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Language: en
today I'm going to talk about Foods
seven foods that are bad for brain
health and that can set you up for
cognitive decline and dementia now
cognitive decline is something that
usually happens before you actually go
into dementia and so this is a Continuum
of brain health that we're talking about
okay now a lot of things can affect the
brain and before I start diving into the
foods I need to talk a little bit about
uh the brain itself the brain is
actually in our skull okay our skull is
like a shoe box made out of bone and it
protects everything in it right so think
about that in terms of shoes and a box
uh now in order to be able to feed the
brain we actually have a circulation in
the brain our regular blood vessels
Connect into the brain and our heart
pumps blood right into the brain through
Our cored arteries is the big arteries
that go right from our heart into our
brain the blood pumps com right through
and we've got 400 miles worth of blood
vessels that are actually inside our
brain these are the highways and byways
for the oxygen that we breathe or to be
delivered to our brain and obviously our
brain needs oxygen in order to be able
to function and what actually happens
when we don't have oxygen to the brain
well that's actually what happens in a
stroke and brain cells die and so that
so the these highways and byways the
vascular system the circulation to your
brain is absolutely critical for brain
health anything that can help those
blood vessels be better will help
support brain health anything that takes
down your blood vessels damages your
blood vessels I'm we're going to talk
about this further anything that damages
your blood vessel can actually damage
brain health as well now the other thing
that you need to know is that your brain
and your body are connected obviously
through your circulation through your
immune system uh through your hormones
and so what's good in the body is likely
to be good in the brain and what's bad
in the body like inflammation like
autoimmunity is likely to be bad for the
brain as well and this is really
important when you think about diseases
like diabetes that damage your blood
vessels and um increase inflammation
like metabolic syndrome inflammation in
the body inflammation in the brain they
all go hand in hand the other thing is
that our gut is connected to our brain
this is something that we're really
beginning to focus a lot of research on
now the gut brain
so the healthy gut bacteria do all kinds
of things including lower inflammation
but they also send text message signals
into the brain and they actually help
the brain produce normal healthy
neurotransmitters and hormones that
actually govern our mood help us feel
good happy satisfied excited uh and not
depressed so again these are parts of
the body that are connected to our brain
that we might not actually think about
okay now one thing I want to talk talk
to you about the brain also is the brain
needs a
detox uh what do I mean by that well
during the day when we're doing all
kinds of activities our brain is
churning like crazy right we're thinking
about this we're thinking about that and
we're exposed to all kinds of things and
the Brain needs a detox and that detox
happens every single night there is a
sewer system called the glymphatic
system in our brain that opens up when
we're sleeping not any kind of sleep but
good deep sleep so when you actually are
sleeping and you get go into deep sleep
the sewer systems open up and it drains
out the toxins that have accumulated
during the day this system again is
called the glymphatic system and we even
know that you need good deep sleep
because recently it's been discovered
that when you have deep sleep there are
these brain waves called slow waves the
slow waves activate the neurons these
are the nerves in the brain and they
start to squeeze the fluid and push the
fluid that contains toxins to the sewer
system into the drain all right and if
you don't get good quality of sleep you
don't have these slow waves the slow
waves don't actually move the current as
quickly and now you're not draining the
toxins so when you're not getting good
sleep you're not draining the Toxin and
think about this when you're not getting
good sleep you ever pull it all nighter
what happens the next day your he your
brain is fuzzy right that's like brain
fog well now we actually know there's a
reason for that because you're not
actually detox in your brain because you
didn't get enough of those slow waves to
clear out the toxins through the
glymphatic system now the other thing
that's really important is not to eat
foods that are good for you uh that
might actually have a impact in a badway
on your brain give you an example coffee
coffee is actually a really good food
lowers the risk of cardiovascular
disease even lowers the risk of some
forms of cancer but if you have coffee
at night caffeinated coffee late at
night
it's the caffeine in your system is
going to keep you up and interfere with
your ability to get good quality sleep
all right and when you do that so you
have coffee late at night you're you're
likely not getting good sleep you're
likely not getting those slow waves and
you're likely not draining as much of
those toxins as you want so again a
surprising food that actually is not
good for your brain if you have it late
at night is coffee and I can tell you
look I'm a I I love coffee uh when I was
training uh as a physician uh both in
medical school and in residency we had
to drink a lot of coffee I didn't have
to I drank a lot of coffee to stay awake
coffee actually sharpens your alertness
attention focus helps you perform better
but because we had to stay up late at
night you know night after night being
on call we you know we drank a lot of
coffee um I think people who do late
night jobs overnights they drink a lot
of coffee as well this actually is a
problem because you never really really
get good night sleep all right so this
is something that compromises brain
health that's connected to a good food
that's good but surprisingly bad if you
actually have it late at night and that
is coffee tea has less caffeine than
coffee but tea can also have the same
effect now not everybody is as sensitive
as other people to caffeine and so this
is really an individualized effect but
if you find yourself drinking coffee at
night and you find yourself not getting
a good night sleep don't be surprised if
you feel brain foggy the next day
because that's actually what's happening
is you're actually interfering with that
cleaning detox process that should be
happening in your brain at night okay so
we talked about the glymphatic system we
talked about cough we talked about why
sleep is uh important and now I want to
of touch on this circulation again
that's really really important because
you have to be able to drain those
toxins out through the glymphatic system
through the the blood vessels through
the sewer system and then they actually
get emptied back out into your
circulation and then you your body your
liver will purify everything uh and and
bring fresh blood back to the brain
again this comes back to the importance
of having good healthy circulation the
vascular system in your brain is
absolutely important for long-term
durable Health okay so coffee a
surprising food that's good for you
until it's bad for you when you have it
late at night uh that can interfere with
your sleep and interfere with brain
