Defy Aging: Top Foods to Sharpen Your Brain & Elevate Your Mood! | Dr. Mark Hyman

Now, the higher adherence to the diet was correlated with a 55% lower risk of depression symptoms. Increased fish intake was linked to a 44% reduced risk of depression overall and a 56% reduction in women. Welcome to the Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman and this special episode of Health Bites are juicy little health bites to help you live better longer. Imagine being able to enhance your mood, your mental acuity, your overall cognitive function, just by what you choose to put at the end of your fork. you see, food is not just sustenance or energy to fuel our bodies. It's one of the most potent forms of medicine that's available to us, literally medicine. In today's episode, we're exploring the impact of food, five specific foods. We call them super foods, but really they're just foods that help boost our mental health, reverse brain aging, and protect us from chronic, ever more common neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia and Parkinson's. Unfortunately, the typical American diet, which the vast majority of Americans eat, is loaded with sugars, starches, ultra-processed food-like substances, science projects basically, and inflammatory fats which can do the exact opposite, drive inflammation that harms our physical health and clouds our brains, strips us of our zest and vitality for life, and makes us prone to sadness, anxiety, and depression. It literally breaks our brain. And that's why so many of us are walking around with a broken brain. Now, in previous episodes of the podcast, I've discussed in depth how food influences our mood and mental state, which I strongly encourage you to check out and I'll link to them in the show notes. However, today I want to zero in on the research behind five specific foods that you can add to your diet for tremendous capacity to support your brain and health and make us feel, think and perform better. Now, some of you may be familiar with a few of these foods, but others may surprise you. So let's jump right in with the first food that can literally change the way your brain works for the better. The first is dark green leafy vegetables and specifically a category called cruciferous vegetables, also known as brassicas, basically the broccoli family: kale, collards, spinach, arugula, Swiss chard, collard greens, mustard greens, bok choy, romaine lettuce, turnip greens, beet greens, watercress, endive, escarole, broccoli rabe, dandelion greens, radicchio, watercress, lettuce, chicory, pretty much anything green. What is the mechanism of green leafy veggies and the positive effect on their brain? Well, there's a lot of reasons. Antioxidants and protective phytochemicals. Now, we don't think of phytochemicals as essential nutrients, but they kind of are. They're protective foods, right? We know harmful foods like sugar and processed food and so forth, but they're also protective foods and we want to eat more of those and less of the harmful foods. Now, green leafy vegetables contain anti-inflammatory molecules and antioxidants, things like vitamin C, and E, carotenoids, which are the green, orange things actually also, but they're in the green vegetables, lutein, which is great for eyes, alpha-linolenic acid, which is plant-based omega-3s, they contain polyphenols, which are these plant-based anti-inflammatory chemicals, flavonoids, things like camphor, all these things reduce oxidative stress, which causes inflammation, and then reduce, more importantly, neuroinflammation, which is inflammation of your brain. Now, oxidative stress damages your cells and it can contribute to the formation and accumulation of something called beta amyloid plaques. You might have heard of amyloid theory of Alzheimer's. And amyloid, just to be clear, is not the cause of Alzheimer's, although many, for many years thought it was, and we spent billions of dollars studying research to prove that it was, but we never could be successful. It's sort of a side effect of inflammation and it's the body's attempt to deal with a bad set of circumstances. So it's sort of a bystander in the process of dementia and it does gum up your brain, but it's it's really not the issue, it's the inflammation that's driving the amyloid development. And some of these foods can be protective, right? So some studies suggest that polyphenols can inhibit the formation of beta amyloid fibrils, which are these plaques that are common in response to inflammation in the brain. And they gum up the brain that ends up causing dementia. Now, they also promote clearance of these plaques in the brain. So these polyphenols actually help the brain clear amyloid, which is great. This explains probably maybe some of their effects on the cognitive function that we're seeing. There's also other nutrients like vitamin K, philoquinone, that plays a crucial role in regulating calcium and activates