Your Weight and Your Brain

Your Weight and Your Brain When it comes to brain health, keeping your weight stable may be the most important task of all.

Obesity, particularly when there’s lots of visceral fat present, is a risk factor for faster brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease, says Howard Fillit, M.D., co-founder and chief science officer at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. Belly fat has been shown to:

• Reduce blood flow to your brain, according to a 2020 study involving brain scans of more than 17,000 people. Researchers found that as weight went up, blood flow in the brain went down, including to areas vulnerable to developing Alzheimer’s.
• Shrink your brain. Using MR1s, researchers from UCLA and the University of Pittsburgh who were obese had 8 percent less brain volume and brains that appeared 16 years older.
• Reduce your cognitive abilities. An elevated body mass index (BMI) is directly associated with decreased attention, processing speed, and fine motor speed, according to a 2013 study. And in a 2016 study of 171 people with severe obesity, more than half met the criteria for mild cognitive impairment (MCI), even though their median age was only 43. At a follow-up 12 months later, the prevalence of MCI was reduced by nearly 49 percent in those who had undergone weight-loss surgery in the previous year.

Protecting your brain means getting your weight under control. The MIND Diet, a mash-up of the heart-healthy Mediterranean and DASH diets, features lots of fruits and vegetables, plus lean protein and good fats like olive oil.

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Scientists make waves in awake brains

Controlling spinal fluid might help treat neurological diseases.

Waves of cerebrospinal fluid that normally wash over brains during sleep can be made to pulse in the brains of people who are wide awake, a new study finds.

Previous research has suggested that the clear fluid may flush out harmful waste, such as the sticky proteins that accumulate in Alzheimer’s disease (SN: 7/21/18, p. 22). So being able to control the fluid flow in the brain might have implications for treating certain brain disorders. I think this [finding] will help with many neurological disorders,” says Jonathan Kipnis, a neuroscientist at Washington University in St. Louis who was not involved in the work. “Think of Formula One. You can have the best car and driver, but without a great maintenance crew, that driver will not win the race:’ Spinal fluid flow in the brain is a major part of that maintenance crew, Kipnis says. But he and other researchers, including the study’s authors, caution that any potential therapeutic applications are still far off.

I think this [finding] will help with many neurological disorders,” says Jonathan Kipnis, a neuroscientist at Washington University in St. Louis who was not involved in the work. “Think of Formula One. You can have the best car and driver, but without a great maintenance crew, that driver will not win the race:’ Spinal fluid flow in the brain is a major part of that maintenance crew, Kipnis says. But he and other researchers, including the study’s authors, caution that any potential therapeutic applications are still far off.

In 2019, neuroscientist Laura Lewis of Boston University and colleagues reported that strong waves of cerebrospinal fluid wash through our brains while we slumber, suggesting that sleep may give the brain a deep clean (SN: 11/23/19, p.11). The slow neural oscillations that characterize deep, non-REM sleep occur in lockstep with the waves of spinal fluid, the team showed. These flows are far larger than the rhythmic influences that breathing and heartbeat have on spinal fluid.

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Signs of near-death experiences seen in brain activity of dying people

A surge of brainwaves in two people who lay dying after their life support was turned off may help to explain the phenomenon of near-death experiences.

The sensation of moving down a tunnel towards a bright light, reliving memories, and hearing or seeing deceased relatives have all been reported by people from many cultures who have had a brush with death. Some scientists, however, say these experiences could be caused by hallucinations as people recover in the hospital. Now, we have identified brain activity that could be behind these experiences.

Ten years ago, Jimo Borjigin at the University of Michigan Medical School and her colleagues showed that rats have a surge of electrical activity in their brains as they die. To look for the same thing in humans, the team combed through anonymized medical records for people who had an electroencephalogram, or EEG, recorded as their life support was switched off because they had no hope of recovery, finding four such people.

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Low Energy Neurofeedback System Near Me

Cynthia Thurlow likes to remind her patients that digestion begins in the brain, in the way people think about their food before they have even taken a bite. Conversely, 95 percent of the mood-regulating neurotransmitter serotonin, which is targeted by conventional anti-depressant drugs, is produced in the gut.

It is a reversal in the way we have been taught to think about food and mood.

The gut microbiome—the range of microoganisms in the gut, including bacteria, fungi and viruses-play a major role in the bidirectional communication between the gut and the brain.

Researchers in Finland recently found a link between a specific gut microbe, Morgariella, and depression. This is further evidence that people with mental health conditions often have very different microbes in their gut.

Alterations in the composition of gut microbiota are implicated in causing leaky gut(an increased permeability of the gut barrier), activating systemic inflammation, affecting the efficacy of serotonin and changing levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

However, a Chinese study last year found that intermittent fasting enriched the gut composition of diabetic mice and pointed to several other potential benefits, including increased microbial diversity, reduced inflammation and increased production of short-chain fatty acids, which inhibit the growth of bad bacteria.

When it is time to break the fast, the Mediterranean diet, abundant in plant-based ingredients, fiber and omega-3 fatty acids, has been found to establish a diverse microbiome associated with protection against depression. Aromatic spices and herbs such as oregano, rosemary and thyme common to that diet are also good for gut microbiota.

