Optimizing Brain Health: Essential Foods and Science-Based Tools

# Food & Supplements for Brain Health & Cognitive Performance
#https://www.youtube.com/watch/cIla9axQRyM

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00:00:00.240 Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based
00:00:06.960 tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I’m Andrew Huberman and I’m a professor
00:00:13.679 of neurobiology and opthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today we are talking all about food and the
00:00:19.840 brain. We are going to talk about foods that are good for your brain in terms of focus, in terms of brain health
00:00:26.640 generally and the longevity of your brain, your ability to maintain cognition and clear thinking over time.
00:00:33.520 We are also going to talk about why and how you prefer certain foods to others.
00:00:38.960 And I’m going to talk about the three major signals that combine to drive your food choices. One of those signals comes
00:00:46.879 from your gut and is completely subconscious. These are neurons in your gut that are sending signals to your
00:00:52.559 brain that you are unaware of about the nutrient contents of the foods that you are eating. The second signal is how
00:01:00.320 metabolically accessible a given food is. Meaning how readily that food can be
00:01:05.600 converted into energy that your brain, not your body, but that your brain can use. And the third signal is perhaps the
00:01:13.040 most interesting one. It’s the signal of belief. It’s the signal of what you perceive and believe the food that
00:01:20.240 you’re eating to contain and what you think it can do for you health-wise and energy-wise. What are the things that
00:01:27.439 directly impact brain health and what are the foods that we can eat that will support brain health? Generally, when we
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00:01:33.600 think about neuron function and brain function, we default to a discussion about fuel. The fact that neurons use
00:01:40.799 glucose, which is blood sugar, in order and that they require a lot of it. But before we can even consider the fuels
00:01:47.360 that neurons use in order to function, we have to talk about the elements that actually allow those neurons to be there
00:01:54.079 and to stay healthy. What actually makes up those neurons? And that brings us to what I would argue is the most important
00:02:00.479 food element for brain function. And that is fat. And that might come as a
00:02:06.719 surprise, but unless one considers the water content of the brain, which is very high.
00:02:12.879 A lot of our brain and a lot of the integrity of the nerve cells, the so-called neurons in our brain and the
00:02:18.720 other types of cells comes from fat. And that’s because nerve cells and other cells in the brain have a external
00:02:26.560 layer. It’s what’s sometimes called a double- layered membrane. It’s essentially two thin layers that serve
00:02:33.200 as a boundary between those cells. And that boundary is very important because how things pass across that boundary
00:02:38.800 actually regulates the electrical activity of neurons, which is the way that neurons fire and communicate and
00:02:44.480 keep you thinking and acting and doing all the good things that those neurons allow us to do. And those membranes are
00:02:50.400 made up of fats, but they’re not made up of the fats that are around our belly, around the other organs of our body.
00:02:56.400 They’re not made up of storage fat. They are made up of structural fat. and maintaining the so-called integrity of
00:03:02.959 that structural fat, meaning the health of those neurons is going to come in large part from the foods that we eat.
00:03:10.239 So, what type of fat is it? And what should we eat in order to support that fat and those neurons? And the answer is
00:03:17.599 the so-called essential fatty acids and phospholipids. Now, those are more or less the same thing, but I just want to
00:03:23.519 make a very large literature very crystal clear. Essential fatty acids can
00:03:28.800 include the so-called EPA variety or DHA variety. You hear about omega-3s and
00:03:34.080 omega sixs. Most people are getting enough omega sixs from their diet. However, most people are not getting
00:03:41.519 enough omega-3s in their diet to support healthy brain function in the short and long term. What are foods that are high
00:03:47.760 in omega-3s that we should all probably be consuming at least on a daily basis?