proteins that help keep calcium out of areas where it shouldn't be, such as the brain's blood vessels. Vitamin K also has anti-inflammatory effects and that can reduce neuroinflammation. It's also involved in the synthesis of important fats called sphingolipids, doesn't matter what they call them, but basically it's a class of lipids that are crucial components of your brain cell membrane. So your brain cells have membranes and they have to be made of the right fats. And if they don't have the right fats, you end up with more inflammation. Now these lipids play a reduced risk of depression overall and a 56% reduction in women. Now each additional gram of fish per day decreased a woman's depression risk by 2% and three or more servings of fresh fish a week reduced depression by 62%. Now think of that in the context of our mental health crisis. I mean, we're all taking Prozac and being in therapy and doing all these things, but what if we just ate a can of sardines three times a week? You might have no friends because they might like how you smell, but maybe you won't be depressed. Now, I'm just kidding. I love sardines and they're great and they're delicious. And, I just came from Europe where they have fresh sardines. They're so good. Now, what they found was interesting, there was no effect with canned tuna. And, tuna is also high in Omega-3s, but it's also high in mercury which can actually cause depression. and it can be a concern. So, I would stay away from those big fish like tuna, swordfish, halibut, and so forth. Now, you can use the guide from the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org, and you can see their guide on choosing fish for the lowest amount of mercury. So, just go to ewg.org and you'll learn about it. So, why is this so good for our brain? Well, the brain diseases that we see, right, whether it's depression, Alzheimer's, even autism and ADD are inflammation of the brain, brain on fire. And omega-3s are powerful anti-inflammatories. You see, up to 60% of our brain is made up of fat. So you literally are a fat head, right? Half of that fat, by the way, is omega-3 fats. So they're essential. These are called essential fatty acids. They're not optional in your diet. And yet most of our diets are deficient in these essential fatty acids. So they're like a vitamin or mineral. If you don't get them, you're gonna get deficiency and shows up as depression, dementia, and a whole host of other things. Now, as we expanded our brain, our cerebral cortex, and our executive function and memory and intellect, it seemed to coincide with the introduction of fish and sea food into our diet about 35,000 years ago. Even hunted land animals had higher levels of omega-3s than industrial raised animals. So, for example, wild bison have higher levels of omega-3s than a feedlot cow. Now, it makes sense that we need these omega-3s to keep our brains functioning properly and that a lack of fish or omega omegas can lead to omega-3 deficiency, and that leads to mood and memory issues. Now, the two most important forms of fish oil are EPA or eicosapentaenoic acid. You don't have to remember that. And DHA or docosahexaenoic acid just comes from the chemical structure. These come from fish. You can't get them really from plants. Alpha-linolenic acid or ALA is also an omega-3. It's a plant-based form of omega-3, and it comes from things like walnuts, chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp, and some leafy greens. The problem is that only about 10% of the plant-based Omega-3s, the ALA, is converted to the ones we actually need, the EPA and DHA. So you, if you're vegan, you're not necessarily gonna be getting this. And it's a big risk for deficiency. So you have to figure out how to get your levels up by taking fish oil. And there are concentrates of plant-based fish oils where they kind of Jack up the amounts and convert it, and it's, it's kind of a a bit of a project, but there are some around. EPA and DHA, these essential Omega-3 fats play crucial roles in the body's inflammatory system. We learned this in medical school. This is not a new science. We know how they regulate eicosanoids, prostaglandins, all these inflammatory systems in our body. And they produce a whole class of anti-inflammatory molecules, also called resolvins and protectins, right? They resolve and protect you from inflammation. They resolve inflammation and they protect you. Now, these are great names. I love these names. But basically a lot of fish oil has this in it, but sometimes at low levels, I'm gonna tell you a minute about one you can get. There's a high levels of these protective things. Now, when we're deficient Omega-3s, it increases our risk of inflammation in the body and the brain, and it can show up like depression, mood disorders, memory disorders. EPA specifically has been shown to reduce neuroinflammation, right? Remember the neuroinflammation is linked to memory