A Harvard study of over 80,000 nurses found that a diet high in flavonoids is associated with lower risk for depression, especially among older women.

Two clinical trials also found that high-flavonoid fruit and vegetable intake led to significant improvements in cognitive performance and increases in serum BDNF levels.

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Counseling And Neurofeedback Center

Why do psychiatric conditions multiply the risk of cognitive decline?

Age is the single biggest risk factor for dementia, with the odds doubling about every five years after age 65. But many things influence those odds for a given individual. Genetic vulnerability is a contributor, as are so-called modifiable risk factors such as smoking, cardiovascular disease, social isolation, and impaired hearing and vision. Certain mental conditions, particularly depression and schizophrenia, have also been linked to dementia. But because depression can itself be a sign of cognitive decline, the causality has been a bit muddy. Earlier this year an analysis of data from New Zealand provided the most convincing evidence to date linking many kinds of mental illness with dementia. That study raises important questions about the reasons for this increased risk and what could be done to reduce it.

The study looks at the health records of 1.7 million New Zealanders born between 1928 and 1967 covering a 30-year period ending in mid-2018. It found that those with a diagnosed mental disorder—such as anxiety disorders, depression or bipolar disorder—had four times the rate of ultimately developing dementia compared with people without such a diagnosis. For those with psychosis such as schizophrenia, it was six times the rate.

Among people who developed dementia, those with a psychiatric disorder were affected 5.6 years earlier, on average.

The study did not examine biological, social, or other reasons for the increased risk, but research on dementia points to several possible explanations. “There might be shared genetic risk factors,” suggests psychologist Leah Richmond-Rakerd of the University of Michigan, lead author of the study. Recent studies have found some overlap in genetic markers associated with Alzheimer’s disease and those linked to bipolar disorder and to major depression. Long-term use of psychiatric medications could also be playing a role in dementia, but Richmond-Rakerd and her co-authors do not think it is a major contributor.

They suspect that a more significant risk factor is the chronic stress associated with having a psychiatric disorder, which may degrade brain health over time. Studies in animals, as well as human autopsy studies, have linked chronic stress to a loss of neural connections in the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, which is where Alzheimer’s takes a heavy toll. Evidence suggests that stress drives inflammation and immune dysregulation in the body and brain, impacting brain connectivity, says Harvard University neurologist and dementia researcher Steven Arnold. “If you have fewer connections and synapses, to begin with, because of stress, then you can’t afford to lose as many with aging before it starts to show up as what we might call dementia.” In other words, as illustrated by Fatinha Ramos people with mental illnesses may have less “cognitive reserve”— brainpower that is sufficiently robust to withstand normal aging without obvious loss of function.

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Relieving Stress Anxiety Depression

Mindfulness meditation can help ease your pain.

The technique can reduce pain intensity by as much as 32 percent, a new study has discovered—and even people who haven’t meditated before can quickly achieve these benefits.

The key is in not associating with the pain, but instead observing it as if it was happening to someone else, say researchers from the University of California at San Diego.

They tested the benefits of mindfulness on a group of 40 volunteers, half of whom were taught the technique and the others were told just to relax.

When a painful heat was applied to the leg, the mindfulness group reported a 32 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 32 percent reduction in unpleasant feelings about the Pain, Compared to the relaxation group.

Brain scans endorsed the findings. Transmissions between different areas of the brain were reduced in the meditators. “For many people struggling with chronic pain, what often affects their quality of life most is not the pain itself but the mental suffering and frustration that comes with it,” said lead researcher Fadel Zeidan.

A key feature of mindfulness is that ‘you’ are not your experiences. “You train yourself to experience thoughts and sensations without attaching your ego or sense of Self to them, and we’re now finally seeing how this plays out in the brain during the experience of acute pain,” he said.

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Mental Healthcare and Holistic Healthcare

Experts say wonder is an essential human emotion and a salve for a turbulent mind.

Awe can mean ‘many things. ‘And while many of us know it when we feel it, awe is not easy to define.

Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world” said Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

It’s vast, yes. But awe is also simpler than we think — and accessible to everyone, he writes in his book “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life”.

Experiencing awe comes from what Dr. Keltner has called a “perceived vastness,” as well as something that challenges us to rethink our previously held ideas. Awe can come from moments like seeing the Grand Canyon or witnessing an act of kindness.

In his book, Dr, Keltner writes that awe is critical to our well-being. His research suggests it has tremendous health benefits that “include calming down our nervous system and triggering the release of oxytocin, the “love” hormone that one as and bonding.

“Awe is on the cutting edge,” emotion research said. Judith T. Moskowitz, a professor of medical social sciences at North Western University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Dr. Moskowitz who has studied how positive emotions help people cope with stress wrote in an email that “intentional awe experiences like walks in nature, collective movement, like dance or ceremony, even use of psychedelics improve psychological well-being.”

So, what is it biologically? Awe wasn’t one of the six basic emotions – anger, surprise, disgust, enjoyment, fear, and sadness – identified back in 1972, Dr. Keltner said. But new research shows that awe “is its own thing,” he said.

Dr. Keltner found that awe activates the vagal nerves, clusters of neurons in the spinal cord that regulate various bodily functions, and slows our heart rate, relieves digestion, and deepens breathing.

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