00:03:53.760 The number one is fish. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not eating a lot
00:03:58.959 of fish. I will from time to time, but that’s one reason why one might want to supplement with EPAs from another
00:04:05.519 source, but also EPAs are found in chia seeds, in walnuts, in soybeans, and
00:04:12.560 other plant-based foods. You can look these up online, and you’ll immediately see that there are a lot of sources of
00:04:17.839 EPAs. And many of the foods that I listed off might be appetizing to you, some of them might be unappetizing to
00:04:24.320 you, or some of them you might be sort of neutral about, but it’s very clear that eating foods that are rich in
00:04:29.680 omega-3s and/or supplementing with omega-3s to get above that 1.5 grams and
00:04:34.720 ideally up to two or even three grams per day of EPA can be very beneficial
00:04:40.560 for cognitive function in the short and long term. The other compound that has been shown to be directly supportive of
00:04:46.880 neuronal function is phosphatidal serereine which is abundant in meats and
00:04:52.639 in fish. So for those of you that do consume meat and fish, provided you’re getting enough fish, you’re probably
00:04:58.400 getting enough phosphatidal serereine. For those of you that are interested in supplementing with phosphatidal serereine, it’s a relatively inexpensive
00:05:04.400 supplement that again is lipid-like. So it’s mimicking some of the same things that you would get from food but in
00:05:09.680 higher concentration. Now after EPA fatty acids and
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00:05:14.880 phosphotidylc serarene I would say third on the list of things that come from food that can readily support brain
00:05:21.600 function would be choline and that’s because of the relationship to choline in the biosynthesis pathway for
00:05:28.160 acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is a neurom modulator not a neurotransmitter but a neurom modulator in the brain. So it’s
00:05:35.440 kind of a electrical highlighter pen if you will by analogy.
00:05:40.560 That is the basis of much of what we call focus or or our ability to concentrate on a particular batch of
00:05:47.600 information that’s coming in through our eyes, our ears, our nose, or even things that we’re just thinking in our head. And not surprisingly then, many of the
00:05:55.280 treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, which is an inability or challenges with remembering things and focusing, are
00:06:03.039 drugs that impact the acetyloline pathway and are aimed at enhancing the
00:06:08.720 amount of acetylcholine that’s available to neurons. The primary source for dietary choline would be eggs and in
00:06:15.039 particular, egg yolks. Eggs are an incredibly rich source of nutrients for
00:06:21.440 the brain. And that’s because the egg actually, if you think about it, contains all the nutrients that are
00:06:28.000 required in order for an organism to grow. So if you’re somebody who doesn’t eat eggs or doesn’t want to eat eggs,
00:06:34.400 things like potatoes, nuts, and seeds, and grains, and fruit, they don’t have as much choline as eggs, but they do
00:06:40.160 contain cholines. In general, most people should probably strive to get somewhere between 500 milligrams and a
00:06:45.759 gram of choline per day. So, 1,000 milligrams. Next on my list of compounds that have been shown in peer-reviewed
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00:06:51.680 research to improve neuronal and brain function is creatine. Creatine can be
00:06:57.120 derived from meat sources. It can also be supplemented. Creatine can actually be used as a fuel
00:07:03.039 source in the brain and there’s some evidence that it can enhance the function of certain uh frontal cortical
00:07:09.919 circuits that feed down onto or rather connect to areas of the brain that are
00:07:15.039 involved in mood regulation and motivation. What is the threshold level of creatine to supplement in order to
00:07:20.240 get the cognitive benefit? Appears to be at least 5 g per day. Now the most
00:07:25.360 typical form of creatine is so-called creatine monohydrate. think it’s interesting that creatine supplementation of five grams per day,
00:07:31.440 that’s creatine monohydrate, has been shown to improve cognition in people that aren’t getting creatine from animal
00:07:36.880 sources. So, I personally take creatine five grams per day and have for a very long time. I can’t say that I’ve uh
00:07:43.919 noticed a tremendous benefit because I’ve actually never really come off it. Uh and so I’ve never done the control
00:07:48.960 experiment. I take it more as kind of a baseline insurance policy for me. But uh what I can say is that I generally
00:07:55.680 consume these things like EPAs, creatine, alpha GPC to set a general context of
00:08:03.680 support for my neurons uh for my brain. And of course, I also pay attention to
00:08:08.800 the foods that contain these various compounds. So I don’t actively eat additional meat just to obtain creatine.