function number one number two all right
this one uh how many of you have heard
that a cup of red wine a glass of red
wine is good for you right alcohol well
alcohol is not good for your brain and
might not be surprising because if you
think about it if you drink a lot what
happens you got a hangover right but
when you have a hangover what do you
have a headache well you know what and
you have a and you're foggy that
actually is an example of what alcohol
does to your brain and here's the whole
thing it turns out that you know this
The Beneficial aspects of red wine are
not the alcohol itself it might be the
polyphenols that are in the cup of red
wine or the glass of red wine but the
alcohol itself is a deadly toxin to your
organs your cells are really really
sensitive to Al alcohol okay let me tell
you alcohol stuns and can kill heart
cells alcohol stuns and can kill liver
cells and alcohol is a toxin to your
brain cells as well there's no situation
in which alcohol is beneficial all right
even in red wine so we're walking back
that idea that red wine a glass of red
wine is healthy for you now before I
talk about all the things that alcohol
does to your brain that's negative I do
want to actually bring up this um point
that I like to make when people talk to
me or ask me about alcohol I think it's
okay for people to have a glass or so of
alcohol for the important events of Our
Lives as long as humans have been
growing grapes they've been fermenting
or or barley fermenting hops we've been
actually having alcohol as part of our
human rituals we have alcohol at
weddings we have alcohol at funerals we
have alcohol at graduations uh and at
Big holidays and family gatherings so I
think that you know even though it's not
good for us it is something that we
actually have incorporate into human
ritual and I'm a big proponent of
actually Traditions that are important
for our society uh and and I think that
of drinking alcohol in th those
situations if you're really really
moderate in your drink is probably fine
okay just remember the alcohol is not
good for you so you don't want to be
drinking a lot and you don't want to be
doing it every day and you don't want to
be doing it a lot and you never want to
be drinking alcohol alone all right
that's a Telltale sign you get a problem
now let's talk about alcohol as a toxin
because I think that's really really
important a lot of people don't know
this but if you drink a lot of alcohol
uh that alcohol can damage your heart
it's called alcoholic
cardiomyopathy and your heart which is
normally a strong muscle that squeezes
blood out through your system guess what
can get soft and baggy and it get really
dilated and it doesn't do a good job in
pumping blood anymore this thing called
the ejection fraction like boom how much
blood you eject out of the heart at one
pump goes way down you know might start
out 85 might go down to 15% you know
some people might even need a heart
transplant if they wind up having this
kind of
cardiomyopathy damage to the muscle of
the heart and alcohol can actually do
that now the other thing is that uh
alcohol can also damage your liver your
liver is the detox for your body all
right your liver purifies the blood
detoxifies the blood it actually all the
blood runs through the liver for this
cleaning property and when alcohol
poisons the liver it's called alcoholic
hepatitis and the liver cells die and
the liver becomes a scar all right like
a hard scar you know like on your skin
when it heals if you have a scar when
the whole liver becomes that way or
parts of the liver become that way you
compromise the ability for your liver to
do the detox all right as you were
talking about and now you're actually
having toxins running through your body
in your blood now what did I tell you
what's happening in your body goes up to
your brain as well because it's
connected by the blood so when your
liver is actually not functioning
properly your blood isn't detoxed and
the same blood goes up into those 400
miles with the blood vessels and you can
actually have an alcoholic
incopy as well just because a liver
actually wasn't doing a patic incopy
hepatic incopy liver to the brain the
liver is not purifying the blood the
blood's got toxins in it goes up to the
brain and now your brain's not
functioning all right ammonia is one of
those things that the liver tries to
manage and and keep in low levels in the
body got a lot of ammonia going into
your brain you're going to be sluggish
and you're going to be uh drowsy and
you're not going to be functioning
clearly this is something we see in the
hospital for people who have liver fa
failing livers uh it can be done due to
alcohol you see this in their cognition
they're really not all there all right
uh so that's not that's something you
don't want to actually deal with the
alcoholic and cyop so that's not
something you want to deal with you
don't want to deal with alcohol damaging
your liver damaging your detox function
of your liver and then having the blood
uh impact that with the toxins and
impact on your brain that's called
hepatic alcoholic hepatitis and then you
can have alcoholic he hepato
encephalopathy meaning the liver to
brain
uh impact which is negative now alcohol
can directly kill neurons brain cells
and that's a big problem all right your
brain is very sensitive to toxins and it
doesn't regenerate that quickly all
right it can regenerate a little bit it
can repair itself a little bit but you
don't want to be bathing it uh in a
toxin that's killing brain cells and
this is the reason why you don't want to
be drinking frequently because that
alcohol will be pickling your brain
cells so to speak all right and that's
alcoholic andil apathy and that can be a
really really serious disease uh that
you might not recover from that's
irreversible damage to your brain from
alcohol all right so um what are some of
the signs uh that you have alcoholic
inphy apathy all right this is the
damage to the brain caused by alcohol
well memory loss is one of the early
ones uh early signs and you can have
Tremors okay because you know what your
brain is actually turn is controlling
your nerve function to your arms and
your fingers and your legs and so when
you're actually brain is not functioning
properly you can actually have Tremors
you know um irritable mood is another
sign of alcoholic
inyopools poisoning your brain you have
people tend to have like wild mood
swings and be very very irritable at the
same time all right brain irritability
is you know kind like throwing sand uh
you know into sensitive parts of your
body you get irritated and that's what
alcohol alcoholic brain damage actually
caused you to have then of course not
surprisingly people with alcoholic and
seil opathy toxic alcohol damage to the
brain tend to make poor decisions right
uh something called executive function
where you know like you're the CEO of
your own brain you're going to make a
good decision you know and how you're
going to plan your day or you know other
more important decisions as well when
you actually start making poor decisions
it's something that you may not actually
notice if it's affecting you but other
people in your life will probably notice
it you ever have that experience that
you know you look at somebody and
they're like man I don't know why that
individual did that that's not a good
decision and then if you know that
they're drinking a lot if you see all
these other signs the Tremors the memory
