“No matter what your brain status or age, there is much we can do to significantly improve brain functions and slow brain aging.”
Dr. Larry McCleary (Former Acting Chief, Pediatric Neurosurgery, Denver Children’s Hospital Author of The Brain Trust Program)
First let us look at the functions the brain has in its operations:
–Memory
Memory is probably the easiest of the cognitive domains to understand. Memory is the process through which new information about our world is encoded, stored and later retrieved by our brain cells. The ability to remember new facts and new ways of doing things is not only key to our ability to maintain independent lives, our memories are what individualizes each and everyone of us. Our personal memories of past experiences and of family and friends are valuable treasures. Sadly, these treasures are often lost or become tarnished as we age and in tragic cases, with the onset of dementia. For this reason alone, it is necessary that we continue to exercise and activate the neural networks that form our memories. It is also important that we continue to find new strategies and tools to help us form new memories.
–Focus
We live in a world of instant communication and sometimes the demands of work and family can become unbearable and seemingly never-ending. When we become mentally fatigued or over burdened we can lose our ability to prioritize, our ability to identify important information and our ability to stay on task. At home, at the office and at school, we are constantly pulled in multiple directions at the same time and losing focus and concentration can result in us failing to meet our obligations. In addition to providing our brains with the rest and relaxation it needs to operate at its best, it is also important that we engage in brain exercises that can improve our ‘mental endurance’, focus and concentration.
It is also important that we exercise this cognitive domain to find new strategies to overcome specific challenges such as ADD/ADHD. You need to provide your brain with the best and newest brain fitness tools that will improve your concentration and strengthen your mental endurance. Which can be done through games and exercises that will engage your brain and sharpen your focus and teach you new ways to stop wasting time. With stronger concentration skills, improved attention to detail, and sharper focus you can expect to live life with less confusion, less stress and a greater feeling of mental clarity. Strengthening your focus is a surefire way to improve your performance at work or at school.
–Word Skills
Language is the highly evolved human skill that enables us to effectively communicate our thoughts and emotions with the rest of the world. Language is what allows us to grow as people, to share ideas with others and to form the social bonds that bring true value and meaning to our lives. And the fabulous fact about our word skills and capacity for language is that we can continue to improve these skills over the course of our lives.
Unfortunately, on the other side of the coin is fact that our spoken and written word skills can degrade over time with out practice. I’m sure we can all remember a time during conversation when we found ourselves dumbfounded and embarrassed as we struggled to find a word stuck on the tip of our tongue. Or maybe we can remember a time when we mis-used or mis-spelled a fancy word in an important email. As we grow, it is important that we continue to expand our vocabulary, improve our language comprehension skills and find new ways to make our words mean more to the people in our lives.
You can do this through fun and effective brain fitness games and tools to help them continue to grow their capacity for language. Improving word-skills with brain fitness games and exercises is a sure fire way to increase your verbal communication confidence and reduce social anxiety.
– Coordination
From the moment we wake up in the morning until we fall asleep at night, we humans are constantly on the move! And for most of us, our ability to make purposeful, timely and accurate movements is often taken for granted as we go about our day. But the truth is that our ability to perform the seemingly infinite number of goal directed movements we make is the result of our brain precisely detecting sensory information from the world around us and integrating it with our internal motivations to accurately execute the appropriate motor commands that tell our muscles how to move.
Unfortunately, as we age, this process becomes more difficult and moving about the world can become more challenging than it once was before. For most of us, our senses tend to dull, our reaction times become a bit slower and seemingly simple motor tasks such as writing, driving our car and moving about to enjoy the things we love to do can become more difficult. For this reason, it is important that we not only exercise our muscles to maintain strength and flexibility to stay mobile, but that we also exercise the areas of our brain that are involved in coordinating our movements.
You need to provide yourself with fun and challenging brain fitness tools that will help improve your sensory perception, manual dexterity, spatial awareness and precision of movement. By doing you can continue to make the most of your independent lifestyle.
– Critical Thinking
Critical thought can also be referred to as our brain’s ‘executive function’. And as such, we can think of our critical thinking skills, as the analysis tools used by the CEO of our brain.
