to eat the brainy way to stay smart
Food choice crucial to health as we age
With summer on the horizon, many of us are keen to adopt a healthier lifestyle that includes eating better and embracing a fitness plan.
But as much as we concentrate on buffing up our bodies, there’s one organ we tend to forget — the brain.
Research shows the brain is the most complex organ in our bodies, made up of billions of nerve cells that tell the body what to do. Information on the brain is a constantly moving stream, and the past 20 years have seen uncovered discoveries that have fundamentally changed our thinking of this (on average) three-pound, or 1.4-kilogram, organ.
According to Montreal native Carol Greenwood, a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute at Toronto’s Baycrest Centre, as well as professor in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto, there’s a huge relationship “between diet and brain function,” specifically in the area of cognitive function.
Greenwood is considered Canada’s leading expert in nutrition and brain health, and she has examined the relationship between diet and brain function throughout her career, with a focus on dietary factors which modulate cognitive function with aging.
“No longer is the brain considered a ‘static’ organ that ceases to grow beyond adolescence,” she says.
Even in the face of the challenges of aging, the health and lifestyle choices we make as early as age 40 can determine our brain’s health and function much later in life, notes Greenwood, who stresses it’s never too early and never too late to adopt a healthy lifestyle.
Many scientific studies back up the research, specifically in the area of high-quality diets helping protect your brain function as you age. Studies in Canada, Europe and the U.S. continue to show that a diet high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, cereals and fish protect your brain by strengthening blood vessels, allowing more oxygen and nutrients to reach every cell in your body,
A nutrient-rich diet also helps nourish areas of the brain that are involved in speech, learning and reasoning, helps protect against inflammation, which has been linked to many diseases, and helps promote the growth of new brain cells.
According to Mindfull: Over 100 Delicious Recipes for Better Health by Greenwood and Daphna Rabinovich, all this information shows the brain “has a wonderful capacity to refresh, to renew and to repair itself and to create new brain cells and new connections throughout a person’s life.”