loss the irritability uh then you know
you might actually think that there
might be some executive decision uh
making dysfunction interference that
alcohol can be having as well as
individual all right now uh by the way
the other thing that uh heavy chronic
drinking does it causes something called
the corov syndrome that's K RSA Koff
Corsa syndrome that's that actually
happens because alcohol when you drink a
lot of it prevents your body from
absorbing thiamine which is a B vitamin
and when you don't actually have enough
thyine it causes severe memory problems
as well and so this is another sign what
I was telling you memory loss or memory
difficulty is one of the signs of heavy
alcohol drinking this is all sign of
brain dysfunction brain damage that you
have to know about okay so again what I
said is that alcohol has been always an
important part of human society so I
respect the tradition I think it's okay
if you want to celebrate if you choose
to celebrate with a little alcohol but
in moderation only like one glass of
wine not two glasses of wine and
certainly not every day and never never
ever drink alone okay there's no reason
to it's really about bringing people
together and by the way using alcohol
for cooking I like to cook and a lot of
times you want to throw a little white
wine or red wine into a sauce uh or or
something you're sautéing that's okay
because you wind up actually the heat
from cooking will burn off the alcohol
alcohol is pretty volatile which means
that when you heat it it kind of turns
into a gas and just burns right off but
you wind up still having the nice taste
that white wine or red wine can actually
impart into the mix all right so as long
as you cook it off right if you're done
cooking and you just pour the alcohol in
there basically it's like drinking
drinking the alcohol and that's not good
for you but if you're cooking with it
you don't have to worry make sure that
there's enough heat and you're cooking
it off and you'll smell it bring off all
right and that's actually uh important
as well now the other thing I was going
to tell you is that you hard liquor is
something that uh while a lot of people
enjoy hard liquor that is you know a
much higher proof a higher level of
alcohol so hard liquor is going to
actually always be much more damaging to
your uh brain if you're actually
drinking whiskey vodka rum all those
kinds of things and that's why the
hangover is so much worse as well okay
now uh so so we talked about coffee at
late at night actually causes cognitive
dysfunction because you're not pure
detoxifying we talked about alcohol
damaging your heart your liver uh your
brain directly now here's a a third one
uh is a high carb diet high carb diets
all right excessive carbs let me explain
excessive carbohydrates which are
basically sugar molecules is what
carbohydrates are when you absorb them
into your system it's a lot of energy
you're putting in a lot of calories your
body has to work really hard to store
those calories in your muscles and body
fat and then burn them down all right
that's really energy that's your
metabolism and when you actually have a
high carb diet where you're eating a lot
of carbs that stresses out your
metabolism all right so when you're
really really stuffing yourself with
carbs so let me say tell you how this
works you're eating food it's got carbs
in it the carbs get broken down into
sugars those sugars wind up getting
stored as fuel into your fat cells your
fat cells will expand if you
continuously eat high carb diets you're
going to be stuffing more and more fuel
into your body fat and then eventually
you're going to grow your body fat uh
Way Beyond what you actually need for
normal healthy metabolism and for health
and when your fat Mass expands because
you've eaten so many carbs you are
actually growing your body fat uh in
excess excess body fat is very harmful
and why is that because excess body fat
as it grows bigger and bigger outstrips
its blood supply fat needs a blood
supply as well and when fats expand it's
almost like a tumor tumors are growing
really really fast and then there's not
enough blood vessels to feed them and
what happens when there's not enough
blood supply there's not enough oxygen
well parts of the tumor or parts of your
body fat actually become hypoxic that's
the term we use to describe not getting
enough oxygen and hypoxia triggers a
reaction where things inflammation comes
in when you have too many carbs and you
got way too much energy and way too much
fat that's built up and that fat grows
it outstrips its blood supply it becomes
hypoxic doesn't have enough oxygen and
inflammation starts to set in now this
is really bad when you have too many
carbs and you're growing visceral fat
visceral fat is not the fat that's under
your arm under your chin it's not the
muffin top it's not in your thighs it's
not in your butt all right viseral fat
is inside the tube of your body and I
don't care if you're a thin person and
you have a small tube or you're a big
person big body size and you got a big
tube the size of the tube isn't what
counts what counts is how much fat is
growing inside that tube so you could be
a skinny person but have a lot of fat
growing in there all right and so you've
heard of skinny fat that's what it is
now when you have a high carb diet for
over a long period of time that fat that
visceral fat grows inside your viscera
viscera means your gut okay your guts
and and this is like the kind of fat
that grows like a baseball glove that
wraps around your organs and when it
becomes inflamed guess what your entire
organ system becomes inflamed your whole
body gets inflamed and remember what I
told you at the very beginning if your
body gets inflamed then your brain's
going to actually suffer from the
inflammation as well now one of the
other things that happens with a high
carb diet is that when you over stuff
your metabolism you're going to wind up
putting yourself at risk for developing
something called metabolic syndrome now
what is metabolic syndrome metabolic
syndrome has the four hes high blood
pressure high blood sugar high blood um
cholesterol and high number in terms of
your waist size because as your visceral
fat grows inside your tube what's going
to happen to the circumference of that
tube it's going to get stretched now
your waist size increases those four
things that should constitute metabolic
syndrome that's pre-diabetes all right
that's a warning sign that you're
heading towards type two diabetes and
the reason that's important is because
number one it's a reversible so if you
watch your diet if you go down on your
carbs if you eat more plant-based Foods
if you exercise lower your stress all
that kind of stuff you can actually
reverse metabolic syndrome okay but it's
silent it can sneak up on you and by the
time you get to type two diabetes that
actually turns into a problem because
type two diabetes is a situation that
not is not just about the glucose level
in your body it also type two diabetes
damages your circulation it damages a
lining of your blood vessels remember
what I said the blood vessels is 400
miles wor the blood vessels inside your
brain you got type two diabetes you're
going to have a problem with those blood
vessels those 400 miles width of blood
vessels in your brain brain as well now
when those blood vessels get sick when
that lining gets compromised you got a
problem right because basically normal
lining of blood vessels allows blood to
