The Building Blocks of Brain Health Part I

“How does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?”
― David Chalmers

Modern science understands little of how consciousness is created by the chemistry and biology of the brain. What is certain is that the chemistry of the brain alters the flavour of Chalmers’ figurative wine of qualia. The importance of a well-functioning brain goes so far beyond the ability to improve your score in a memory test or anxiously awaited exam. Our entire experience of reality is contained between our ears, our thoughts, dreams, loves, ambitions, and passions are all a wonderful storm of electrochemistry in the amazing wet, fatty organ behind our eyes. That chemistry matters.

Altering our brain’s structural and chemical composition through diet and exercise (or other less natural methods) can have a profound impact on everything that makes us human: our emotions, cognition, mood. Maintaining brain health with food and exercise can prevent age-related cognitive decline, increase levels of molecules that stimulate neuron growth, regulate mood increase cognition and more^1-5. The ability to modulate this through food is something we should all care about.

What is a high functioning brain?

The CDC defines a healthy brain as one with the skills to “remember, plan, learn new things, concentrate and make decisions”⁶. This definition seems to miss many of the components of brain function we should care about. Like with other forms of health it is often easier to recognise and define what health is not. A brain suffering from prion disease that has the characteristic appearance of swiss cheese or a brain that has suffered catastrophic physical trauma is easily recognised as unhealthy. Is a brain that is lacking negative effects of disease, aging, trauma, malnutrition, damage from ischemia and oxidation, or genetic damage significantly different from a “high functioning” brain?

Characteristics of brain function

A perfect definition of brain health may be hard to come by, but important characteristics might include adequate levels of the important and essential macronutrients, neurotransmitters, fatty acids , polyphenols, vitamins and minerals important to brain function such as vitamins B, E and K that influence brain function^1,4,6,7. It may also include avoiding genetic damage, oxidative damage, toxic heavy metals, inflammation, beta-amyloid plaques and tau proteins associated with Alzheimer’s Disease, loss of grey matter volume, or signs of biological aging like senescent cell accumulation, epigenetic changes and telomere shortening^8-18. A wide variety of chemicals, pathologies, metrics, and characteristics can be useful in how we consider the health of our brains.

Exercise, food, and brain health

There is a widely prevalent belief that ageing, and the associated cognitive decline is inevitable. Some even believe that prevention is undesirable²³. However, the current scientific literature suggests that there are several important lifestyle and diet changes that can slow this process significantly. Few people will be surprised to hear that getting enough quality sleep and maintaining a consistent exercise regime are essential^2,3,5.

Many people underestimate the role that the amount and type of food we eat has on our brains. People often think of food only as a source of energy and building blocks used to create tissue and discount the role of biologically active molecules in our food^4,7. Even today many pharmaceuticals are derived from plants and 11% of the medicines considered basic and essential by the WHO come from flowering plants²⁴.

It really should come as no surprise then that many of the plants we eat for food contain molecules that alter the way our bodies function, including our brains. The amount of food we consume can affect our brains as well³, with the hormones responsible for regulating hunger and satiation being associated with cognitive and emotional processes⁷.

While everyone would like to be able to take a pill and quickly and easily increase their brainpower, it isn’t quite that easy unfortunately. However, research does suggest that making changes to our diets and lifestyles (and sticking with them!) will result in changes to cognition, mood, and levels of cognitive decline. And they’re changes that your body, your friends and family and society at large will appreciate you making!