Critical thinking skills are the tools we use to objectively analyze information, recognize patterns, follow logical rules, strategize, and solve problems. It is also the brain function that provides us with the ability to form the complex chronological and spatial plans we use to navigate our lives. Everyday we use our critical thinking skills to objectively analyze the world we live and thrive as individuals.
Along with Language, higher order critical thinking skills are what separate us humans from the rest of the Animal Kingdom. And anatomically speaking, the parts of our brain that allows us to think critically reside in the most highly evolved parts of our brain, the frontal and temporal lobes of the cortex. Sadly, it is most often our critical thinking skills that decline with age-related dementia. Our critical thinking skills also need to be fostered at an early age and throughout our lives in order for our brains to operate at their best.
Fortunately, research investigating the phenomenon of neuroplasticity has taught us that we can actually change the way our brains are wired. By engaging in intellectually stimulating activities and by taking on cognitive challenges we actually have the ability to strengthen our critical thinking skills and improve our executive function. But if we want to enhance our critical thinking skills globally, it is important that we exercise our executive functions individually and as a whole. For example, it is important to engage in a variety of different brain exercise designed to improve deductive reasoning, logical reasoning, pattern recognition skill, strategic decision-making skill and the efficiency of our brain’s ability to process information.
By taking a ‘whole- body approach’ and incorporating brain fitness into your daily routines you will be making the lifestyle changes needed to sharpen your minds and reduce your risk of dementia.
Since the human brain peaks in size at about age 20 and then starts to shrink, you might think that by age 70 or 80, you’d be lucky to remember your name. The good news is that
memory loss is not inevitable. “There are examples of people who have lived to 123 years of age who died with completely intact memories and no evidence of neuropathology,” said Sam Gandy, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Cognitive Health at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.
The heart is like the engine to a car but for us it’s the “pump” for the human body; without the engine the car won’t run and without the pump we won’t live. The normal size of the heart is about the size of your fist, maybe a little bigger. It pumps blood continuously through your entire circulatory system. The heart consists of four chambers, 2 on the right and 2 on the left. The right side only pumps high carbon dioxide levels of blood, after all the oxygen was used by the tissues and returns to the heart in the right upper chamber and leaves to the lung from the right lower chamber. From the lungs it than goes to the left side of the heart now, which is a very short distance as opposed to where the left side pumps the blood. The L side of the heart pumps blood to the feet, brain and all tissues in between with high oxygen levels of blood. This is why the L side of the heart does more work than the R side since the blood leaving the L side has a longer distance in distributing oxygen. The heart pumps the blood with high oxygen blood levels to reach all your tissues and cells, going to the feet, brain, and to all other tissues in between returning home again to the right side of the heart (upper chamber) to get sent to the lungs again for more oxygen. This is why the muscle on the L side of the heart is larger than the right, it works harder. Every time your heart beats (the sound we call lub dub) the organ is sending out a cardiac output of blood either to the lungs for more oxygen or to the body tissues through the aorta to give oxygenated blood to your tissues and cells. This is the mechanics of how the heart works in our body.
