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Language: en
The food that we eat can sharpen our
brain function and protect it from
cognitive decline, from stroke, and from
dementia. Can be your secret weapon for
a sharper memory and better sleep.
Researchers found that the people who
followed diet most closely had a 16 to
27% lower risk of developing dementia or
cognitive decline or Alzheimer's
disease. Men with a highest level had a
55% lower risk of stroke.
Eating lowers the risk of diabetes,
lowers the risk of heart disease, lowers
the risk of some forms of cancer as
well. What do you do on a daily basis?
What's practical? Here's a couple of
simple simple tips.
I'm going to walk you through three
clinical studies on foods that show that
foods can improve brain health. I'm
going to show you how the Mediterranean
diet can cut dementia by 27%. And I'm
going to talk about why matcha, the tea,
can be your secret weapon for a sharper
memory and better sleep. And I'm going
to talk about how tomatoes can slash
your risk of stroke by more than 50%.
I'm going to start with one of my
favorite ways to eat, and that is one
dietary uh pattern that's showing real
benefit for overall health, but now for
brain health. And that is the
Mediterranean diet. Now, almost everyone
recognizes the Mediterranean diet. It's
the food that you find in Italy and
Greece and Spain, of course. But did you
know that there are 21 countries
surrounding the Mediterranean Sea? These
are all Mediterranean countries that
have Mediterranean diets, and they
include countries that you might not
naturally think of, like Croatia,
Cyprus, Egypt. Did you know that Egypt
is a Mediterranean country? France,
south of France, Israel, Lebanon,
Morocco, Moroccan food is Mediterranean
food, and Tunisia, Tunisian food, North
African food. They all surround the
Mediterranean Sea. And it's the way that
people in these countries eat according
to different cultures, different
patterns, different ingredients,
different seasons. There's no single way
to do it. And that's my point.
Mediterranean eating is not a strict
diet. There are thousands of delicious
traditional recipes that are the key to
eating this way that has been shown to
be beneficial to your health and now as
I'm about to tell you beneficial to the
brain. So what are the general
principles of Mediterranean way of
eating? Well, people there eat
seasonally. They eat whole plant-based
foods mostly. They use healthy oils like
extra virgin olive oil. They eat tree
nuts and seeds and foods made with whole
grains. And they eat local seafood when
they can get it and relatively small
amounts of animal protein. And the
animal protein that they do eat grown
regeneratively with natural organic
style farming, very traditional farming.
So what I want to tell you is how this
actually helps brain health. And how do
we know it? Well, researchers from the
Institute of Preventative Medicine and
Public Health at SEO University in
Budapest, Hungary, what they did is they
looked at 17 long-term cohort clinical
studies that tracked more than 81,000
men and women for up to 20 years. So,
this is a lot of people for a long
period of time. And here's what they
found. They found that the people who
followed the Mediterranean diet most
closely had a 16 to 27% lower risk of
developing dementia or cognitive decline
or Alzheimer's disease. And that's
pretty significant that kind of decline.
All right? Because right now there are
so few treatments for dementia. And
that's why the Mediterranean diet is
actually important because it's so
easily accessible. Now, what I want to
tell you as a scientist and a doctor is
to break down what it is in the
Mediterranean diet that is so
protective. Well, the first thing is
that many of the ingredients in the
Mediterranean diet have bioactives.
These are natural chemicals found in
food. Mother nature's pharmacy with an F
that offer neurop protection. neurobrain
nerves uh protection and specifically
neurovvascular
protection meaning it helps the blood
vessels in the brain and the nerves in
the brain be protected from different
kinds of stress that can damage them.
Now many people don't know this but
blood vessels and nerves kind of grow
together kind of like a road and the
telephone wires that follow along with
it. So here's what actually happens.
healthy fats in a Mediterranean diet.