00:08:15.120 Um I eat a fairly limited amount of meat. I don’t restrict it, but I and I do eat meat, but um I don’t actively
00:08:21.599 seek out creatine in my diet. Rather, I use supplementation in order to hit that 5 grams per day threshold. Next on the
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00:08:27.680 list of foods that are beneficial for brain health is one that you’ve probably seen pictures of online because there
00:08:33.599 seems to be a practice of putting pictures of blueberries and other dark berries next to any title that says
00:08:40.399 foods that benefit your brain. There are a lot of foods out there that have been purported to improve brain
00:08:47.279 function. The interesting thing about blueberries and other berries, blackberries, dark currants, any of
00:08:55.040 these thin skinned berries that are purplish in color, is that they contain
00:09:00.320 what are called anthocyanins. Anthocyanins actually have some really nice data to support the fact that they
00:09:07.519 improve brain function. Now whether or not it is direct effects on neurons or
00:09:12.800 whether or not it is by lowering inflammation um or some other modulatory effect isn’t
00:09:18.720 quite clear. But I think by now there’s enough data to support the fact that
00:09:23.760 eating a cup or two of blueberries pretty often every day or maybe you have blackberries or maybe it’s black
00:09:29.920 currants that these anthocyanins are are good for us that they are enhancing our
00:09:35.120 overall well-being at a number of different levels. So, we’ve got EPA fatty acids, we’ve got phosphodidal
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00:09:40.800 serereine, we’ve got choline, we’ve got creatine, and we have the anthocyanins,
00:09:46.959 and the last item that I’d like to place in this list of food derived things that
00:09:52.480 can enhance brain function is glutamine. Glutamine is a very interesting amino
00:09:58.080 acid. I’ve talked about glutamine on here before. There’s some evidence, although somewhat scant, there’s some
00:10:04.320 evidence that glutamine can enhance immune system function. So, people will
00:10:09.360 supplement with glutamine or people can get glutamine from foods. Foods that contain a lot of glutamine are things like cottage cheese. There are also
00:10:16.240 other sources of glutamine. Glutamine is rich in protein richch foods, things like beef, chicken, fish, dairy
00:10:22.079 products, eggs, but also for you non um animal food uh consuming people out
00:10:28.079 there. Um vegetables including beans, cabbage, once again, spinach,
00:10:34.160 parsley, things of that sort. So, those foods contain glutamine. For people that supplement with glutamine, generally
00:10:40.640 they will take anywhere from a gram as much as 10 grams per day. Why would they want to do that? Well, there’s also some
00:10:47.440 evidence starting to emerge that glutamine can help offset sugar cravings. In brief, we all have neurons
00:10:54.399 in our gut that sense the amino acid content, the fat content, and the sugar content of the foods that we eat and
00:11:00.560 signal in a subconscious way to our brain whether or not the foods that we’re we are eating contain
00:11:07.040 certain levels of certain amino acids. And so we actually have glutamine sensing neurons in our gut that actually
00:11:14.720 have their little processes, their little um axons and dendrites as we call them in the mucosal lining of the gut.
00:11:19.920 They’re not just sensing glutamine, but when they do sense glutamine, they respond and they send signals to the
00:11:25.040 brain that are signals of satiation, of satisfaction, and in doing so can offset
00:11:30.640 some of the sugar cravings that many people suffer from. So that more or less completes the list of things that at
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00:11:37.040 least by my read of the literature are things that are supported by at least
00:11:42.079 three and in some cases as many as hundreds of studies in various populations that have been uh explored
00:11:48.800 in mouse studies often but also in a number of human studies. I want to emphasize again that all of the things I
00:11:55.360 listed out whether or not it’s EPAs, whether or not it’s phosphoidal serereine, whether or not it’s choline, whether or not uh it’s the various
00:12:02.959 compounds that are in berries, etc. All of those can be extracted from food. There is not any law that says that you
00:12:09.360 have to get them from supplementation. Supplementation can help you get to the very high levels of those things. If you
00:12:14.639 want to work on the higher end, if that’s right for you, obviously check with your doctor before taking anything or removing anything from your diet or
00:12:21.120 supplement regime. But in general, you can get these things from foods. It just
00:12:27.279 so happens that for some of these uh compounds, the foods that they’re contained in, like fish, are not foods
00:12:32.959 that I um particularly enjoy. And so I rely on, excuse me, I rely on supplements in order to get sufficient
00:12:40.079 levels for me. But again, you can get these levels from food. And the reason I made this list, the reason that I
00:12:47.760 emphasize these things in this particular order is that they support
00:12:53.839 the structure of neurons. They support the structure of the other cells of the brain that make up our cognition and
00:13:00.160 that are important for our focus and our ability to remember things and so forth. And they are less so in the category of
00:13:06.959 so-called modulatory effects. They will also have modulatory effects on sleep, on inflammation or
00:13:14.240 reducing inflammation throughout the body, on cardiovascular function. All of which I believe are positive effects at