issues, dementia. Alzheimer's, depression, anxiety, ADD, autism, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, all of these problems of the brain have been linked to neuroinflammation and EPA actually is inversely correlated with all these problems. So there are actually studies from Harvard that show you can treat bipolar disease by giving fish oil, surprise, or ADD by giving fish oil or depression by giving fish oil or improve dementia by giving fish oil. That's how powerful these are and they regulate all all sorts of compounds in the body regulate neuroinflammation. Now, when you have low levels of EPA, it increases your risk of heart disease, not just brain diseases, but also heart disease, skin disorders, diabetes, and lots more. In fact, these fats are absolutely essential for life. We gotta get them from our diet, but 90% of Americans are deficient in these critical fats. And I'm gonna explain to you more where to get them and how to take them, but I think at this point in history, unless you want to poison yourself with mercury from eating a lot of fish, you are going to need to take omega-3s from supplements. I mean, unless you want to eat sardines every day, which most people don't. Now, vitamin D receptors are found all through the brain, and vitamin D inhibits a really critical pathway in the brain that controls inflammation. This is really important, guys. There's something that the body produces called transcription factors, and there are many transcription factors, and these transcription factors regulate which genes are transcribed or which genes are turned on or off. For example, are inflammation genes turned on or are the anti-inflammatory genes turned on? Now, the main transcription factor that drives inflammation, that turns on the genes that produce inflammation in the body, is called NF-kappa B or nuclear factor kappa B. don't know if you remember that, but just remember that there's a switch that turns on inflammation. Now, vitamin D lowers NF-kappa B, which leads to a reduction in the production of these inflammatory molecules called cytokines. You all heard about the cytokine storm from COVID Same thing. It also increases the production of anti-inflammatory cytokines and regulates the expression of something called neurotrophins, which is a group of proteins that stimulate the growth of nerve cells. That's a great thing. So one, you turn off inflammation. Two, you turn on the anti-inflammatory system. And three, you turn on the expression of these growth factors for the brain that actually help grow new brain cells. That's pretty good for vitamin D. Now, vitamin D also stimulates macrophages, kind of like Pac-Man like white blood cells that kind of gobble up bad stuff. So they help macrophages Go into your brain and clear the amyloid beta. Amyloid beta is that gummy plaque stuff we talked about that's found in Alzheimer's disease. Now, a deficiency of vitamin D also has been linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease. And about 80% of Americans are either deficient or insufficient in vitamin D. It's really important. So you gotta get your levels checked and you can also do that through function health. But it's really important to know your numbers here. All right, so we've got Omega-3s, we got vitamin D, we got selenium. What else you got fish for me? Well, something called astaxanthin. Now, astaxanthin, it's a big word, it's a carotenoid, which you might know sounds like carrots, right? It's the orange color in vegetables, right? Or fruit. And carotenoids are one of the antioxidant families. It's a precursor of vitamin A. In fact, when you eat salmon, why is salmon pink or orange? And by the way, when you have wild salmon, it's much darker if you notice that. Wild caught salmon is very dark. It's actually what gives salmon its color. So if you have salmon and you're eating orange salmon, that's why it's because of the carotenoids. So what's great about astaxanthin? It's one of the most powerful antioxidants that's around. And it helps also reduce neuroinflammation. It scavenges free radicals, and it activates this incredibly important pathway called NR F2, which is an anti-inflammatory antioxidant pathway. We all have it, but we don't activate it enough. This maintains the integrity of the blood-brain barrier. When you have low levels of NR F2 and you have more oxidative stress, you get damaged to the blood-brain barrier. So that means the brain is more susceptible to injury from outside influences. And also, what's so great about astaxanthin is that it suppresses NF-Kappa B, right? Remember we talked about that? That's the pathway that is the gene transcription factor that causes you to produce lots of inflammatory molecules called cytokines. So more estazolam, less cytokines. All right, so we covered greens, we covered fish. What is the third biggest category of things that are good for your brain? Well, grass-fed, this might shock you, grass-fed