For example, from extra virgin olive
oil, from tree nuts, you get these
polyunsaturated and monounsaturated
fatty acids. And seafood, you get
omega-3s. They keep your blood vessels
in your brain flexible and strong and
resilient. Better blood flow in the
brain means better nerve function, which
better neurons, which actually helps
your brain stay healthier. The other
thing is that these bioactives in a
Mediterranean diet offer
anti-inflammatory protection. So here's
what we know. Chronic inflammation in
the brain is one of the underlying
causes of cognitive decline as we get
older. So the polyphenols in the
Mediterranean diet in that's found in
vegetables and fruits and herbs and
extravirgin olive oil help to reduce
brain inflammation. Less inflammation,
better brain health, better brain
function, less dementia. The other thing
is that these polyphenols that are found
in Mediterranean diet, they protect our
brain against oxidative stress. Let me
just tell you what oxidative stress is.
Whether it's from the environment,
whether it's from physical or emotional
stress, free radicals or from
ultrarocessed foods, free radicals,
which are dangerous particles in the
body filled with energy cause
inflammation and antioxidants found in
the Mediterranean diet, help to
neutralize those free radicals. It's
kind of like intercepting a missile um
with an antioxidant. And what that does
is that actually helps to lower the rate
of cellular aging in the brain. In other
words, free radicals cause your brain's
aging to accelerate at the cellular
level. Intercepting those free radicals
with the polyphenols that are found in
the Mediterranean diet lower the
damaging effect of oxidative stress to
protect your brain. One more thing I
want to tell you about is that the
Mediterranean diet helps to protect the
gut brain axis. Gut brain axis. You're
going to be hearing a lot more about
this because we know that the gut gut
bacteria, the microbiome, that's the 39
trillion healthy bacteria in our gut um
communicate with our brain and vice
versa. Our brain communicates with our
gut. And guess what? dietary fiber found
in Mediterranean foods like legumes. All
right, uh beans, seasonal greens,
vegetables in a Mediterranean diet and
whole grains, they actually feed the gut
microbiome and make them healthier. So,
better gut bacteria, better gut health.
And these healthy gut bacteria when
they're fed, they release
anti-inflammatory substances called
shortchain fatty acids, sometimes called
scaffas, SCFAs. And these actually get
into the bloodstream. And guess what?
They protect our brain. The other thing
that good healthy gut bacteria do is
they text message our brain and they
cause our brain to release
neurotransmitters
that can actually improve our mood and
improve brain function as well. So
healthy gut creates neuroprotective and
neurostimulating compounds and supports
the signaling between your gut and the
brain and the signaling within the brain
which then protects the brain health and
makes our cognition sharper. So having
said all that, what can you actually do?
like what do you do on a daily basis?
What's practical? Well, so some of my
easiest pro tips to help you get on a
path towards Mediterranean style eating.
Here's a couple of simple simple tips.
Rather than use butter, substitute
butter with extra virgin olive oil. EVO.
Now, just not regular olive oil, but
extra virgin olive oil. And I encourage
you to look for extravirgin olive oil
that's made from one varietal of olives.
So you can get all kinds of olive oils
that are mixed with all kinds of olives
together. Well, those you can't be sure
that they actually have all the good
stuff. So a mono varietal olive oil,
which you can actually tell by picking
up the bottle with a can and looking to
see if it's made with one kind of olive.
I like Greek olives, coroni, I like
Spanish olive oil, pikuol, those are
really high in polyphenols. And Italian
olive oil, morayolo, very high in
polyphenols. Okay. Uh maybe the easiest
one to get is uh Greek olive oil with
coronki uh olives. Use that instead of
butter for your cooking. Going to make
some scrambled eggs in the morning, use
extra virgin olive oil. That's what I do
rather than butter. Butter tastes great.
Extravirgin olive oil puts those
polyphenols that are brain healthy right
into your breakfast. Second, next time
you go to the grocery store, go to the
produce section in the grocery store.
Usually the first place you enter,
right? And what I want you to do is to
look for vegetables that are used in
Mediterranean cooking. So what are these
vegetables? Well, I'm going to give you
a cheat sheet. All right. Broccoli.
Everyone knows broccoli. Broccolini.
These are actually thinner stem
broccoli. Usually kept with the stems as
well as the fuettes. Delicious.
Escarole. Escarole is often used in
Mediterranean cooking. Asparagus. Uh go
for your asparagus when it's in season.