00:13:21.200 least what the literature tells us is that none of these compounds are harming other systems of the body provided they
00:13:26.959 are taken at uh reasonable levels. But everything in this list is directed
00:13:33.120 towards answering the question, what can I eat? what can I ingest by way of food
00:13:38.320 and or food supplement that can support brain function in the short term and in the long term. So I hope you find that
00:13:44.480 list beneficial for you if not for use at least for consideration. So now having talked about some of the foods
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00:13:51.120 and micronutrients that are beneficial to our immediate and long-term brain health, I’d like to shift gears somewhat
00:13:57.839 and talk about why it is that we like the foods that we like. We’ve all heard before that we are hardwired to pursue
00:14:06.480 sugar and to like fatty foods and that calorie rich foods are attractive to us for all sorts of reasons. You know,
00:14:12.079 surviving famines and things of that sort. And while that is true, the actual
00:14:17.360 mechanisms that underly food seeking and food preference are far more interesting
00:14:22.399 than that. There are basically three channels in our body and nervous system
00:14:27.440 by which we decide what foods to pursue, how much to eat, and whether or not we will find a particular food attractive,
00:14:35.440 whether or not we will want to consume more of it, whether or not we want to avoid it, or whether or not it’s just
00:14:41.199 sort of so so what I refer to as the yum, yuck, or meh analysis. And indeed,
00:14:48.240 that’s what our nervous system is doing with respect to food. So let’s talk about what these three channels for food
00:14:53.920 preference are. The first one is an obvious one. It’s taste on the mouth. It
00:14:59.680 is the sensation that we have of the foods that we eat while we’re chewing them. And those sensations which are
00:15:06.000 literally just sataensory touch sensations. You know the the palatability of food as it relates to
00:15:12.959 the consistency of food. That’s important. And as you’ve all heard before, we have sensors on our tongue
00:15:19.839 and elsewhere in our mouth that detect the various chemicals contained within food and lead to the senses of taste,
00:15:27.839 which we call bitter, sweet, umami, salty, and sour. The umami receptor is a
00:15:33.519 receptor that responds to the savory taste of things. So that’s uh what you might find in a really wonderfully rich
00:15:40.560 tomato sauce for those of you that eat meat and like meat. um a really well-cooked not necessarily well done
00:15:48.399 but properly cooked I should say steak uh if that’s your thing and umami is
00:15:54.399 present in both plant and animal foods and gives us that sensation of savoriness. So we have those five basic
00:16:01.279 tastes. Those are chemical sensors on the tongue that what we call transduce
00:16:07.040 those chemicals. Those chemicals literally in food bind to those receptors and it is transduced
00:16:14.240 meaning the binding of those chemicals to the receptors is converted into an electrical signal that travels in from
00:16:20.480 the tongue along what’s called the gustatory nerve. then synapses meaning meaning it makes connections in our
00:16:25.920 brain stem in the so-called nucleus of the solitary tract. There are other nuclei back there. Nuclei are just
00:16:32.240 aggregates of neurons and then it sends information up to the so-called insular cortex. The insular cortex is a
00:16:39.440 incredible structure that we all have that mainly is concerned with so-called interosception or our perception of
00:16:46.800 what’s going on inside our body. So it could be the amount of pressure in our gut because of how much food we’ve eaten. It could be the acidity of our
00:16:54.480 gut if we’re having a little bit of indigestion for instance. And not surprisingly, the taste system sends
00:17:01.519 information up to the insular cortex to give us a sense literally of what we’ve
00:17:07.439 ingested, whether or not what we’re tasting tastes good or not. What this means is that your perception of what
00:17:12.959 you like is a central meaning within deep within the brain phenomenon. It’s
00:17:18.480 not about how things taste on your mouth. But as we’ll see in a few minutes, turns out that that is not a
00:17:25.599 direct relationship that is hardwired. You can actually uncouple the preference
00:17:31.280 for particular tastes with the reward systems in the brain. It’s actually possible to rewire one’s sense of taste
00:17:39.120 and preference for particular foods. But the most important thing to understand is that like with our hearing, like with
00:17:47.679 vision, like with smell, taste is an internal representation
00:17:55.760 that has particular goals for you. Your sense of what tastes good is related to
00:18:02.000 particular things that are occurring in your brain and body and that are likely to give your brain and body the things
00:18:07.520 that it needs. It is not simply a matter of what you quote unquote like or what tastes good
00:18:13.440 or what doesn’t taste good. Let me give you a relatively simple example of how
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00:18:18.559 your body and your brain are acting in a coordinated way to make you prefer
00:18:24.320 certain foods and indeed to pursue certain foods more. So I just mentioned you have neurons on your tongue that
00:18:30.720 respond to different tastes. But of course your digestive tract isn’t just your tongue. It’s also your throat. goes
00:18:36.640 all the way down to your stomach and of course your intestines. Here’s a long tube of digestion.
