For decades we have been surrounded by sweet and fatty foods. And the body has not been dealing well with these eating habits. But what about the brain?
Do our mental health, our moods, and our brain abilities suffer from the wrong kind of nutrition?
We know that junk food is making
us fat, but science is telling us now that it might also be shrinking our
brains. Habitual intake of foods high in fat and sugar results in reprogramming
of the brain. In short, our brain is affected by what’s on our plates.
It all starts with our very first meals, even before birth. The brain is built
up during pregnancy and its functioning, later on, depends on how it has been
nourished by the expectant mother’s diet over nine months. A number of
consequences of poor nutrition during gestation have been known for a long
time. Mothers who ate more junk and processed foods during their pregnancy had
children with more of these behaviours such as aggression, anger, and tantrums.
This disquieting correlation suggests that the mother’s diet impacts the mental
development of the infant.
The brain is an organ which is
rich in PUFA or omega-3. Omega-3 is indispensable because the body cannot make
it so it has to come from the diet. The amount of omega-3 that enters the brain
is crucial for making brain cells more efficient because when these fatty acids
are incorporated into the membranes of nerve cells, they improve their
electrical properties. In omega 3-rich neurons, the signals propagate faster
and the network is more efficient. Depriving the brain of omega-3 is linked to
a risk that it will function less. The general population is deficient in
omega-3 due to its insufficient, so it's important to pay attention to it
especially in the prenatal developmental period when omega-3 is incorporated
in large quantities into the brain. Also, in adolescence, since it is a
particular time of change of diet. And, during ageing where the incorporation of
omega-3 into the brain tends to be less effective, so we must increase its
intake.
The first rule for a brain to run
at full speed is to avoid deficiencies. But good nutrients and a varied diet
should be available. The amino acid is one building-block of a protein that is
key to brain function. Dopamine molecule ensures communication between neurons
involved in motivation and risk-taking. The results of the blood analysis show
that subjects with higher levels of tyrosine
in their blood are more willing
to accept the unfair offer. In other words, what we eat can subtly alter the
chemistry of the brain within hours and thus the communication between the neurons;
enough to guide some of our
decisions. Since we eat three times a day, every day, we realize that food has
enormous power, modifying and shaping us. So it’s important to think about how
we can use food to promote our well-being and optimize our mental state. Not
only does an unbalanced diet affect our brain functions and behaviour, and our
meal plan interferes with everyday decisions, it is also becoming increasingly
clear that diet plays a decisive role in our mood and possibly mental health.
But what about junk food,
dripping with sugar and bad fats? What would happen if we ate more of that?
Recent studies show that in
humans that an energy-rich diet also interferes with the hippocampus.
We see for example, that the
quality of people’s diets is related to the size of their hippocampus. An
overly rich diet confuses the immune system. It responds by triggering an
inflammatory reaction, especially in fatty tissues. Our fat masses release
substances that then propagate this inflammation throughout the body which may
spread to the brain because the blood-brain barrier which normally protects the
brain from inflammatory molecules may be impaired in fact by the diet and
become leaky allowing traffic of molecules into the brain. The inflammation
infiltrates the meninges and then triggers a surprising phenomenon
The reward circuit is a region of
the brain that controls the feeling of pleasure. It is particularly responsive
to sugar consumption. But eating too much ends up weakening its responsiveness
so that at the same dose, the
sensations of pleasure are ultimately reduced. After a diet too rich in sugar,
the brain becomes hypersensitive to images of food. The more and more you eat
ice cream,
the more your reward circuitry is
activated when you see an ice cream store or on television.
Scientists now consider the
microbiome to be a kind of intermediary, a link between food and the brain. The
main factor that influences the composition of microbes in the food we eat.
Diet and the diversity of the diet is really important from the moment we’re
born until we die, in shaping the composition of the microbes. So we’re
beginning to realise the importance of what we eat has on what’s in our
microbes, and how that’s influencing what’s going on in our brain. Our
well-being depends, in one way or another, on our microbiome. A diet that is
good for our mood is first and foremost a diet that is suitable for the
bacteria in our intestines. Researchers are only just beginning to uncover the
secrets of the remarkable relationship between nutrition and the brain. The
ideal menu for our little grey cells is still largely unknown. But a balanced,
diverse diet which does without processed food and sugar, and favouring fruits
and vegetables, seems so far to be the best recipe for preserving the mental
faculties.
My grandmother said “You are what
you eat, so eat well.
Mr. GOPIKRISHNAN T.S., V Pharm. D