Undive. Cabbage.
colorful peppers. You know those green
peppers and red peppers and uh orange
peppers and yellow peppers. Eggplant
that purple around an eggplant that is a
polyphenol that gives that eggplant that
color. And how can you mention
Mediterranean diet without talking about
tomatoes, big tomatoes, small tomatoes,
heirloom tomatoes. All right, those
actually are all part of the
Mediterranean cuisine. Onions, garlic,
leaks. pick some of those up, put them
in your cart, take them home, and if
you're not sure how to cook with them,
what you do is you actually go to
Google, you type in the vegetable, like
leaks, for example. If you're not sure,
type in recipe, and then when it calls
up the search results, hit video and
watch somebody show you how to cook an
amazingly delicious dish with leaks, for
example, and show you how easy it is and
describe everything you need to do it.
All right. I do that when I'm shopping
in the grocery store, when I'm looking
for some inspiration or direction on how
to use something I may not be sure how
to cook with. All right. You can do
that, too. When you go to the seafood
section in the grocery store, if you eat
fish and if you have a seafood section,
look for salmon or sardines or mackerel.
And by the way, you can actually get
mackerel or sardines also in the middle
aisle. Supposed to be forbidden, right?
No, you can go in there. There are
treasures in the middle aisle, including
tinned fish, tinned mackerel, tinned
sardines, uh tinned anchovies. Those are
all really good. Uh they got healthy
fats often used in Mediterranean
cooking. If you eat seafood two to three
times a week, that actually can benefit
your brain health. Now, of course, how
can I forget about spices and herbs that
you are used in Mediterranean cooking?
Now, you can get some fresh ones in the
produce section, um but you can also go
into the middle aisle again and get the
dried herbs. These are store for a long
time. You can keep them in your pantry,
right? So, rosemary, teragon, oregano,
basil, thyme, sage. I know you've had
these before and you certainly walked by
them when you've been shopping. All
right, pick them out. Take a look at
them. All of these have brainhealthy
polyphenols that when you sprinkle them
and add them to your food, guess what?
Not only you making the food more
delicious, more flavorful, giving more
sophistication to the flavors, more
depth to the flavors, you're also adding
those polyphenols in so that when you
eat the food and it tastes great, it
also has those polyphenols added to the
food that you're swallowing and it's
getting into your body. Good for brain
health. You can also snack like they do
in a Mediterranean on healthy foods like
tree nuts. Tree nuts have healthy fats,
good source of protein. All right. And
dietary fiber. Tree nuts like almonds,
walnuts, pistachios, cashews, pecans.
When you eat them, not only you get
protein, not only you got healthy fats,
monounsaturated fatty acids, you're also
getting that dietary fiber that feeds
your gut microbiome. Healthy gut
bacteria that gets your gut bacteria to
work to produce anti-inflammatory short-
chain fatty acids. Gets into your
bloodstream and now your inflammation
goes down. not only in your whole body
but also in your brain which then
protects your brain health. So next time
you're thinking about reaching for one
of those ultrarocessed snacks, ditch
that. Go for some nuts, fresh tree nuts
that you can roast yourself, you can
spice and flavor yourself. That's
actually the best thing that you can do
uh for to lower your risk of disease
overall improve your brain health, make
your make you overall healthier. Okay,
what's true is that we can't control
every risk to our brain. So, we can
control the food that we choose and we
buy at the store to put on our plate.
That's actually the easiest way, the
tastiest way um to be able to um up your
health defenses to give your brain uh
and keep it in good shape uh as you age.
And by the way, it also lowers the risk
against u dementia, Alzheimer's,
cognitive decline, as well as a host of
other diseases all at the same time.
Mediterranean eating lowers the risk of
diabetes, lowers the risk of heart
disease, lowers the risk of some forms
of cancer as well and lowers the risk of
brain disorders as we age. Now, I want
to talk about the next subject, next
food, which is tea. One of my favorite
topics, certainly one of my favorite
beverages. Tea is what I call one of the
holy trinity when it comes to healthy
beverages. What is what's the holy
trinity? Water.
coffee. Had my coffee this morning. And
tea. I usually have some tea in the
evening. So, today I want to talk about
a specific kind of tea. You might have
heard about it. It's called matcha. M- a
t ha. Matcha. It turns out that matcha
can not only lower inflammation in the
body, but it can actually sharpen your
mind and improve your sleep. And when
you have better sleep, it's actually
good for brain health as well. First,
let's talk about matcha. What is matcha?