00:18:42.799 All along that tube there are neurons. Some of the neurons are responding to
00:18:48.080 the mechanical size of whatever portion of the digestive tract it happens to be.
00:18:53.679 So for instance, how distended or empty or full rather doesn’t have to be distended. How uh depends on how much
00:18:59.200 you ate but how full or empty your gut happens to be. whether or not something you just ate is temperature hot, you
00:19:06.480 know, is hot in the sense of hot to the touch, or whether or not it’s spicy hot, whether or not it’s soothing, whether or
00:19:12.480 not it’s kind of hard to swallow, this kind of thing. So, you have neurons all along your gut that are responding to
00:19:18.240 the mechanics related to food and digestion, and that are related to the chemistry of food and digestion.
00:19:24.880 There’s a population of neurons, nerve cells in your gut that are exquisitly
00:19:30.720 tuned to the chemistry of whatever it is in your gut. And these are neurons called neuropod cells. They respond to
00:19:38.960 amino acids, sugars, and fatty acids. So as your food is digested, as food lands
00:19:46.559 within your gut, neurons there are sensing what types of foods are available and what types of things are
00:19:53.039 making their way through the gut environment. And these particular neurons send electrical signals up into
00:20:00.480 the brain through a little passage that we call the noo’s ganglia. The Nooto’s ganglia is a a cluster of neurons that
00:20:07.440 then go fur send up their own process into the brain and trigger the release of dopamine which is a molecule that
00:20:14.400 inspires motivation, reward, and more seeking for whatever it is led to their
00:20:19.520 activation. These are super interesting neurons because what they’re essentially doing
00:20:25.840 is they are providing a subconscious signal about the quality of the food
00:20:31.919 that you’re eating, what it contains, and then triggering the release of a molecule within your brain, dopamine,
00:20:38.400 that leads you to go seek more of those foods. So now I’ve mentioned two of the
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00:20:43.919 three mechanisms by which we prefer certain foods. One is from the actual taste that we’re familiar with. The
00:20:50.320 taste on our tongue and in our mouth and the sensations that make us go m or h or
00:20:56.480 the yum yuckme responses as I referred to them earlier. And then there’s this subconscious signaling coming from the
00:21:02.159 gut that’s really based on the nutrient content of the foods. There’s a third pathway which is the
00:21:09.360 learned association of a particular taste with the particular quality or
00:21:15.919 value that a food has. And this is where things get really interesting and where there’s actually a leverage point for
00:21:22.640 you to rewire what it is that you find tasty and that you want to seek more of.
00:21:28.799 We are driven meaning we have mechanisms in our brain that make us motivated to pursue more of what brings both a taste
00:21:36.159 of sweetness but also that brings actual changes in blood glucose levels up.
00:21:42.320 Okay. So we are motivated to eat sweet things not just because they taste good but because they change our blood sugar
00:21:48.400 level. They increase our blood sugar level. What your brain, meaning what you are seeking when you eat is not taste,
00:21:56.400 is not dopamine, is not even a rise in blood glucose. What you’re seeking, even
00:22:02.159 though you don’t realize it because it’s subconscious, is you are seeking things that allow your neurons to be
00:22:08.080 metabolically active. And this is fundamentally important for understanding why you eat why you eat
00:22:16.080 particular foods and how you can change your relationship to those foods. Now
00:22:21.200 earlier I referred to these circuits as wired to do something. And in biology
00:22:26.320 and in particular in neuroscience we talk about something being hardwired or softwired. Hardwired meaning that it’s
00:22:31.840 there and it’s immutable. It cannot be changed. Softwired meaning it’s very amendable to change. The taste system
00:22:37.919 and this general system of seeking particular foods similarly is hardwired
00:22:43.679 to obtain certain types of nutrients. It tends to like sweet things. Most children naturally like sweet things,
00:22:49.600 some more than others. So there’s some hard wiring of preference, but there’s also some soft wiring in the system that
00:22:56.000 allows it to change. So the experiments that were done that beautifully illustrate that you seek out particular
00:23:03.440 foods because of the way they taste, because of their impact on blood glucose levels, but also
00:23:10.799 on their impact on the dopamine system, even if your blood glucose levels don’t change. So here’s the experiment. One
00:23:18.080 group of subjects is given a sweet taste of a substance that also raises blood glucose levels, blood sugar, and
00:23:24.080 dopamine goes up, not surprisingly. Second condition, separate subjects
00:23:29.679 consume an artificial sweetener or a non-caloric sweetener. It is not preferred much over other substances,
00:23:36.960 but it is sweet, so it’s preferred somewhat, and it does not cause an increase in blood glucose levels.
