Diet, Memory and Nutrition

Researchers and Nutritionalists have long thought that there is not only a direct link, but a substantial correlation between nutrition and the onslaught and severity of degenerative diseases to include Diabetes Type II and diseases associated with cognitive function and motor skills. I know from personal experience that nutrition can make a huge difference in reducing the warning markers for Diabetes Type II.

Many people know this too, but they think the changes necessary to reduce their chances of getting a degenerative disease are so big they never start. Change is always uncomfortable. Want to try an experiment? Approach your spouse or signifcant othr and say "We need to make some changes?". I'll just bet their defenses go up, and you'll see it in their body language and tenor of their voice.

Again, nobody likes change. But nobody should like diabetes, memory loss or muscles tremors either. Like I said, I have personal experince making small changes,...very small changes and I reduced my overall cholesterol level from 210 to 150, and my A1C (Blood Glucose) level from the pre-diabetes level of 6.2 to the normal range of 5.6.

So everyone, and not just the people who have a family history of diabetes and cognitive disorders should pay attention. Or not. After all it is a free world, so far,.....unless you are married and you are a man. Ha!

Sweet Tooth, Foggy Brain? The Surprising Link Between Diet and Memory, by Korin Miller, posted on Yahoo! Health.

You are what you eat — and that applies to your brain, too.

Research has shown it time and again: Weight gain isn’t good for your health. And according to a new study, it could be bad for your mind as well.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Neurology, shows a strong association between insulin resistance (often linked to weight gain) and a decline in memory function.

For the research, scientists studied the brain scans of 150 people with a median age of 60 at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease but who didn’t have memory loss. The scans showed that people who had higher insulin resistance used less blood sugar in areas of the brain that are the most susceptible to Alzheimer’s. Why this is a problem: When there is less blood sugar in the brain, it doesn’t function as well, researchers say.

Insulin is a hormone that helps move glucose (aka blood sugar) from your blood into your cells for your body to use as fuel. The pancreas secretes insulin into the bloodstream, but when insulin resistance occurs, there is not enough insulin to move the blood sugar to the cells. As a result, the pancreas creates more insulin to move the blood sugar along.

Diet plays a role in all this because foods high in sugar and fat can cause blood sugar spikes, causing your insulin response to kick into overdrive to convert the nutrients into energy. But when your body doesn’t need any more energy, the rest is stored as fat. Too many blood sugar spikes can then lead to insulin resistance. (However, everyone is different; there are many factors that affect how resistant the body becomes to insulin over time. It’s best to try to keep your blood sugar on an even keel as much as possible to prevent spikes from happening.)

“In Alzheimer’s disease, many brain regions start using less and less blood sugar,” study co-author Auriel Willette, PhD, a food science and human nutrition professor at Iowa State University, tells Yahoo Health. “It’s like trying to drink a thick milkshake through a straw that keeps shrinking.”

Willette says insulin may be giving a boost to processing blood sugar in key areas in the brain that do complex processing. If insulin resistance takes place, and there isn’t enough insulin to do the job that it should, he says forming memories can become harder. Over time, those brain cells might begin to starve and die off.

Insulin resistance is a hallmark of pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. And while scientists say genetics could be at play, research has found that diet also has a role.

A review published in the journal Current Diabetes Reports found that eating a high-fat diet puts people at a greater risk of developing insulin resistance. Artificial sweeteners may also indirectly contribute to insulin resistance. A 2013 study published in the journal Diabetes Care discovered that insulin levels rose by 20 percent in people who were given the artificial sweetener sucralose (found in Splenda). If that happens repeatedly, researchers say it could cause more food cravings, insulin resistance, and weight gain.

Filmmaker Max Lugavere, who is working on a documentary called Bread Head about the role of diet and exercise on cognitive decline, tells Yahoo Health he isn’t shocked by the new findings. “When there is something metabolically awry, it could impact brain health,” he says. “Studies like this are meaningful.”

“Obviously a diet high in refined carbs and sugar … we know is one of the main causative factors in Type 2 diabetes, which is reaching high proportions globally,” Lugavere adds, so this study only serves as further evidence that cutting these kinds of foods out of our diets can help keep our brains healthy.

Luckily, registered dietitian nutritionist Beth Warren, author of Living a Real Life With Real Food, says we can do something about it. “Food choices come hand in hand with balancing blood sugar levels and decreasing the risk of insulin resistance,” she tells Yahoo Health.