Matcha is actually kind of green tea,
but it's a whole leaf finely ground into
this vibrant colored green powder. You
probably seen it in a Japanese
restaurant, maybe at a sushi bar. You
get tea, it's really bright green. It's
dense. All right, that's you can't
actually see through it. And this is
made from shade grown tea leaves.
Traditionally, matcha was used in
Japanese tea ceremonies. So, it's got
sort of like a epic quality to it. a
very respected uh quality to it. But you
can actually find it almost anywhere now
that you can actually find tea. And
matcha is super potent. All right, tea
is good. Matcha is super potent when it
comes to the tea polyphenols because
guess what? When you're brewing regular
tea, you're just actually steeping the
tea leaves and waiting for the
polyphenols to dissolve out into the
water. When you actually brew matcha,
you are actually taking the entire leaf
ground into a powder and mixing it up.
All right. So you get the full dose the
entire dose of the bioactives of
polyphenols that's found in the green
tea leaf like elenine and kakans like
EGCG. That's epi gallocin 3 galate. It's
a tongue twister. I know. Leave it to
people like me who does the research to
be able to pronounce it. Now matcha also
has caffeine. Now, most tea also has
caffeine, but it turns out that a little
bit of caffeine is actually good to keep
your brain sharp as well. Caffeine isn't
just doesn't just make you wired. It
actually can help keep your brain sharp.
All right? It's kind of like a knife
sharpener so you keep on having a really
really nice blade. Little caffeine
actually good for your brain. So, but
actually, you know, the thing about
matcha, it doesn't cause you to be
wired. Actually, matcha is known to give
you kind of like make you calm and give
you focused energy. That's the key
thing. Mental clarity is what comes from
drinking matcha. That's what the
Japanese have known for hundreds of
years. Now we know that matcha has even
another function which is that because
it's the entire tea leaf which includes
dietary fiber. When you drink matcha
tea, it actually feeds the fiber feeds
your gut microbiome. Again, that 39
trillion healthy bacteria that's in our
gut. And when your gut bacteria fed,
what do they do? They release the short-
chain fatty acids, gets into your
bloodstream, lowers inflammation
everywhere in your body, including your
brain. How do we know that this makes a
difference for humans? Well, it turns
out this has been studied in human
studies trials. Researchers from the
University of Tikubu in Japan, they
conducted a clinical study of older
adults who already had concerns over
mild cognitive defects. All right? And
what happened is that the they the
researchers gave the participants two
grams of matcha powder every day to
dissolve it in some hot water. So I
always say, well, what does 2 grams look
like? Well, that's half a teaspoon. Not
very much at all. Okay, half a teaspoon
dissolved in hot water and they gave it
every single day for 12 weeks. So that's
three months of drinking matcha once a
day. So what's interesting and what the
results were results from this research
is that those people who drank the
matcha had improvements in their
cognitive function. They also had better
sleep quality when you're sleeping
really deeply, really good sleep. What
happens is that your brain has a sewer
system called the glimpmphatic system.
Good quality sleep allows that
glimpmphatic system to open up the civ,
open up the filters, and guess what? It
drains out all the toxins that
accumulate during the day. Good quality
sleep drains those toxins from the brain
and that helps you have better brain
function. And the people who had matcha
also had better social engagement. What
does that mean? Well, listen, they were
happier people when they were around
other people as well. They were just
generally good, friendly, more happy
people socially, which is really
important for longevity. And how do you
explain that? Well, the dietary fiber
from the matcha help the gut microbiome.
And we know the gut is connected to the
brain and can even help the brain
release social hormones like oxytocin.