Let’s see what can occur if the heart doesn’t function properly. If your heart is not pumping out a sufficient amount in your cardiac output to either the lungs (from rt. Side) or to the tissues (from the lt. side) than it tries to work harder where it does ok at first but over time weakens. As this weak heart struggles to pump blood the muscle fibers of the heart stretch. Over time, this stretching leaves the heart with larger, weaker chambers. The heart enlarges (cardiomegaly). If this continues to go on this could go into R or L sided heart failure. When this happens, blood that should be pumped out of the heart backs up in the lungs (L sided failure) or in the tissues (R sided failure). The side the failure is on doesn’t allow proper filling of the chambers on that side and back up happens; so if on the L the fluids back up in the lungs or the R the fluids first back up in the veins which can expand to hold extra blood but at some point dump the extra fluids in your tissues (This is edema in feet first due to gravity). This is all due to overloading of the blood not filling up in the chambers of the heart to make a good cardiac output of blood and in time the fluid backs up (bad pumping=backup of blood=fluid overload in the lungs (pulmonary congestion) to fluid staying in the skin (first the lower extremities due to gravity=feet which we call edema working its way up the legs.). This condition in time with no treatment will go into congestive heart failure (CHF) to the other side of the heart if not controlled. CHF can range from mild to severe. There is 670,000 cases are diagnosed with this every year and is the leading cause of hospitalization in people over 65 y/o. Causes of CHF are: heart attack, CAD (coronary artery disease), cardiomyopathy, conditions that overwork the heart like high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity (These diseases can be completely preventable or at least well controlled). *
There is many of us in this world with knowing how our activity/exercise, eating, and habits could be better for health but do little action if any on our own to change it, which is a large part for certain diseases being so high in America (diabetes, stroke, cardiac diseases=high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, arteriosclerosis to CHF and more). If people were more healthier and more active regarding these diseases alone it would decrease in population creating a positive impact on how our health system with insurance presently (a disaster) with our economy for many could get better. A healthy heart can pump to all parts of the body in a few seconds which is good cardiac output from the organ but when it gets hard for the heart to keep up with its regular routine it first compensates to eventually it decompensates causing ischemia (lack of oxygen to the heart tissue). It’s like any tissue in the body, lack of oxygen=lack of nutrients to the body tissue=STARVATION and with lack of oxygen will come PAIN eventually to death if not treated. Take the heart, if it isn’t getting enough oxygen it can go into angina. That is reversible since it is heart pain due to not enough oxygen to the heart tissue=no damage but if left untreated what will occur is a heart attack=myocardial infarction (MI) and is permanent damage because scarring to the heart tissue takes place.
Let’s understand what the heart can develop over time with an unhealthy heart due to bad health habits. If you are eating too much for too long foods high in sodium your vessels will narrow in size. By allowing this you increase the pressure in the vessels that increases your blood pressure called hypertension. If you are also inactive you are at risk of obesity which puts stress on the heart and in time causing high B/P. Constantly be in a high B/P and this could cause the vessel to rupture (at the heart=possible heart attack, at the brain=possible stroke, also called CVA with both on high occurrences in our population of the US.). With bad habits (especially poor diet, inactive, and smoking) you can cause over time atherosclerosis=a blockage in the artery with the resolution surgery (from a cardiac catheterization up your groin or having difficulty in the arm to the heart where an angiogram to an angioplasty with possibly a stent is performed or if the blockage to blockages is so bad a CABG=coronary artery bypass=a 6hr plus operation where diversion of a vein from your leg (donor graft site) around the blockage is done. Smoking can lead to this but it also can cause your vessels to become brittle=arteriosclerosis. Healthy Habits would impact a positive result for all people who have had this diagnosis before but most important be a great PREVENTATIVE measure for people not diagnosed with cardiac disease. There are 4 things you have no control over heredity, age, sex, and race but healthy habits are sure to benefit you by keeping the odds down of you inheriting, help your age factor, and race a lot can be associated with eating cultural habits. *
If you make the decision to live a life that’s healthy for your heart through proper eating, doing healthy habits and doing some exercise or activity with balancing rest in your busy schedule and would like direction or want to expand your diet/exercise/healthy habits then you came to the right blog. Go to my website for no fee, no charge, no hacking, just letting you check us out to look further in understanding how to take a healthier shape for your life with Dr. Anderson and even myself as your health coach in helping you learn what healthier habits or changes you feel you need and want for a healthier way of living. It allows you to make all the decisions in what you want to do regarding your health. Includes what to eat (diet), what exercise/activity, and what healthy habits you want to add in your life. We just provide the information and healthy foods in your diet through information to broaden your knowledge even a catalog on diet foods, if you so choose to do so. You make all the choices. Wouldn’t you want less heart disease or obesity or diabetes for yourself and for others throughout the nation including the future generations? Than join me and others. Thank you for taking the time to read my article in how we can help you with others gets healthier you including a healthier USA. Click onto heathyusa.tsfl.com and I hope to hear from you soon. If you like what you see spread the good cheer. Let’s build a stronger foundation regarding HEALTH in America.