Warren says it’s often helpful to make healthier swaps, like 100 percent whole-grain bread over white bread (the whole-grain version is a low-glycemic carbohydrate, which won’t cause as much of a blood sugar spike), and to eat every three hours to regulate your blood sugar.

Related: Can You Prevent Dementia Through Nutrition?

New York City registered dietitian Jessica Cording also recommends pairing foods that contain carbohydrates with protein and a healthy fat (think: an apple with almond butter). “Protein and fat has a buffering effect,” she tells Yahoo Health. “They help minimize blood sugar spikes as they slow digestion, promote satiety, and help maintain a slow-burning energy.”

Willette says moderate exercise can help as well. “You don’t need to do intense gym workouts,” he says, adding that all you need is 30 minutes a day, three days a week. “The more our muscles work, the more they sop up excess blood sugar all the time and prevent insulin resistance.”

Eat well and exercise … your future mental health depends on it.



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The Truth About 8 Common Diet Strategies

This is a pretty decent article,...anything that causes you to think and explore is, but I have some issues with some of the things in this article.  1 - Weight Loss?  Two words - Diet and Exercise.  Of course you have to eat the right foods...think low glycemic and limit or eliminate any high glycemic foods.  2 - One reason diets fail is that you do not provide you body with the nutrients it needs to have a healthy immune system let alone function properly....yes, you can be starving yourself and at the same time losing weight, but who wants to be skinny AND sick? 

The Surprising Truth About 8 Common Diet Strategies, by Good Housekeeping on Healthy Living

Who has the time to keep up with weight-loss research? It's so technical...and confusing...and often contradictory! And yet if you don't know what's going on in the world of calorie counting, you may not be seeing the pounds drop off as fast as you think they should. In one European diet-and-exercise study, for example, participants who were given detailed explanations of the research itself were more likely to improve (exercise more or eat better or both) than a less clued-in group. Fortunately, we have dug into the latest research. And as we did, we noted that a surprising number of dieting tactics accepted as gospel have recently been shown to be dead wrong. Knowing which still hold up and which are big (fat) lies can mean the difference between winning and losing at weight loss. Here's the lowdown.

1. To lose a pound, you must cut 3,500 calories

FALSE: This much-quoted equation doesn't account for the slowdown that happens to your metabolism as you drop pounds, explain researchers at the National Institutes of Health. "As a result, it drastically overestimates how quickly people will lose weight," says senior investigator Kevin D. Hall, Ph.D. That's why his team has created a new, computerized model that accurately predicts just how long you'll have to say non to french fries. It takes into consideration not only the drop in calorie burn as you get slimmer, but also your current weight, your age, how much you're eating now, and other variables.

Let's say you're a 46-year-old woman who weighs 170 pounds. According to the traditional formula, if you cut 500 calories a day, you would drop a pound a week (500 ˜ 7 days = 3,500 calories, or 1 pound) - and lose 26 pounds in six months. But the new math shows that the weight loss is more likely to be 19.5 pounds.

Make this work for you: The weight-loss gods may be cruel, but knowing what to expect can keep you from getting discouraged - and from backsliding - when the scale seems stuck. To try the new Body Weight Simulator, go to bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov. Especially cool: You can vary predictions of how much you might lose and how long it will take by changing what you plug in for your calorie intake and exercise level.

2. Three squares a day works as well as a "many mini meals" plan

TRUE: Dieters who stick to breakfast, lunch, and dinner are often no hungrier than those who opt to have frequent small meals and snacks throughout the day, a new University of Missouri study found. Actually, if you're a dieter who doesn't want to have to be extra careful about portion control, eating three squares might be a better strategy. "Often people misinterpret the size of a 'mini meal' and end up taking in far more calories than they realize," says lead author Heather J. Leidy, Ph.D. "Also, more meals means more exposure to food, which creates more opportunities for overeating."

Make this work for you: Whether you want to be a traditionalist or a conscientious "mini meal" strategist, the most important thing is not to go too low: Dieters who dine only once or twice a day tend to get ravenous - and we all know where that leads.

3. A history of yo-yo dieting wrecks your chances of future weight-loss success

FALSE: This idea gained traction back in the 1980s, when studies on rats found that those forced to yo-yo with their diets actually became more efficient at gaining weight. Humans, however, are luckier: In new research from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, a history of losing, then gaining, then losing wasn't linked to any negative effects on metabolism. Even severe yo-yo dieters - women who reported losing 20 or more pounds on three or more occasions - were able to follow a new diet and exercise program just as successfully as non-swingers.