Oxytocin is a social hormone that your
brain releases to make you feel really
good. When you see a friend at the
airport when you're picking them up, um
you give them a big hug, you feel really
great about it or a family member that
you like. All right? Then you feel great
about it. That's oxytocin flooding out
of your brain. Matcha feeding the gut
microbiome can actually signal to your
brain to do something very similar. And
by the way, this is re this is results
from just drinking one cup of matcha
with only half a teaspoon of matcha
every single day. So it's powerful
stuff. Now I want to tell you what's in
matcha. Eltheanine. This is a calming
amino acid that reduces stress, promotes
focus, and smooths out that stimulating
effect of caffeine, which is also good
for the brain. Matcha also has kakans.
This is a potent anti-inflammatory that
protects the brain from oxidative
stress, improves your circulation as
well. better blood flow, better brain
health, better brain function as well.
And dietary fiber is in the whole leaf.
We talked about this earlier. You get
the whole leaf fiber feeds your gut
bacteria. The gut brain access is
activated. And now you've got more
better communication signals coming from
the gut to the brain saying, "Hey, stay
sharp. Be friendly. Feel better." Okay,
here's a couple of ways to add matcha
into your life. First of all, you can
look online to order it. You know, you
go to Amazon or wherever you can order
your tea and look for ceremonial grade
matcha. That's a cut above. It's going
to be matcha that's just more carefully
taken care of. I'm a big believer in
getting the quality of food. So,
ceremonial grade matcha is always going
to be the best quality. Look for vibrant
green color, smooth, rich flavor. Should
actually taste good. All right. And
every time you use the matcha, again,
all you need is a half a teaspoon, not
very much at all. Add it to hot water.
Um, or you can put it into a smoothie,
blend it all up. You can make it
disappear into a smoothie if you don't
really like the taste of matcha. I like
it the taste of matcha, but put it into
smoothie, just disappears. Do this as a
daily habit. Now, I like to drink coffee
in the morning. I'll drink water all day
long, but at night, I actually like to
drink some tea. Relaxes me. All right?
And remember, the clinical study I
mentioned from Japan looked at the brain
benefits after um tea drinking matcha
for 12 weeks, right? So this is actually
a benefit you can get after just doing
it, you know, day after day, week after
week. Just make it a habit in your life.
Now, like I told you, I can drink tea at
night without bothering. But if you're
sensitive to caffeine, just drink it in
a in a morning then, okay? Or drink it
during the day. Some people are more
sensitive than others to uh caffeine.
You can even get a decaffeinated version
of matcha. I don't recommend it because
it will take out some of the polyphenols
as well. But you know what? You still
want to get that dietary fiber. you get
you still get some of the uh polyphenol.
So, that would work as well. All right,
my third tip for you in this video is to
talk about the brain properties of my
favorite fruit. That is a tomato. That's
right. Tomatoes are fruits. They're not
vegetables. They're culinary vegetables,
meaning they're cooked in a savory way
usually, but technically they are
fruits. Not only are tomatoes a staple
of traditional Mediterranean cuisine,
but actually tomatoes are found in
traditional cuisines of almost every
culture. Now you can find it. And by the
way, tomatoes did not come from the
Mediterranean. They actually originated
in Latin America. You know, in Peru, the
explorer, Spaniards discovered these
tomatoes and they weren't red in the
beginning. They were kind of a golden
orange and they looked like apples. So
they called them pomodoro. Pom like
apple doro, apple of gold. All right,
that's how you get the word pomodoro.
And so you know pomodoro from Italian,
the word for tomato and that's basically
where it came from originally. But of
course got it to the Mediterranean and
it's very very popular in Mediterranean
cooking. First of all, tomatoes great
source of vitamin C which lowers
inflammation, builds your immune system.
Again, lowering inflammation always good
for the brain. And tomatoes also have
carotenoids, which I'm about to tell you
about because one of the carotenoids can
lower and cut your risk of stroke. If
you want to protect your brain, you
definitely want to bypass, sidestep,
dodge having a stroke. All right? Now,
there's many kinds of stroke. All right?
And I want to tell you a little bit
about them, but all of them devastate
your brain. And when you have a stroke,
your brain cells are killed off. Um, and
so you wind up losing brain power and
sometimes your life as well. So the most
common kinds of stroke are called emolic
stroke. And this is when a blood clot or
piece of cholesterol or lipid breaks
free from your blood vessels, gets sent
up into the brain, shoots through the
brain from the corateed artery. And once
it reaches your brain, it lodges into
the small blood vessels, blocks blood
flow, and then a bigger blood clot will
form right behind it. And now the part
of the brain in front of the blockage
doesn't get any oxygen. And that part of
the brain will start to be starved of
oxygen. and eventually it will die.
