Nutrients For Brain Health & Performance | Episode 42

What are foods that are high in omega-3s that we should all probably be consuming, at least on a daily basis? The number one is fish. So, things like mackerel and salmon and herring and oysters and sardines and anchovies. And perhaps the heavyweight champion of EPAs per unit volume is caviar.

The general prescription that's out there in the literature... is to get somewhere between 150 & 180 minutes of cardiovascular exercise per week ... [It's] crucial for heart health—and heart health directly relates to brain health because the brain consumes a lot of oxygen, glucose, and other factors that are delivered via the blood.

So, we have three things that we know can support nerve cells: EPA—in particular, omega-3 fatty acids—phosphatidylserine, and choline. Those three things I would list off as the top three things for enhancing neuron function and the integrity of neurons in the short and long term.

It appears that, if one is going to supplement with blueberry extract to get the anthocyanin effect on cognition, dosages of somewhere between 5.5 and about 11 grams seem optimal with the higher-end, closer to 10 or 11 grams, being more beneficial. The blueberry-eaters out there, like me, who prefer to get their anthocyanins from the actual berries—it appears that somewhere between 60 to 120 grams of fresh blueberries each day is the way that you can get sufficient anthocyanins to shift your system or bias your brain toward these enhanced cognitive effects.

The best way to ensure a healthy gut microbiome that I am aware of is not necessarily to take supplemental prebiotics and probiotics—there are actually some reasons why you might not want to do that—but rather to ingest 2-4 servings of fermented foods that are low in sugar each day.

The interesting thing about blueberries and other berries... any of these thin-skinned berries that are purplish in color is that they contain what are called anthocyanins. Anthocyanins actually have some really nice data to support the fact that they improve brain function.

The key elements of time-restricted feeding that will benefit your health the most in terms of weight loss or maintenance, fat loss, organ health, quality sleep, and cognition are that the feeding window begin at least one hour after waking... and that it end at least two, and ideally three, hours before going to sleep.

Getting quality sleep on a regular basis and ample sleep on a regular basis is the foundation of all mental health and physical health.

In general, most people should probably strive to get somewhere between 500 milligrams and a gram of choline per day, so 1,000 milligrams.

If one decides that they are going to eat these things not just because they are good for them... If one takes the perception or adopts the perception that they are both good for you and that, in being good for you, they are good for your brain metabolism and that you desire to be healthy, as crazy as it sounds, those subjective signals of what you tell yourself about the foods that you're eating can actually impact how those foods will taste—maybe not immediately, but eventually— and can impact the way in which your body utilizes those foods.

All of us are able to focus to some degree or not, or are able to be alert to some degree or not, based on the amount of acetylcholine that we have.

Eggs are an incredibly rich source of nutrients for the brain.

What you are seeking when you eat is not taste, is not dopamine, is not even a rise in blood glucose; what you're seeking, even though you don't realize it because it's subconscious, is you are seeking things that allow your neurons to be metabolically active. And this is fundamentally important for understanding why you eat, why you eat particular foods, and how you can change your relationship to those foods.

The foods that we eat actually provide the structural basis, the building blocks, of the very neurons that allow us to think over time.

Most people are not getting enough omega-3s in their diet to support healthy brain function in the short and long-term.

It's been shown that glutamine supplementation can offset some of the negative effects on cognition caused by altitude and oxygen deprivation of other sorts.

If you're going to consume artificial sweeteners, it's very likely best to consume those away from any food that raises blood glucose levels.