Some fresh foods are more powerful than others. Some foods have more than their great taste but also healthy vitamins, minerals, and disease-fighting nutrients. Pack your meals adding this range of wholesome choices to your diet.
1.) Alfalfa sprouts – you can add them to your salad, fruits, lean meats, even for you vegetarians to your veggie or bean burger. You be creative and try alfalfa sprouts to many of your lunch and dinner meals.
2.) Apples are the richest fruit source of pectin, a soluble fiber that has been shown to lower blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, decrease the risk of colon and breast cancers, and maybe even lessen the severity of
diabetes. Try throwing a few slices on your sandwich or toss with your salads adding toasted pecans/walnuts or whatever nuts you love, and have a light vinaigrette for a delicious salad (one of my favorite is raspberry flavored). With so many varieties available, you’ll never get bored finding new ways to have apples to your daily diet.
3.) Avocados Just one half of a medium-size avocado contains more than 4 grams of fiber and 15% of your recommended daily folate intake. Cholesterol-free and rich in monounsaturated fats and potassium, avocados are also a powerhouse for heart health.
Avocados can be the base for a creamy homemade sandwich spread, or add a few chunks to your favorite salsa for a simple and delicious way to dress up grilled chicken or fish. Beets are loaded with antioxidants and have been found to protect against cancer, heart disease, and inflammation. Naturally sweet and full of fiber and vitamin C, beets make a delicious and nutrient-packed addition to any meal.
4.) Beets give a try as finely grated raw beets in your salads or roast them along with sweet potatoes and parsnips for a colorful and flavorful side-dish—just remember if you boil them it will decrease their nutritional value. And don’t forget about the leafy green tops, which are rich in iron and folate, and can be prepared much like their cousins, Swiss chard and spinach
5.) Cranberries great for protecting against urinary tract infections, but did you also know they may improve blood cholesterol and aid in recovery from strokes? Cranberry juice has also been shown to make cancer drugs more potent.
Remember, the available frozen year-round, enjoy these tart and tangy berries fresh during their peak season which is from October through December.
6.) Papayas-Trying to get more vitamin C in your diet? One cup of papaya cubes supplies more than 100% of your daily requirement, as well as a hefty dose of potassium and folate. It is also a good source of vitamins A and E, two powerful antioxidants that protect against heart disease and colon cancer.
Savor the rich, and enjoy a buttery flesh of this tropical fruit in smoothies and salads, or simply scoop it out of the shell with a spoon.
7.) Quinoa-Is a packed with a variety of nutrients, including iron and copper, this has been known as the ancient seed “the mother of all grains.” Quinoa contains all the essential amino acids, making it a complete protein (perfect for vegans and vegetarians). It is also a great source of magnesium, which relaxes blood vessels and has been found to reduce the frequency of migraines. Researchers have found that consuming dietary fiber, specifically from whole-grain products such as quinoa, reduces the risk of high blood pressure and heart attack.
Keep your engine of the body=THE HEART in top shape by substituting quinoa for rice or pasta in your next meal. It makes a great base for seafood dishes and mixes well with beans.
8.) Raspberries-The tart, sweet, and incredibly juicy fruit. Have one half cup of these berries provides a whopping 4 grams of fiber and more than 25% of the daily recommended intake for both vitamin C and manganese. Raspberries also contain a powerful arsenal of antioxidants, including members of the anthocyanin family, which give raspberries their ruby-red hue and antimicrobial properties.
I enjoy them in my salad or raw in my hand, after washing them but try a few berries with your morning cereal if you want.
9.) Spinach-Powerful antioxidants in spinach have been found to combat a variety of cancers, including ovarian, breast, and colon cancers. And it’s good for the noggin: Research indicates that spinach reduces the decline in brain function associated with aging and protects the heart from cardiovascular disease. Although it contains relatively high amounts of iron and calcium, oxalate compounds bind to these minerals and diminish their absorption. This vegetable has a mild flavor, so I spice it up with garlic, or you can try olive oil, and onions.
“All these bacteria that coat our skin and live in our intestines, they fend off bad bacteria. They protect us. And you can’t even digest your food without the bacteria that are in your gut. They have enzymes and proteins that allow you to metabolize foods you eat.”