regeneratively raised meat, right? Things like lamb, beef, bison, venison, wild game like deer, elk. So why is grass-fed meat good for our brains? Well, grass-fed meat contains higher quality protein and more bioavailable nutrients than, for example, certain plant foods that have protein. A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization, or the FAO, examined more than 500 studies and 250 policy documents, and they concluded that animal foods offer a crucial source of much needed nutrients. Animal protein contains all the essential amino acids for supporting human health, for supporting immunity, for anti-inflammatory pathways, the raw materials for synthesizing our hormones, our neurotransmitters that are important for memory and cognition, and the amino acids and the bioactive factors with high digestibility that are found primarily in animal foods, things like carnitine, creatine, taurine, Hydroxyproline, L-ascorbic acid, these are all nutrients that are not available in plant foods. Tyrosine, for example, is an important precursor to dopamine. Tryptophan is a precursor to serotonin, which is important for mood. The animal protein is also rich in bioavailable micronutrients that help protect against deficiencies like iron, zinc, and B12. And they're also, if you have the right, regeneratively raised or grass-fed finished animal foods, they have higher levels of the essential fatty acids that are important for brain health, cognition and metabolism and neurodevelopment. So it's not just fish that had the omega-3s. For example, all the Native Americans were eating bison. All got their omega-3s not from eating fish because they lived in the middle of America. They got it from eating bison. They were eating wild plants that they converted into EPA and DHA. There's also something in animal foods called heme iron, which is essential for the growth and branching of neurons during fetal development. also zinc is found in high levels in animal foods and it's really important for memory and for learning, for immunity. B12 also is critical and it's only available from animal foods. There are some plant sources that you can kind of get like nutritional yeast and weird things, but basically it's pretty much absent from most plant foods and that's why vegans need to supplement with B12. Now B12 helps because it maintains the myelin sheath and protects nerve cells. I learned, for example, in medical school that beach volleyball, if it's low, will cause depression. It can also cause neuropathy, meaning damage to your nerves because it's so critical for maintaining the nerve sheath. So I hope you can see that high quality animal protein is the superfood for your brain and also many other aspects for your health that I like to talk about, like longevity, including muscle health, which is very important. We've had some podcasts on that. We're gonna have some more. Now, there are controversies around meat, right? Right? Many studies link red meat to risk for all cause mortality, for cognitive decline, for Alzheimer's, for heart disease, for cancer, diabetes, et cetera. And this may be attributed to other factors and there are observational data. So there's a whole confounding set of things called the healthy user bias. In other words, people who in most of these large studies who ate meat, it was during a time when meat was seen to be not good for your health. So if you ate meat, you typically were not healthy, right? You ate more food. In fact, the study showed you ate 800 calories more a day, you smoked more, you drank more, you ate fruits and vegetables, you didn't take your vitamins, you didn't exercise. So of course you had more disease, right? It may not be the meat itself. Now there may be other factors like TMAO or saturated fat for some people. We just don't know. Now we have to kind of be more sophisticated if you look at nutritional data, but the problem is that nutritional data is just inherently weak and we have to do the best we can by looking at all the studies, the mechanisms and the science behind it, right? So it's combining basic science data, animal data, population study data, randomized controls that are small trials, large randomized control trials. So, you can kind of read the tea leaves and see the smoke signals and get a sense of what we should be doing. And, basically, the bottom line here is that we've been eating meat and animal foods for as long as we've been human. It's basically not the meat that's bad for us. It's the quality of it. And, maybe if it's grain-fed or if it's conventional and for eating ultra-processed meats like hot dogs and hamburgers, and maybe we're eating it with other stuff, right? not paying attention to health. So we're eating our burger with a can of fries and a 32 ounce Coke, right? That may be the reason it increases risk. So the reason many population studies show plant-based diets may be healthier is what we call the healthy