flow really smoothly okay like an ice
skating rink you ever go on an ice
skating rink and after if you ever
skated when you're a kid you know
there's this machine called a Zamboni
it's an ice cleaner you just basically
washes down the ice with hot water and
it is super slick that's actually how
your blood vessels are supposed to be to
allow circulation to go on without um
anything sticking in fact when you ice
skating after the cleaning machine clean
the ice if you had a sweater and you
threw it on the ice that ice that
sweater would go all the way across the
ice here there side but what happens
after the ice is damaged right so you
have a skating session you got hundreds
of people on the ice or think about
after a hockey game you know like really
rough action on the ice you really
damaged the surface of the ice now you
try to throw that sweat s onto the ice
not going to go anywhere it's going to
stick right there because the ice has
been damaged and this is what type 2
diabetes can do to your circulation the
lining of your blood vessels is scuff it
up so that blood doesn't flow so
smoothly and it's at risk for
compromising your circulation not
delivering the blood and not delivering
the oxygen or the nutrients there but
even worse type two diabetes which can
come from metabolic syndrome which can
come from eating too high carb diet
actually sets up for blood clots because
blood can clot because the the uh in the
small blood vessels because you're not
getting a smooth surface and so the
blood can stick remember I told you the
sweater that won't actually go across
the won't Glide across the ice well look
platelets your blood cells can stick
there too and that can cause little
microclots you got 400 miles worth of
blood blood vessels your circulation in
your brain that can have microclots and
if that happens you're in trouble that's
actually a setup for something called a
vascular dementia we're going to talk
about vascular dementia again but that's
why you actually want to make sure that
you don't develop metabolic syndrome you
want to lower the amount of carbs that
you eat you don't want to have a
continuously high carb diet because uh
you don't want to actually damage uh the
blood vessel lining through developing
type two diabetes and even metabolic
syndrome by itself as a visceral fat
grows grows grows grows in your viscera
into the tube of your body it becomes
inflamed and inflammation
in your body goes into your brain it can
affect your brain as well and obviously
obesity which is actually a condition
with a lot of visceral fat a lot of
inflammation and a lot of vascular
damage that's also a setup for uh
problems with your brain health as well
so you want to avoid all those things
that can screw with your metabolism and
screw with your circulation screw with
your uh inflammation levels in your body
in order to be able to protect your
brain health all right so that's the
third food we talked about the fourth
food I want to talk about are a big
category called Ultra processed foods
ufs now a lot of said about Ultra
processed foods and I probably don't
need to tell you because it's not the
first time you've heard this you should
cut out Ultra processed foods cut down
or cut out whatever you can do but you
know for those of you who haven't really
heard very much about it let me give you
the basic introduction Ultra processed
foods are the kinds of foods that you'd
find in the m a of a grocery store they
come in a box they come in a can they
come in a bag all right they're made by
out of a factory uh they take raw
ingredients and they combine them
together and sometime they extrude them
they form them into shapes that don't
naturally occur in the whole food and if
you look at the ingredient label of
ultra processed foods and I encourage
everybody who's shopping to look at that
ingredient label okay you'll start to
see chemicals in there that you don't
recognize you can't pronounce them and
you don't know what they do in there and
these are the things that are like
artificial preservatives artificial
coloring artificial flavoring and
artificial sweeteners as well all these
things can actually be in Ultra
processed foods and um it's really bad
I'll tell you why it's actually bad uh
we are starting to now realize that
these uh Ultra processed foods with
these chemicals the chemicals can
actually damage our gut microbiome
healthy gut bacteria in our gut now
remember I told you gut health is is uh
linked to brain health so when your gut
bacteria are sick makes it really hard
for your brain function to be healthy as
well in fact it can directly compromise
brain function let me explain a little
bit about this gut brain connection
because I think it'll make it a lot
easier for you to understand okay so
we've got about um 39 trillion bacteria
a lot of them are in our gut it's like
an ecosystem like a neighborhood and
it's like a good neighborhood uh the
bacteria collaborate and they cooperate
together good healthy gut bacteria you
know what it does they actually lower
inflammation in our body they're part of
our inflammation control system when our
gut bacteria are happy if we're inflamed
they'll turn down the INF inflammation
like a like a like a volume control on a
radio um the other thing our gut
bacteria does is they actually support
and boost our immune system about 70% %
of your immune systems found in the
lining in the of your gut W the wall of
your gut in that gut lining all right so
what's inside that gut bacteria what's
inside the lining the uh immune system I
always say gut bacteria and your immune
system talk to each other like college
roommates in a freshman dorm with a
really paper thin wall you know you want
to order some pizza and you know like
you can talk you shout right through the
wall your roommate will I should tell
you what what kind of topping they want
all right so that's like your gut
bacteria talking to your immune system
and gut bacteria supports the immune
system good gut health means good immune
health and lower inflammation all at the
same time all right remember I told you
if you interfere with the gut bacteria
the inflammation goes up not good all
right and then inflammation goes up that
it can affect your brain as well the
other thing is that if your immune
system isn't properly supported your IM
immune system goes down you are more
vulnerable to infections all kinds of
infections uh that can get into your
body and there are some infections that
can actually affect your brain as well
if you're imuno compromised you know uh
there's all kinds of infections that
that you don't want to have in your
brain actually you don't want any
infections in your brain now the other
thing is that gut bacteria directly
communicate with our brain by texting
messages and instructions your brain
sends signals to your gut your gut send
signals to your brain it's a two-way
straight but it's a really important one
so when your gut bacteria healthy they
are communting communicating healthy
messages to your brain for example good
healthy gut bacteria will tell your
brain to look at produce dopamine which
is a sense of reward or oxytocin which
is the social hormone makes us feel
happy and good especially with when with
other people um gut bacteria also are
part of the serotonin pathway um so that
way serotonin is something that you want
in order to be able to have a good mood
when serotonin levels are down that's
when depression occurs and so when you
actually mess with the gut health you