00:23:44.080 And not surprisingly, dopamine levels don’t go up. So, initially, we don’t
00:23:49.120 tend to like artificial sweeteners that much. However, if subjects continue to
00:23:54.159 ingest artificial sweeteners, even though there’s no increase in blood glucose level, and therefore no increase
00:23:59.760 in brain metabolism, dopamine levels eventually start to rise. And when those dopamine levels
00:24:06.960 eventually start to rise, you’ve essentially conditioned or reinforced that artificial or non-caloric sweetener
00:24:14.960 and then subjects start to consume more of it and they actually get a dopamine increase from it. So that’s interesting.
00:24:21.520 It says that consuming more of these artificial sweeteners can start to tap into the dopamine system and lead us to seek out or consume more of these
00:24:27.760 artificial sweeteners. Now, there’s another condition that’s been explored,
00:24:33.039 and that’s the really interesting condition, and it’s the condition where an artificial sweetener is paired with a
00:24:39.600 substance that can increase blood sugar, but not because it tastes sugary like a
00:24:45.200 normal sweet substance. The natural world scenario where this would happen would be drinking a diet soda which
00:24:51.840 contains no calories and therefore would not increase blood glucose but is sweet with a food that increases blood
00:24:58.080 glucose. And when that happens, what you’re essentially doing is tapping into the
00:25:03.360 dopamine system. This non-coric sweet taste is paired with it and there’s an
00:25:08.880 increase in in neuron metabolism. So you have all of the components for reinforcement and as a consequence you
00:25:16.880 get in a sort of Pavlovian conditioning way a a situation where later when you
00:25:22.880 ingest that artificial sweetener you actually get not only the increase in dopamine but you get alterations in
00:25:29.679 blood sugar management. I’ll make this in the natural world context. If you ingest an artificial sweetener, say
00:25:35.120 drink diet soda while consuming foods that increase blood glucose,
00:25:41.120 then later, even if you just drink the diet soda, it’s been shown that you
00:25:47.840 secrete much more insulin, the hormone that regulates blood glucose in response
00:25:52.960 to that diet soda. And the simple extract or tool from this is if you’re
00:25:58.559 going to consume artificial sweeteners, it’s very likely best to consume those
00:26:03.919 away from any food that raises blood glucose levels. So if you’re going to enjoy diet soda, be my guest, but do it
00:26:12.480 while not while consuming food. in particular, foods that raise blood glucose because what these studies show
00:26:18.480 is that they can disrupt blood sugar management by way of the insulin glucose system. Studies by my colleague Aaliyah
00:26:26.080 Crumb in the psychology department at Stanford have explored the bodily
00:26:31.600 response in terms of insulin release and the release of other food and eating related hormones
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00:26:38.640 as well as overall feelings of satisfaction etc. in groups of people that
00:26:46.000 drink a milkshake and are either told that it’s a low calorie shake that contains uh various nutrients that are
00:26:52.559 good for them or a higher calorie shake that has a lot of nutrients etc.