Bonnie Bassler (born 1962)[2] is an American molecular biologist.
Enzymes are vital for processes to take place in our body without them they couldn’t take place. What are enzymes exactly? We have an many enzymes in our body from our saliva to our pancrease. Enzymes are specialized proteins that are produced by living cells to catalyze reactions in the body=breakdown. Protein in the form of an enzyme acts as a catalyst. A catalyst in action brakes down something, any chemical substance affected with the speed of reaction without being permanently altered by the reaction. For a chemical or biochemical reaction to occur, a certain amount of energy is required=the activation energy. Energy can be transformed from one state to another. The role of an enzyme is to decrease the amount of energy needed to start the reaction. Exactly how enzymes lower activation energies is not completely and fully understood but it is known that an enzyme attaches itself to one of the reacting molecules, this is called a substrate complex. Thousands of enzymes exist but each kind can attach ONLY to one kind of substrate. The enzyme molecule must fit exactly with the substrate molecule (just like how pieces in a jigsaw puzzle have to fit in their specific space of the picture). Well, if the substrate and enzyme don’t perfectly match or fit properly no reaction takes place. When they do fit perfectly the substrate molecule can react with other molecules in a synthesis reaction and when completed the enzyme is free to move on elsewhere to connect with another substrate molecule. This whole process takes place quickly. Clearly, enzymes are essential to the body’s overall homeostasis. (In order to lead a healthy life, we need to bring a balance in the way we lead our lifestyle. Homeostasis is nothing but a mechanism which helps the human body maintain a balance between the internal and external environment). Enzymes quickly perform catalyze chemical reactions and they also govern the reactions that occur. Enzymes are named by adding the suffix “ase” to the name of their substrates. For example there is:
The breaking down of starches = the enzyme that does this function is amylase. (Know this about amylase, it is present in human saliva where it begins the chemical process of digestion; that starts in our mouth. Foods that contain much starch but little sugar, such as rice and potato, taste slightly sweet as they are chewed because amylase turns some of their starch into sugar in the mouth. The pancreas also makes amylase (alpha amylase) to hydrolyse dietary starch into disaccharides and trisaccharides which are converted by other enzymes to glucose to supply the body with energy. There is even b and y amylases. Ending product on enzymes breaking down starches or carbohydrates gives us one thing only sugar.)
The breaking down of sugars, like sucrose = the enzyme is sucrase. The ending product of the enzyme is it breaks down complex sugars to more simple sugars in the body.
The breaking down of fats (lipids) = the enzyme is lipase. Lipase perform essential roles in the digestion, transport and processing of dietary lipids in most if not all living organisms (example (triglycerides, fats, oils).Most lipases act at a specific position on glycerol backbone of lipid substrate (A1,A2 or A3 in the small intestines). For example, human pancreatic lipase (HPL) is the main enzyme that breaks down dietary fats in the digestive system, converts triglyceride substrates found in ingested oils to monoglycerides and two fatty acids. Know that glycerol is a simple sugar compound. Enzymes deal with breaking down our foods because they take a major role in what we call the process digestion in the human body but notice what the ending result is of mostly every ingredient out of 3 of our food groups, which is SUGAR. It’s because of the food already having some sugar in it but more importantly also the chemical reaction with the enzyme to allow the food to break down into smaller compounds to be utilized in the body=simpler sugar compounds which also plays a part in the entire digestion process.
So know sugar in the body is our fuel for energy but with our digestion process, in how it works is like this: when the body gets a meal within 1 hour digestion starts in the stomach and complete in 6 to 8 hours depending on how large the meal is, especially if 3 large meals a day. The foods if contain starches, fat, lipids they all break down to simple sugars that transfer to the bloodstream and whatever energy the body needs at that point the tissues with cells utilize it but when enough sugar is used and we have excess in the blood we than have the body store the extra sugar that first converts the glucose (active sugar) to glycogen (inactive sugar) in our liver. The liver is only so big and when it reaches its optimal level of storage than the sugar gets stored in our fat tissue = WEIGHT GAIN. This is the problem with people in America not understanding this process. Plus as most people get older from 30 than to 40 years old and every 10 years after that till heaven we put cellulite on the body for 2 major reasons not eating as healthy due to the bikini and speedo fit not being the priority in life but getting the feet up after a hard day’s work is. The other reason is we aren’t as active as when we were 20 or 30 years old and the metabolism naturally slows down unless you’re a Jack la Lanne.