Make this work for you: Yo-yoers are often women who try one crash diet after another. So take encouragement from this study and look for a plan that focuses on healthy lifestyle changes that lead to slow and steady weight loss.

4. Exercise does not burn off pounds

TRUE: It's hard to believe, but in a study of 411 women, those who worked out for over one, two, or three hours a week for six months didn't lose significantly more weight than those who'd devoted themselves to Sudoku or other sedentary pursuits. You'd think this finding was a fluke, but a recent review of 15 studies came to the same conclusion: Moderate workouts don't lead to weight loss, possibly because they make us hungrier. But there's also a biological explanation: As with weight loss, one of the ways your body adapts to an increase in exercise is to lower your resting metabolic rate about 7%, so you actually end up burning fewer calories - anywhere from 50 to 75 fewer per day, the review found.

Make this work for you: While exercise doesn't burn off the bulge, "it does boost your PFF: Pants Fit Factor," says Diana M. Thomas, Ph.D., of Montclair State University in New Jersey. "It helps reduce your waist and gives you a firmer, leaner-looking shape overall." What's more, a dwindling waistline is a key indicator that you're losing belly fat - the dangerous fat type that's linked to health problems like heart disease and diabetes.

5. It's best to set challenging weight-loss goals

TRUE: Weight-loss experts have long counseled that if dieters set high - that is, unrealistic - targets, they'll quickly get discouraged and give up. Better, the pros have advised, to think small. But in a recent study of 447 overweight adults, Dutch researchers found that the more weight loss the participants strived for, the more effort they made - and the more weight they reported losing after two months. One theory as to why being ambitious might help you shed more pounds: It has a psychologically energizing effect, pumping up your commitment and drive.

Make this work for you: When mapping out a pounds-off plan, go for the gold - or strive to lose 14% of your current weight. That's the target (on average) that motivated the higher-reaching dieters in the Dutch study. For a 165-pound woman, that works out to about a 23-pound loss.

6. Milk drinkers lose more weight

FALSE: Wipe that mustache off your face: When Harvard researchers analyzed 29 studies on the topic, they found that while dairy may help dieters in the short term, ultimately it's not a winning (i.e, losing) strategy. In fact, in most of the studies that had lasted a year or longer and that didn't restrict calories, adults who chugged extra glasses of the white stuff (or ate more dairy) actually gained more weight than participants who didn't.

Make this work for you: To satisfy your dairy cravings, sub in yogurt: The Harvard team noted that a recent large study did find yogurt intake helped with weight in the long term.

7. Tracking carbs is the best way to keep pounds off

FALSE: A balanced plan topped the usual technique of counting carbohydrates or fat grams in a study of adults who had recently lost a significant amount of weight. The least successful of the plans was the one that counted fat grams: It caused the biggest slowdown in metabolism, leading dieters to burn an average of 423 fewer calories a day. The carb-counting plan was problematic because it caused an increase in cortisol and C-reactive protein levels - factors that may elevate your risk of cardiovascular disease. In contrast, the balanced plan caused a less extreme drop in metabolism (under 300 calories a day) and didn't trigger any heart-harming consequences.

Make this work for you: The study's balanced plan included lots of whole grains, fresh vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, healthy fats like olive oil, and lean fish and meats; it excluded heavily processed foods like white bread and instant rice. Known as "low-glycemic," this type of diet is based on regulating the body's blood sugar and hormone levels. It may also be the easiest diet to stick to in the long term because it doesn't restrict entire classes of food, notes lead study author Cara B. Ebbeling, Ph.D., of Boston Children's Hospital. For info, go to childrenshospital.org (search "low-glycemic diet" for shopping lists and other tips).

8. You have to watch what you eat - forever

TRUE: Previously, experts believed if you restrained eating for too long, it would backfire and lead to bingeing, notes weight-loss researcher Fiona Johnson, Ph.D., of University College London. "But the constant bombardment of food temptations has led to a situation where self-control is essential."

Make this work for you: Psychologists specializing in dieting issues don't advocate outlawing a long list of favorite foods. Instead, they suggest "flexible restraint" - passing on sundaes or fries on most days, but occasionally allowing yourself those treats. To monitor how well you're balancing restraint with indulgence, step on your scale at least once a week. Regular weigh-ins will alert you to the need to rein in before a big, hard-to-shake weight gain settles in.

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