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Dr. David Perlmutter
Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs and Sugar – Your Brain’s Silent Killers by Dr. David Perlmutter
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- Gluten and modern grains are destroying your brain
- Recommendations - eat more veggies, brush your teeth, sweat and exercise regularly, rest a lot, don't smoke, laugh more, avoid all gluten, limit carbs to less than 60g per day where most of your calories are coming from high-quality fats and proteins (grass-fed, local, etc)
- Believes shift from high-fat, low-carb to low-fat, high-carb diet is causing many of our modern diseases such as chronic headaches, insomnia, anxiety, depression, epilepsy, schizophrenia and ADHD
- Much more intricate and intertwined relationship between what we eat and the health of our brain than recently thought
- Brain disorders often reflect poor nutrition and other lifestyle habits
- Inflammation a key indicator of disease throughout the body
- Often don't realize the negative effects gluten and carbs can have on the brain as there is no direct physical manifestation and often takes a long time to show up
- Two biggest myths today - low-fat, high-carb diet is good and cholesterol is bad
- Cholesterol is one of the most important players to reduce brain disease, increase longevity and maintain brain health and function
- Higher cholesterol levels linked with higher performance in verbal fluency, attention/concentration and abstract reasoning
- Interestingly, the human dietary requirement for carbs is virtually zero; we can survive on a minimal amount of carbs, which can be furnished by the liver as needed. But we can't go long without fat."
- Key Brain Supplements - DHA, resveratrol, turmeric, probiotics, coconut oil, alpha--lipoic acid, vitamin D
- Exercise spurs the generation of new brain cells as well as build new networks. Makes neurons more nimble and able to multitask
- Deep and consistent sleep extremely important
- Outlines a 4 week program in order to institute a gluten-free diet and other healthy habits
What I got out of it
- Not that I ate a lot of gluten before, but this has cemented it for me. Dr. Perlmutter advocates for <60g of carbs per day, no gluten, as many veggies as possible, majority of calories from high quality fats and protein and repeat. Certainly not always easy, but definitely simple