Dr. Jeffrey Bland explains how diet shapes brain function through glucose metabolism, a leaky blood-brain barrier that lets in both helpful compounds and toxins, and immune signals from the gut. He links dysbiosis to hippocampal atrophy in Alzheimer's disease, suggesting diet may slow neurodegeneration.
Can you believe that the food you eat affects the brain that you have and how it functions? Yeah, that's what I want to talk about. Dr. Jeffrey Bland, nutritional biochemist, and yes, food and the brain. What is it all about? You know, we go back now almost 15 years in which early data was starting to come out saying that our brain is not totally insulated from the rest of our body. It actually takes information directly from what we eat. And it started off really talking about sugar, glucose, and glucose in the blood, and then how that got to the brain. The brain needs that as a source of energy, but if it gets too much or if it is not proper in its delivery system, it creates problems with regard to brain chemistry. That was kind of the early stage. Then we got into what was called type 3 diabetes, where it was found that the brain actually has insulin and it could regulate or not regulate properly the metabolism in the brain of energy and coming from glucose. And that type 3 diabetes was associated with mood and behavior problems, maybe even later stage, more significant things related to cognitive dysfunction and neurodegeneration. So that then started us to really think about food in the brain in an entirely different way. Then from that, we started to talk about bioactives that are in the brain. We used to think the blood-brain barrier would prevent anything from getting into the brain. It was like removed from the rest of the body, but now we see that That the blood-brain barrier, just like the gut barrier, is semi-permeable. It takes in friends and it rejects foes. But if it becomes leaky and you have a leaky blood-brain barrier, now you can pick up toxins and you can pick up things that alter your brain chemistry, just as your brain will pick up specific types of nutrients that are necessary, like creatine, which we've heard a lot about recently. So now we're seeing a revolution in brain chemistry and its relationship the diet. And now we see that the brain's function is controlled by immunometabolism. Ooh boy, isn't that exciting? Meaning the brain's immune system, which is located in the cells in our brain called the microglia, that are actually the brain's immune system, are communicating with the neurons, the business end of the brain, to create our outcome called how we think, act, and behave. And that relationship is tied up to the immune system of the brain, which is tied up to our diet and tied up to the nutritional status of our body. All these things are part of the new paradigm that is advancing the field of neurology and what I would call nutritional neurochemistry. And it's very interesting if you think about this, because now suddenly Alzheimer's disease is being reformed as a disorder that may relate to the gut-brain connection in part. Maybe the gut is sending signals when it's dysbiotic through the immune system to the brain to then activate certain processes that are associated with hippocampal atrophy and what we later call Alzheimer's. It's not the only cause, but it may be one of the multifactorial features that is modifiable through diet and lifestyle. So stay tuned. This is a rapidly advancing field.