user bias. I sort of mentioned that earlier. Vegetarians tend to have overall healthier habits and don't smoke. They exercise regularly and more. It's not the vegetarian or vegan diet that protects them. It's all their other healthy habits. In fact, the vegan diet may be hurting them. There was actually a study I like to quote, which we looked at meat eaters and vegetarians who shopped at health food stores, and they both had their risk of death reduced in half. Why? Because they were eating whatever they were eating in the context of an overall healthier diet. So what's the takeaway here? How do you apply this to your life? Well, grass-fed meats are good, and if you can get the regeneratively raised meats, that's even better. So I recommend places like farmers markets, which are around everywhere in America, places like Thrive Market, force of nature, which has incredible sourcing of virgin meats from around the world and butcher box. Try to eat, depending on your biology, you might not tolerate saturated fat as well. You might lean leaner cuts of meat. Saturated fat from high quality sources is not necessarily the enemy. In fact, saturated fat is important for your brain. And those who have lower saturated fats in their diet tend to have more stroke because it's so important for the structure and function of your brain. It's a very nuanced topic, so it's not the saturated fat necessarily problem. It's what you're eating it with. So if you eat saturated fat with carbohydrates and starch, bad combo. So butter and bread, bad combo. Ice cream, bad combo. French fries, bad combo, because you're eating starch and fat at the same time. All that's really bad. But saturated fat, for example, butter on your broccoli may not be so bad. And of course, it's very different, right? Depending on the person. Personalized medicine is where we all need to be going, and we need to understand our own biology and how our own biology reacts to what we're doing. So there's no one size fits all diet, one size fits all prescription. And you have look at your weight, your lipid metabolism, right? And you don't wanna like be a carnivore, right? And forget everything else. You wanna eat meat, but be smart about it. Most of your diet should be plants and meat is a side dish, right? Four to six ounces, which still gets you plenty of protein, but veggies should be the main dish. So you can have animal protein every meal, you can have that over meat from dinner or for breakfast or lunch. You can try grass-fed beef sticks as a snack or there's now Maui Nui. I don't have any connection to them, but they're great for venison meat sticks. You can have canned salmon or sardines, even canned chicken on a salad for lunch. Alright, so that's meat, grass-fed meat. We got greens, we got fish, we got grass-fed meats. The third category of food we should be thinking about for our brain is pasture raised eggs. So why are eggs good for your brain? well, the yolk has everything you need to grow and maintain a healthy brain. The eggs are often described as perfect food or nature's perfect multivitamin. Now think of what they do, right? They have an incredible nutritional profile because they provide all the nutrients for a brand new life, all the nutrients for growth and development, and that helps grow a new chick and provides lots of benefits for us too, for humans in terms of neurodevelopment, mental health and cognition. So what's the mechanism here? What are the nutrients responsible for these brain boosting effects? Well, the first one is called choline. Choline is an essential nutrient that often doesn't get as much attention as it deserves for brain and mental health. Choline is a micronutrient important for many vital functions in the human body. Now, in the brain, it's necessary for neurodevelopment, for making new brain, right? For nerve cell function, for muscle function, and for making new neurotransmitters, particularly by its conversion to something called acetylcholine. Now acetylcholine is critical for memory. In fact, one of the drugs we use for dementia, which doesn't work well, but it's designed to increase acetylcholine. So acetylcholine is involved in memory and learning, cognition, mood, mental health. It also plays a major role in neurogenesis, making new brain cells, and synaptogenesis, which is the formation of new connections and new neural networks and pathways in the brain, which is important for learning and memory and cognition and pretty much everything your brain does. So this concept is known as neuroplasticity. The idea that our brains are plastic can have the ability to grow and create new nerve connections throughout our whole life into adulthood and right up into death. Really important to understand your brains are not fixed, so you need to take care of your brain. We all think, oh, we're going to take care of our heart, we're going to eat better exercise. We have to learn how to take care of