Rev Up That Brain!
More and more information is appearing about the brain. For instance, in Grain Brain by Dr. David Perlmutter, neurologist, we're told "a diet heavy in inflammatory carbs and low in healthy fat messes with the mind in more ways than one - affecting risk not just for dementia but for common neurological ailments such as ADHD, anxiety disorder, Tourette's syndrome, mental illness, migraines, and even autism." So this is just the opposite of what we were told 20 or 30 years ago - eat little fat and lots of grains.
The risk of Alzheimer's disease rises as we age. Dr. David Lipschitz, author of Breaking the Rules of Aging, says of memory loss that "much can be done to help the brain compensate for these abnormalities, preventing the development of symptoms for many years."
Lipschitz says to "exercise the mind," an approach mentioned in a study published by the Journal of American Geriatrics Society. The study involved 2,800 people whose average age was 73. They were divided into 4 groups, had 10 training sessions over 5 weeks and were retested 10 years later. The training was about specific tasks, such as booking, handling finances. Most of the participants who received training (as opposed to an untrained control group) retained it, but the benefits only lasted 5 more years. Those who had extra training at 11 months and at 35 months showed greater and more lasting brain function improvement than the others.
We'll delve further into ways to increase brain function next time.