That's really one of the devastations of
an emolic stroke, the most common kind.
So I need to first tell you what are the
most common risk factors of stroke
because it has to do with diet and
lifestyle as well. The first one is
hypertension. High blood pressure that
is by far the biggest risk factor for
having a stroke. If you think about what
normal blood pressure is, let's call it
120 over 70. Okay? So there's systolic
and diastolic. Two numbers with blood
pressure. 120 is the top number.
Systolic. 70 is the second number.
Diastolic. Well, look. For every 10
units, 10 millimeters of mercury above
120 over 70, it raises your risk of
having a stroke by 20 to 30%. Boom.
Skyrockets just with every 10 units
above 120 over 70. All right. Keep your
blood pressure down. You might need
medications, but an easy way to do this
is to cut down the amount of salt or
sodium you have in your food. Go out to
eat in a restaurant, usually packed with
sodium. Take a look at how they're
actually preparing foods behind the
kitchen. They're throwing a lot of salt
in it. And ultrarocessed foods like
chips, all right, loaded with salt. All
right, so cook yourself. You know
exactly how much salt you put in there.
Don't put very much. If you spice it up,
it's an alternative to actually using
salt. It'll actually make it tasty as
well. Another risk factor, diabetes. All
right. Another big risk factor for
stroke. Having diabetes risk raises your
risk of stroke twofold, two times. And
one of the reasons is that diabetes,
having high blood sugars and all this
inflammation going on there and damages
the lining of your blood vessels in your
everywhere in your body, including your
brain. When the lining of the blood
vessels are damaged, I I study this. All
right? So, I know a lot about blood
vessels, okay? I study androgenesis.
When the lining is damaged, it makes it
more likely that you'll actually have a
clot forming forms in a brain. Boom.
That will actually set you up for a
stroke. Some other ones, smoking. All
right, smoking doubles the risk of
having a stroke compared to somebody who
doesn't smoke. So, don't smoke. Atrial
fibrillation. This is another um very
common, increasingly common condition of
the heart. It's actually a rhythm
problem of the heart where one of the
chambers of your heart, the atrium,
atrial fibrillation, atrium, that's the
heart chamber near the top that falls
out of its normal rhythm. So if you
think about a heart having its normal
rhythm,
all right, but then it doesn't actually
do that rhythm anymore.
I'm just having a table. It is
irregularly irregular a heartbeat. All
right, guess what? Clots can actually
form in the heart. All right. And that
those clots can shoot right from the
heart right into your brain. No good.
Atrial fibrillation needs to be treated
and sometimes you need to be on a blood
thinner um to prevent those clots from
forming. One more big risk factor,
alcohol. Heavy drinkers. All right.
Alcohol consumption, heavy drinkers.
Another risk factor for stroke of all
kinds. Really watch your booze. Cut it
down or cut it out. So that's stroke.
Those are the common forms. Those are
the risk factors for the most common
forms. So, what can you do to lower your
risk of stroke? Well, this is actually
something that researchers in Finland
wanted to know. They wanted to know, is
there something you can eat to do this?
And don't forget this section I was
going to tell you about tomato. So,
researchers at the University of Eastern
Finland and the Lapland Central
Hospital. They did a clinical study.
They looked at 1,031
Finnish men between the ages of 46 and
65. And they followed them for 12 years.
Long term study for a thousand people.
And what they did at the very beginning
of the study is they measured the blood
levels of a compound that's found in
tomatoes called lycopine. All right,
this is a carotenoid. All right, one of
the natural bioactives in a tomato. You
can measure in the bloodstream. And then
what they did is they tracked over the
next 12 years, dozen years. Which one of
these people wound up having a stroke
and how did it correlate with what their
levels of lycopine from tomatoes were?