00:26:58.960 And what they found was that the different groups and here again I’m being very general with my description
00:27:04.159 of these studies. But what they found is that the physiological response, the insulin response, the blood glucose
00:27:10.640 response and the subjective measures of whether or not people enjoyed something or not were heavily influenced by what
00:27:17.600 they were told were in these milkshakes. So blood glucose would go up, insulin would go up when people were told it was
00:27:23.200 a high calorie shake with lots of nutrients. less so when people ingested a shake that was uh you know that they
00:27:29.600 were told had less nutrients and so forth when in reality it was the
00:27:35.279 identical shake. This is incredible. This is a belief effect. This is not placebo, right? A placebo effect is
00:27:42.559 different. Placebo effect is in comparison, it’s where the control condition actually influences outcomes
00:27:49.360 to a same or to some degree just like the experimental condition. This is a
00:27:54.880 belief effect where the belief and the subjective thoughts about what a given
00:28:00.640 food will do has a direct impact on a physiological measure like blood sugar and blood glucose. Okay. So let’s zoom
00:28:08.399 out from this for a second and think about how we can incorporate this into
00:28:13.919 adopting consumption of healthy foods that serve our brain health in the immediate and long term. What this means
00:28:20.720 is obviously you want to consume foods that you like, but because brain health
00:28:25.919 is very important and many of the foods that promote brain health
00:28:31.520 perhaps are not the most palatable to you or desirable to you. If you want to eat more of a particular food because
00:28:37.440 it’s good for you, pair it with that other food that provides you a shift in brain metabolism because that’s really
00:28:44.960 what your brain and you are seeking even though you don’t realize it. How long will this take? Well, the data really
00:28:51.360 point to the fact that even within a short period of time of about seven days, but certainly within 14 days, that
00:28:57.440 food will take on a subjective experience of tasting at least better to
00:29:03.039 you, if not good to you. Now, I believe this has important implications for much
00:29:08.240 of the controversy and food wars that we see out there. Food wars being of course
00:29:14.159 these groups that ardently subscribe to the idea that their diet
00:29:20.399 and the things that they are eating are the foods that are good for us and that are the most pleasureful and the things
00:29:25.919 that everyone should be eating. We see this with every community within
00:29:31.840 the nutrition realm. What’s very clear, however, is that what we consume on a regular basis and what leads to
00:29:39.600 increases in brain metabolism leads to increases in dopamine and
00:29:44.799 thereby our motivation to eat them. So what this really says is that what we
00:29:50.399 tend to do regularly becomes reinforcing in and of itself. And I think in large part can explain the fact that yes
00:29:57.360 indeed for certain people a given diet not only feels good but they heavily
00:30:02.399 subscribe to the nutrient and kind of health beneficial effects of that diet.
00:30:07.520 What this emphasizes is that foods impact our brain and its health, but
00:30:13.039 they also impact how our brain functions and responds to
00:30:18.080 food. And that is largely a learned response. We can’t completely override,
00:30:23.679 for instance, that certain foods evoke a strong yuck component. Certain foods are
00:30:29.600 truly putrid to us. But it’s also true that if we continue to eat foods that are progressively sweeter and sweeter
00:30:36.080 and highly palatable, it shifts our dopamine system because it activates our dopamine system to make us believe that
00:30:42.799 those foods are the only foods that can trigger this reward system and make us feel good and taste and that they taste
00:30:48.559 good. But after consuming foods that perhaps are less sweet or even less
00:30:53.600 savory, that are not what we would call highly or I would say nowadays it’s super palatable foods, we can adjust our
00:31:01.200 sense literally of what we perceive as an attractive and rewarding food. And
00:31:06.559 indeed, the dopamine system will reward those foods accordingly. Put simply, we don’t just like sweet foods because they
00:31:12.720 taste good. We like them because they predict a certain kind of metabolic response. If you want to learn more
00:31:18.480 about food reward and food reinforcement, because it turns out those are slightly different things,
00:31:24.399 there’s a wonderful review written by Ivan Dear Ruo. They have a middle author, Mark Shaker and Dana Small. It’s
00:31:31.440 called Rethinking Food Reward and it was published in the annual reviews of psychology. You can find it very easily
00:31:37.120 online. And it was published in 2019 and it’s a beautiful deep dive although quite accessible to most people about
00:31:44.480 how different foods and the way that we perceive them impacts our brain and body and why we like the things we like and
00:31:51.279 how to reshape what we like. So once again we’ve done a fairly extensive deep dive into food and your brain. Came up
00:31:53.000 No text
00:31:59.120 with a relatively short list of what I would call superfoods. And we also
00:32:04.720 talked about food preference and why particular tastes and particular events within the gut and particular events
00:32:11.360 within the brain combine to lead us to pursue particular foods and to avoid
00:32:17.840 other foods. And how you can leverage those pathways in order to pursue more of the foods that are going to be good
00:32:24.320 for you and good not just for your brain but for your overall body health and to enjoy them along the way.
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