wind up interfering with inflammation
immunity and this gut brain uh mood axis
which you know brain health your mood
Health your your mental Wellness is also
part of brain health as well okay having
said all that we were talking about
Ultra processed foods the chemicals and
Ultra process food can damage our gut
bacteria and you can have unhealthy so
the good bacteria wind up getting damag
but you can also have bad bacteria
starting to grow now when the good guys
are damaged you know that's not good
because you're not having the right
worker bees doing the things that we
need to have happen all right but it's
even worse when you have bad bacteria
that can overgrow because damaging your
gut microbiome can all give bad bacteria
the opportunity to come in and establish
a foothold it's kind of like having a
good neighborhood all right we're
talking about Good Neighbors good
Community um everything is functioning
okay you take out some of the
responsible most responsible people now
the lawn's not being mowed now the
streets not being taken care of now
there's no city council you know that
could be a problem but you know somebody
can step in for that at some point but
it's even worse when you wind up having
bad bacteria would be like having drug
dealers move into that neighborhood now
you're not only weak you don't have the
good guys now you got bad guys moving to
the neighborhood and now it's when all
kinds of Mischief can occur and all
kinds of problems in that neighborhood
right so it's not just dysfunction now
you've got malfunction and that can also
happen when you damage your gut bacteria
as well Mal adaptive behaviors in the
gut can actually have a big consequence
in the brain so back to the ultra
processed foods this is something that
you want to cut down or cut out because
Ultra processed foods some of the
chemicals in there have been found to
actually damage your gut microbiome and
that can affect inflammation it can
affect immunity and it can affect the
gut brain axis by the way there are some
Ultra processed foods that you know like
might be uh might look like they're good
but surprisingly they're not good here's
here's a good one like if you actually
get you know Factory produced flavored
nuts or chips you know even if they say
organic and whole grains but they're
actually extruded take a look please
take a look at the ingredient label and
you'll see all these other chemicals in
there something that might look like a
health food like a health bar take a
look at all those ingredients in there
by the way emulsifiers which actually
give mouth feel to some of these Ultra
processed foods like these nutrition
bars and health bars they also damage
your gut microbiome as well so something
healthy might not be that healthy when
you actually take a look at what's in
those ingredients ultr processed foods
now I'll tell you another thing that's
in Ultra processed foods that um looks
like it's got a real consequence to
brain health and that is ultra processed
foods are likely to have microplastics
in them microplastics are tiny little
pieces of plastic they can come off a
water bottle into the water they can
come get into food by the way uh just
when food moves through a factory
through plastic vets through hoses
through tubes through packaging there's
all kinds of opportunities for
microplastics getting through food and
we didn't know that microplastics were
bad until recently when a group in Italy
were studying blockages in the arteries
that transmit blood from the heart to
the brain your cored arteries and those
can get narrowed and what they found
when in a clinical study is that people
with narrowed arteries when they took
the plaque out the the blockage out they
were able to pull out some of the
blockages they looked on the microscope
and they had microplastic they cheap
plastic in a blood and then the plastic
gets into the blockage into the plaque
itself right now it gets worse because
they actually found the correlation
between the more plastic the people
would plastic in their flax that's the
the atherosclerotic lipid narrowing the
things that are narrowing their blood
vessels the plastic in there was
correlated with a four-fold increase in
fatal heart attack or stroke so there's
this connection stroke being in the
brain brain health microplastics
microplastics more common in Ultra
processed foods all right so take that
uh uh with you when you're actually in
the middle aisle looking for things even
if you've been used to buying these
things just keep in mind there might be
harms that we didn't realize and you
might not realize it for years but when
it hits you might be too late to
actually go go backwards to recover your
brain health all right so that's the
fourth food food number five artificial
trans fats okay now artificial trans
fats I got to give a little explanation
to this because you might say wait a
minute Dr Lee um trans fats are banned
by the FDA in the United States right
like nobody eats trans fats yeah it's
kind of true but what I'm about to tell
you we'll actually set the record
straight on this so first let me tell
you what trans fats are in case you
don't know trans fats um are fats oils
that are supposed to be liquid right
oils normally liquidy that when you put
them through a chemical reaction in a
factory it's an industrial process you
can force hydrogen onto liquid oil and
Presto that chemical reaction makes
liquid oil turn solid at room
temperature and you might say well what
good is that well if you actually want a
spreadable fat at room temperature
that's cheaper than butter guess what a
trans fat will actually do that and
that's exactly what happened in the
1800s a German chemist named wilham
normal normal discovered that liquid oil
when you put hydrogen on it can actually
change its physical properties and
becomes solid at room temperature and
becomes spreadable and this was actually
a big discovery that led the food
industry to create things like margarine
all right margarine could be spread like
butter it's a lot cheaper than butter
and a lot of ultra processed food
manufacturers love to use it because
it's cheaper they can make more money by
using a cheaper uh fat rather than
butter they can use margarine all right
and so margarine became used for baking
all right uh by the way margarine or
trans fats uh cheaper less likely to
spoil and it gives the food that it's in
a longer shelf life as well now that
should be a tip off right right there
and then that there might be something
not so good in it because something that
lasts forever or lasts for a long long
long time when it shouldn't last that
long probably got something going on
with that you don't want to be putting
into your body all right so Ultra
processed um products containing trans
fats like
shortenings were developed in the early
1900s like 1911 is when Chris
which was one of the first shortenings
was developed and that was at the time
when we didn't know much about brain
health we didn't know much about
cardiovascular health and people just
wanted a cheap product that was like
butter that would spread like butter
that would actually be useful for baking
so when we were growing up uh and you
know I know that I probably ate a lot of
trans fats and probably you did as well
they were in cakes and pies and cookies
especially the ones that you would buy
from Factory they they were present in a
lot of snack foods if you ever had
snacks you probably had uh trans fats
you ever had chips