our brains. And when you're buying eggs, look for the following labels on poultry and eggs. enter grocery store or co-op, right? It should say pasture raised, maybe animal welfare approved, certified humane, organic. But pasture raised is really the best because organic could be feeding an organic corn and it's not necessarily what you want your eggs to be eating. So pasture range is really the best. There are even some companies that create scorecards to rate different egg companies based on how they treat their hens. You can eat eggs for breakfast. My favorite way to have them is to buy a jar of pre-made shakshuka. Pour in a cast iron pan, put three eggs in it, throw in the oven till the eggs are poached and yum. Now you can also make an omelet or hard boiled egg as a snack to take with you on the go. Those are easy. And the last of the five foods we're gonna talk about today is blueberries. Now you might have heard a lot about blueberries, but we're gonna talk a little bit more about 'em. Now why are blueberries good for our brains? And I think blueberries, and it can be really any dark colorful berry, which is rich in phytochemicals and a set of compounds called proanthocyanidins, which are found in dark berries, but blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, berries. Oh, that's great. The anti-inflammatory nutrients in them. And they're an incredible source of polyphenols or anthocyanins, a phytochemical, they're responsible for giving blueberries their blue color, right? And they also have flavonols, they have resveratrols, they have vitamin C, they're high in fiber, they're great for the microbiome, they increase something called butyrate, which is an anti-inflammatory postbiotic that's made by healthy bacteria and you're feeding those. and all this does is help fight neuroinflammation, and it also suppresses the toxicity of beta amyloid. So really important, blueberries basically fight brain inflammation. And as I mentioned, brain inflammation is the root of all of the issues with the brain, whether it's mood disorders, neurodegenerative disorders, attention disorders, autism, you name it. So what's the mechanism, right? How do blueberries work? What's responsible for these brain boosting effects? well, it improves something called endothelial function in vascular health. Right. And the helium is the lining of your blood vessels. It's super important for your overall health and it helps your blood flow and it reduces inflammation. All these are great effects for your brain. And the last of the five foods we're gonna talk about today is blueberries. Now, you might have heard a lot about blueberries, but we're gonna talk a little bit more about them. Now, why are blueberries good for our brains? And I think blueberries, and it can be really any dark colorful berry which is rich in phytochemicals and a set of compounds called proanthocyanidins which are found in dark berries, but blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, all that's great. They're anti-inflammatory nutrients in them and they're an incredible source of polyphenols or anthocyanins. Phytochemical, they're responsible for giving blueberries their blue color, right? And they also have flavonols, they have asperatrols, They have vitamin C, they're high in fiber, they're great for the microbiome. They increase something called butyrate, which is an anti-inflammatory postbiotic that's made by healthy bacteria and you're feeding those. And all this does is help fight neuroinflammation. And it also suppresses the toxicity of beta amyloid. So really important. Blueberries basically fight brain inflammation. And as I mentioned, brain inflammation is the root of all of the issues with the brain, whether it's mood disorders, neurodegenerative disorders, attention disorders, autism, you name it. So what's the mechanism, right? How do blueberries work? What's responsible for these brain boosting effects? Well, it improves something called endothelial function and vascular health, right? And the thiolium is the lining of your blood vessels. It's super important for your overall health and it helps your blood flow and it reduces inflammation. All these are great effects for your brain. So what are the takeaways here? How do you apply the science to your everyday life? Well, eat at least a serving of blueberries every day, one cup. Now, personally, I like to buy the frozen wild blueberries because they're the most nutrient dense. So you can have them in your smoothie in the morning. You can saw them out and just mix them in with yogurt or whatever, but they're great, and I encourage you to eat that. I hope you enjoyed this little summary of some of the five most important foods you can use to support your brain health, to take care of your brain, to reduce brain inflammation to reduce cognitive decline and to help your mood. If you love that last video, you're gonna love the next one. Check it out here.