How do we deal with this to prevent obesity? Do what I did go on a 6 small meal diet. Eat a meal every 3 hours with keeping fat, calories/sugar, carbohydrates in proper proportions to prevent excess sugar in the meals to not allow fat storage=weight gain. Of course some exercise or activity daily or every other day helps tone the muscle and not let it flab due to cellulite. Live healthier habits of living not a month, 3 months or 6 months but make it your daily routine with treating yourself to foods you don’t eat daily to maintain a good weight and increase your health status to allow you to live a happier, longer and more exciting life. Dr. Anderson with his book “Dr. A’s Habits of Health” with me as your medifast coach show you how easy it is. You learn all 4 food groups and how to divide them up in your meals with first starting with medifast foods 3 to 6 months and when you feel you have reached the weight you want to be at with knowing the routine you can stop or continue with regular foods and medifast for snacks only, maybe. You make all the choices.
Let’s not forget with enzymes they also break proteins down in our body:
Thebreaking down of proteins=Trypsin Proteins are large biological molecules consisting of one or more chains of amino acids. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within living organisms, including catalyzing metabolic reactions, replicating DNA, responding to stimuli, and transporting molecules from one location to another. Trypsin is a enzyme catalyst, which allows the catalysis of chemical reactions. The ending product of the break down is amino acids not sugar. Know high on a protein diet continuously for years can hurt the body also.
Enzymes deal with breaking down our foods because they take a major role in what we call the process digestion in the human body. but notice what the ending result is of mostly every ingredient in our 4 food groups is; SUGAR. It because of the food has some sugar in it but also the chemical reaction with the enzyme to allow the food to break down into smaller compounds to be utilized in the body with send through the entire digestion process.
There are risks with eating just high protein diets for long periods of time. You put yourself at risk for: Osteoporosis: Research shows that women who eat high protein diets based on meat have a higher rate of bone density loss than those who don’t. Women who eat meat lose an average of 35% of their bone density by age 65, while women who don’t eat meat lose an average of 18%. In the long run, bone density loss leads to osteoporosis.
Kidneys: A high protein diet puts strain on the kidneys. It is well known that patients with kidney problems suffer from eating a high protein diet which is due to the high amino acids levels. A high-protein diet may worsen kidney function in people with kidney disease because your body may have trouble eliminating all the waste products of protein metabolism.
However, the risks of using a high-protein diet with carbohydrate restriction for the long term are still being studied. Several health problems may result if a high-protein diet is followed for an extended time:
Some high-protein diets restrict carbohydrate intake so much that they can result in nutritional deficiencies or insufficient fiber, which can cause health problems such as constipation and diverticulitis.
Some high-protein diets promote foods such as red meat and full-fat dairy products, which may increase your risk of heart disease.
If you want to follow a high-protein diet, do so only as a short-term weight-loss aid. Also, choose your protein wisely. Good choices include fish, skinless chicken, lean beef, pork and low-fat dairy products. Choose carbs that are high in fiber, such as whole grains and nutrient-dense vegetables and fruit.
It’s always a good idea to talk with your doctor before starting a weight-loss diet. And that’s especially important in this case if you have kidney disease, diabetes or other chronic health condition.
So if you want to continue on high protein diets longer than 6 months know how to alkalize the body chemicals to decrease the proteins and there are supplements that can do that via the pharmacy or look up even online.
If you’re interested with wanting Dr. Anderson and myself in getting you started go to heathyusa.tsfl.com and just take a peek at no charge, no hacking, no donations, no subscription just letting you know what we offer; you may just like what you see. I did it and lost 22lbs. I feel better and healthier. You may just pass it over to family and friends spreading the good news that could just make our country a healthier one.