or any any kind of like flakes those are
probably trans fat they were also used
in fried chicken they were used in
Burgers they were used in tacos for fast
foods they're cheap it's cheaper than
than than high quality uh fats you're
also put in Frozen Foods because that
would actually help the shelf life last
a little bit longer makes the frozen
food last a little bit longer good for
the company selling them good for the
grocery store and they were found in
things like non-dairy creamer for coffee
all right so I'm just telling you trans
fats are found in a lot of different
things okay so they were banned I'm
gonna come to the ban in a second but
why were trans fats bad well when they
were developed we didn't know anything
about cholesterol all right U but now we
actually know that trans fats raises
your bad cholesterol and lowers your
good cholester cholesterol completely
what you don't want to do trans fat
raises your bad cholesterol and lowers
your good cholesterol and that sets you
up for atherosclerosis which is
narrowing of your arteries with plaque
all right kind of like a like kind of
like your sink that gets clogged the
plumbing gets clogged and that sets you
up for cardiovascular disease and when
your heart is not working well and your
blood vessels are clogged that also
affects your brain as well damages brain
health
now the other thing is that trans fats
cause inflammation in the body remember
I told you inflammation in the body
means inflammation in the brain not good
and trans fats also damages blood
vessels the lining of the blood vessels
we talked about and when you have
vascular damage damage to the
circulation in the body that actually
sets up for damage to brain function as
well compromises brain health you see
this is why trans fats were so damaging
to eat and so many of us ate them for
like de Ates the other thing is that
trans fats reduces something called
nitric oxide nitric oxide is a natural
substance in the body produced by the
body that's a critical signal for your
nerves for your brain it's also critical
for your blood vessels as well and guess
what nitric oxide in a healthy body does
is it causes your blood vessels to relax
widen and so your blood pressure Falls
because uh when your blood vessels relax
your your blood pressure is going to go
down when you don't produce nitric oxide
and trans fats interferes with your
body's AB ability to produce Nitric
dioxide guess what blood vessels have a
hard time relaxing they're tense when
the blood vessels are tense blood
pressure Jets up and high blood pressure
hypertension is a silent killer because
it sets you up for having a stroke which
is a heart attack of the brain all right
so trans fats also linked to uh
cardiovascular damage and brain brain
damage as well one last thing is that
nitric oxide has also been discovered to
help uh neurons the nerve stem cells uh
that help to support and regrow and
repair neurons in the brain to be able
to function so when you actually damage
those neurons you damage those nerve
stem cells you want up having a
difficulty in repairing the brain as
well so for every reason I just gave you
there's a lot of them
trans fats are really bad for brain
health now you say well wait a minute
they were banned right you said they
were banned that's right on June 18th
2018 United States banned trans fat in
all foods all right however there's a
trick to this and you got to know what
this the what what the caveat is all
right you can still find trans fats in
your diet even though they were banned
and those trans fats you want to avoid
because they can damage brain health so
here's how it works the regulation in
said if there's less than 0.5 grams of
trans fat in the ultra processed food
the company can say on the label that
there are zero trans fat let me repeat
that the regulation said if there's less
than 0.5 grams of trans fat in a food
they can just put zero there's zero
trans fats right but that's not zero 0.5
is not zero and here's uh the issue if
you're somebody who eats Ultra processed
foods day in and day out month week
after week month after month you keep on
eating them the 0.5 0.5 0.5 grams are
going to add up right and that's how you
actually can build up those trans fats
to do all those harmful things that I
mentioned to you just a little while ago
that can actually damage brain health as
well so it's really about building up um
and stacking those small amounts that
you can actually get now what are some
of the um types of foods that might have
small amounts of trans fat that you
might not even be aware of peanut butter
non-dairy creamer vegetable shortening
you know commercial baking things like
pie crust pastries just be careful about
those they might say zero trans fats
remember what I told you they can
actually contain up to 0.5 and this is
again why those Ultra processed
factorymade food products tricky all
right when in doubt cut them out all
right another reason to actually reduce
your intake of ultr processed foods you
should know that someon trans fats are
also produced by deep frying now we all
know that eating fried foods is not good
for you the process of frying causes uh
you know the brown there something
called a myard reaction it's a chemical
reaction that's what makes turns uh
fried foods crispy golden brown and
crispy now look I actually enjoy really
enjoy crispiness I love who doesn't like
fried food some crispy food but it's not
good for you okay and that's why you
should really cut it down or cut it out
and I really try to avoid fried foods um
that the the acry amide actually is kind
of like a plastic and actually
carcinogen if you eat a lot of fried
foods eat once in a while once in a blue
moon you know you go to a carnival once
a year and you have a corn dog it's not
going to kill you okay uh or whatever
those the fried dough but I can tell you
we do it a lot and there's a lot of
people eat who are used to eating a lot
of fried foods on a regular basis that
winds up becoming dangerous but frying
itself can also generate some small
number of trans fats just by the deep
frying process so if you eat fried foods
all the time not only you going to get
acry amide which you want to avoid but
you're also going to get some amount of
trans fats as well now other foods have
a small amount of trans fat also for
example red meat beef and lamb has some
trans fat and what do you know right
we're supposed to cut down or or really
go way down or cut out our red meat
because of saturated fat Etc now here's
another reason that there's a small
amount of trans fat in there again you
know if you if you really love beef or
lamb it's okay to eat it once in a while
but don't eat it all the time because
this is another reason it's got a little
bit of trans fat same thing as butter
milk and cheese all right all these
products wind up having a little bit of
trans fat now cheese for example is a
probiotic food a little bit actually
could be good for your gut health but
it's got a lot of salt salt uh increas
your risk of hypertension high blood
pressure which is then um put your at
risk for stroke which can damage your
brain saturated fats that can actually
increase your risk for cardiovascular
disease you know what's not bad for the
heart bad for the brain all the same bad
for your blood vessels hey there I want
to share another resource with you my
free resource on foods that can impact
on brain health specifically Alzheimer's
disease and dementias important research