And what they found is that men with a
highest like level of lycopine had a 55%
lower risk of stroke compared to the
people with the lowest levels of
lycopine. So in other words, high
lycopine 55% lower risk of stroke. 55
that's half cuts it right in half. That
to me is very very significant. Now what
these research were looking for are the
es schemic strokes caused by blood clots
sent right up to the brain like the way
like like I told you from atrial
fibrillation okay or from
atherosclerosis
and it turned out that the risk was even
greater 59% almost 60% for the people
who had the most lycopine from an
eskeemic stroke. All right. So, most
common cause of lycopine uh in the
blood, most common source, tomatoes, raw
tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce,
tomato soup, tomato juice, all of them
will contain lycopine. The question is,
what makes lycopine so protective,
right? We always want to know why.
Lycopine is a natural pigment that gives
tomatoes their red color. And it's found
in other red foods, red tinge foods,
too. Watermelon's got lycopine. Papaya,
which has got a red flesh, it's got
lycopine. But tomatoes is is a good
place to find lycopine. It is a
bioactive signaling molecule that
interacts with your cells. All right, so
here's what lycopine does. It is a
potent antioxidant. It neutralizes free
radicals before they can damage blood
vessels in your brain or the neurons.
Lycopine also reduces chronic
inflammation. Lowering inflammation
helps protect the brain and also lowers
the risk of clot formation or blood
vessel injury that can cause clots.
Lycopine also improves the circulation,
keeps blood vessels healthy, blood flow
good. All right? Protects the arteries
and capillaries feeding the brain. I
probably don't need to encourage you to
eat tomatoes. I mean, I love tomatoes.
Cook with them all the time. But here's
a few pro tips. If you want to get the
most out of the lycopine in your tomato,
what you want to do is you want to cook
it. It turns out cooking the tomatoes
changes the chemical structure of
lycopine just a little bit so your body
absorbs it more avidly likes to absorb
it better. Roast tomatoes, simmer
tomatoes like in a tomato sauce or use
tomato paste that's already been cooked
and you're going to get a lot more
lycopine absorbed in your body. Now you
want to get even better absorption of
the lycopine. You know what you do? You
combine your tomatoes with a little
extra virgin olive oil. Now why does
that work? Well, it turns out lycopine
as a molecule is fat soluble, which
means it likes to dissolve in oil. So
you give it a partner like extra virgin
olive oil, which also has polyphenols.
The lycopine will dissolve right into
the olive oil. Then when you eat it
together, you'll your body will absorb a
lot more of the lycopine. It's a simple
flavorful combo. Nona knew best by
combining tomatoes with extra-virgin
olive oil. It's a great way uh to do
this. There's some serious science
behind it. But here's the great news.
It's been used in Mediterranean cooking
and cuisine for generations. So go
ahead, follow those traditional recipes
and get really good quality extravirgin
olive oil. Cook your tomatoes. Mix them
together. That's how I cook in my
kitchen. You might have seen me do some
videos on using doing that. You'll get
the most lycopine, which is brain
protective. All right. Lowers your risk
of stroke. All right, let's do some
recap on this. Using food as medicine
for better brain health. Number one, eat
the Mediterranean diet. Eat
Mediterranean style. Reduces your risk
of cognitive decline and dementia by up
to 27%.
Number two, have a daily cup of matcha.
Tea will help you think more clearly,
sleep more soundly, and stay more
socially connected. What's not to like
about that? And matcha, if you like it,
like I do, you'll drink it all the time.
You just need one cup. But if you don't
like the taste, go ahead and put it into
a smoothie. It will just disappear into
the background. And eat tomatoes. and
especially cooked tomatoes when you want
to add a little bit of extra virgin
olive oil will protect you against
stroke which protects your brain and
also improves better brain blood flow
which you're going to need for better
brain function better cognition and
lowers the risk for dementia. You can
eat foods to beat dementia, beat stroke,
protect your brain for the future begins
with what you put in your plates today.
Well, that's it for this video. If you
found it helpful, hit the like button,
subscribe to my channel, and please
share them with somebody who you think
could use this kind of information, my
food is medicine tips, and check out my
other videos. Till next time, Dr. Lee
out. Hey, if you like that video, then
you're going to love this one. Check it
out.