is helping us to appreciate that diet
your diet can make a market difference
when it comes to your brain health so I
want to share three foods that you can
add to your plate today that can help
you avoid cognitive decline check out my
resource available for free right now in
the caption below now back to the video
so again some of these reasons this is
why when we say eat in moderation and
know what you're eating and know what
you're eating that might be bad for you
or not so good for you uh is is so
you're making an informed decision and
there's so many other Foods s that are
good for you that I write about my books
eat to beat disease and my book Eat to
beat your diet you might want to check
those out okay um but so if you're going
to eat any of these foods that are
harmful that might contain trans fats
just know what you're doing they taking
this risk uh and you can actually then
decide whether you want to go through
with it or not okay next food uh is soda
and sugar sweetened beverages there's
been a lot said about cutting soda out
and theas reason is what soda's
basically high carb food got average can
of sodas got nine teaspoons of sugar can
sugar in it right if I invited you to my
house and I G said hey would you like to
have some sugar water and I gave you a
GL Empty Glass with nine teaspoons of
cane sugar in it you go that's
disgusting I'm not going to have it and
yet that's what's in the can of soda
that uh level of sugar overwhelms your
metabolism and again you drink a can of
soda every now and then it's not going
to hurt you okay you drink it every day
and I knew people for example when I was
in medical school they would like drink
a six-pack or two sixpacks of soda every
single day that is so damaging to your
metabolism overwhelms your metabolism
all right and it's not just um the soda
but also diet sodas all right that's not
supposed to have carbs well they damage
diet sodas damage it different way
because um some of the artificial
sweeteners uh actually can damage your
gut microbiome but back to the sugar for
a second clinical Studies have shown
that Sugar sweetened beverages like
sodas increase your risk of metabolic
disease and once you have metabolic
disease metabolic syndrome type two
diabetes now you are setting up for all
the damage that diabetes can actually
cause that's been shown to increase the
risk of dementia because it actually
damages your brain health as well also
damages your vascular um your blood
vessels in your circulation remember
there's a 400 mile network of blood
vessels in your brain these are all good
reasons to cut down or cut out your
amount of soda now there are also um
beverages that are not sodas that are
also sugar sweeten for example if you
look at some fruit juices or Iced Teas
um you know that you might get at a gas
station or at an airport a lot of times
they are sugar sweetened take a look at
that all right like lemonade you think
that that it's got doesn't have sugar in
it guess again got added sugar uh the
iced tea lemon sweetened iced tea take a
look at the ingredient avable you'll see
that they've added sugar to that that is
a sugar sweetened beverage again
contributes to the increased risk of
metabolic syndrome and dementia because
it's damaging to the brain over time
again having a little bit every now and
then not a big deal having a lot
regularly you got a problem all right so
that's where sugar and and and sodas
sugar sweet and beverage and sodas are
things that you actually want to really
really be careful about okay now uh the
other thing I wanted to say is that
Studies have shown that Sugar sweetened
beverages can increase increase the risk
of depression by 25% all right and this
is again damaging uh brain function uh
gut function all those things actually
disrupt uh your mood uh and that
actually can be another mental Wellness
Mental Health is another function of
good brain health as well okay I want to
dive a little bit deeper into this whole
topic of artificial sweeteners all right
uh so this is sort of like a seventh
kind of thing because food artificial
sweeteners right found in uh packets
that you might want to use in your
coffee found in diet sodas uh diet
drinks uh and even in candies supposed
to be good it's marketed as good well we
now beginning to realize once the
science allows us to understand our gut
microbiome a little bit better that
artificial sweeteners like aspartame
circulos
Xylitol um
arol saccharin these artificial
sweeteners which are found in a lot of
these types of products they don't
actually give a caloric load okay uh in
our body so when we eat them we don't
absorb them and they get stored as
energy but what they do is they tumble
down to our gut and guess what they feed
our gut bacteria and our gut bacteria
does not like them they're toxic to our
gut bacteria they actually damage our
gut bacteria remember we talked about
this earlier when you damage your gut
bacteria now you're damaging your
ability to lower inflammation through
your gut you're damag your ability to
support your IM immune system which can
prevent you from getting infection and
among other things it damages that
messaging between your gut and your
brain so when you have artificial
sweeteners it actually sets you up for
having damage gut which then would
damage your brain function as well and
in fact clinical studies have actually
shown that artificial sweetener intake
is correlated with an increased risk of
high blood pressure which sets you up
for strokes Strokes themselves and
increased RIS for dementia all right
this is all correlated with increased
artificial sweetener intake so next time
you're ordering something and you say
well I'll have the diet one think again
it's probably not such a good idea for a
lot of different reasons and again
there's a study from Harvard Medical
School in 2023 that looked at 31,000
females age 42 to 62 and they were
looking at what the correlation with
with is with artificial sweeteners and
brain outcomes and brain health outcomes
and they found that those women who had
more artificial sweeteners had a 26%
increased risk of developing depression
all right so what is the link gut health
brain health you know social hormones
you just disrupt that gut health you're
going to interfere with your brain
health and this is what's been connected
in population studies looking at women
who actually consume higher amounts of
artificial sweetener so just cut them
out all right um all right I'm going to
give you a bonus food uh because I think
it's really important for you to know
and might be surprised again this is
sort of a surprising food that's that's
supposed to be good for you that might
be have a an unexpected damage for brain
health or harm for brain health and that
is Seafood now Seafood is a really good
food all right and it's good for you
because it's a good source of protein
and it actually has omega-3 fatty acids
which is really really important now the
thing is that some forms of seafood
actually contain mercury Mercury is a
heavy metal it's actually naturally
found in the ocean it's found naturally
found in the earth and there's a lot of
toxins that get leeched into the ocean
and tanker spills and all kinds of other
things that get dumped into the ocean
where there's a of extra mercury in
there and Mercury is just eaten as part
of the you know fish swimming in the sea
the tiny fish get Mercury bigger fish
eat the smaller fish bigger fish yet
then eat those slightly smaller fish and
soone and so forth and so the higher in
the food chain you get the more fish has
been eaten collectively that actually
has mercury so the big fish like
swordfish blue fin tuna sharks tilefish
for example they wind up actually having
collecting a huge amount of mercury in
their bodies all right um so you got to
be careful eating a lot of these big
fish like sord fish and eating sushi
even for example every day if you have
sushi the amount of tuna that you might
have might actually have mercury in as
well now that mercury you can actually
even detect it in your hair like if
you're eating it it accumulates it's in
your hair you cut your hair out piece of
your hair send it to the lab you can see
how much mercury actually have in your
body in fact that's actually been done
that's one way to actually test how much
Merc you actually have so always better
to eat lower on the food chain when it
comes to Seafood all right um Cod
mackerel sardines anchovies those are
lower in the food chain they're likely
to have less accumulated mercury in
their body now there's a fish that you
might see on uh you know on a restaurant
menu uh or if you actually cook seafood
you might actually encounter this in at
the fishmonger or in the seafood section
of your store and I want to point it out
to because a lot of people don't know
but there's a fish called orange ruffy
ruffy spelled r o u g h y orange ruffy
orange ruffy is a really really high in
mercury and that surprised me I had no
idea why orange ruffy is high in mercury
but here's the explanation orange ruffy
is a remarkable fish it lives a long
time in fact an orange ruffy can live to
140 or 150 years like they're basically
the masters of longevity in the sea and
over a hundred years A Century of eating
stuff in the sea guess what they
accumulate a lot of mercury in their
body all right and that's because uh
they're just eating a lot of stuff over
time all right let's get down to the
nitty-gritty now so what does mercury do
to for brain health well Mercury is a
heavy metal that's toxic to the brain
all right and what does mercury do
Mercury strips the lining off of the
nerves that are in your brain actually
strips them off everywhere in your body
but especially in your brain that's
damaging because when you remove the
protective coating
stripping that outer layer of neurons of
nerves in the brain it's kind of like
stripping off the outer layer of an
electrical cord what do you think is
going to happen that elect electrical
might short it it's not going to
function properly and in the brain when
you strip these neurons strip all those
nerves they tend to Clump together now
what do you think would happen if you
strip the lining off of of the the core
to your iron okay and a couple of other
instruments your toaster your microwave
your television and then you B Bunch
them all together and you turn on the
electricity guarantee you it's going to
fry and basically without the sheath
when they're clumped together your brain
neur neurons don't work normally and
that's why mercury poisoning leads to
poor brain health and brain toxicity all
right and that interferes with cognition
all right and so you really want to be
careful about eating Seafood that high
in mercury and that's the reason why and
again just like coffee coffee is good
until you have it late Seafood is good
as long as you eat low on the food chain
and I wrote about lots of Seafoods that
are beneficial in my book Eat to beat
the Sease there's a whole chapter about
healthy Seafoods I explicitly removed
there's none of the foods none of the
seafood there that's high in mercury I I
talked about all the Sea Foods Seafoods
that are safer to eat because they have
high Omega-3s but low in heavy metals
and Mercury now why are Omega-3s good
for you well Omega-3s which are found in
Seafood including uh you know C he calit
the white mild white FL fleshed fish and
muscles and clams and oysters and
shrimps wild CAU shrimp even Lobster
actually has Omega-3s all right it's
good because Omega-3s lower inflammation
and they protect the brain against
dementia and Alzheimer's disease as well
they protect against the pathology the
formation of the amalo plaque uh that
you see in Alzheimer's disease uh as
well okay now the other thing is that
omega-3s to protect the lining of the
blood vessels all right which is really
important for brain health for brain
circulation the 400 miles of the
highways and byways of the circulation
in your brain as well and if you can
actually protect against damage to blood
vessels in your brain you're protecting
against microvascular damage small blood
vessel damage you're protecting against
vascular dementia vascular dementia is a
lot more common a for of Dimension than
Alzheimer's disease and so the small
blood vessel is actually being damaged
for all kinds of things Di diabetes
metabolic syndrome you know exposures
toxic exposures and that's why vascular
health is so important by the way high
blood pressure also causes vascular
damage so lower the amount of EX salt
excess salt that you're having okay um
smoking is also bad alcohol it also
damages your blood vessels and the good
news is that you can actually reverse
this kind of vascular damage by eating
Foods plant-based Whole Foods nuts and
seeds and legumes healthy oils like
extra virgin olive oil
and seafood that's low in the food chain
with Omega-3s are good for your blood
vessels can repair them to lower your
risk of vascular dementia all right so
anything that you that you eat that can
cause inflammation like Ultra processed
foods can actually damage your brain can
damage brain health anything that
influence your gut health raises
inflammation can actually damage your uh
brain health can compromise your brain
health anything that damages your blood
vessels that 400 miles of of Highways
and byways bringing blood and oxygen and
nutrients into your brain to help the
brain stay alive and functioning well
can damage brain health as well and so
backing up for a second this is what I
really want to leave you with is that
the brain is one of our most critical
organs for our function it's the most
powerful organ in the body frankly but
it's also really vulnerable to a lot of
things that we can feed it that we do
feed it that we don't realize until now
that we probably shouldn't have had them
in our food supply to begin with example
those trans fats found in all those
snacks I was telling you about or the
Mercury that would be in the seafood
that that you know we might have been
eating until we realize that we actually
want to cut down on those um heavy metal
mercury Laden seafood and we also want
to be able to cut down on the things
that can actually damage our uh
circulation
because we've got we really rely on the
good healthy vascular Supply uh that
feeds our brain as well so I know I
spend most of my time talking about what
are the good things that you can uh add
to your um body for Better Health but
this is uh something that was really
important to me to share with you are
what are the things that are you know
might you might think are okay that
actually cause compromise your brain
health so I wanted to take this video
and really emphasiz ize what some of
those things that are surprisingly
harmful uh to your brain health might
actually be hope you learned something
and thanks for watching and I'll catch
you in the next
video hi there if you enjoyed watching
this video I know you'll love the next
one stay here and check it out and I'll
see you there