This Is What Sugar Does To Your Brain

 By Carolyn Gregoire

We know that too much sugar is bad for our waistlines and our heart health, but now there's mounting evidence that high levels of sugar consumption can also have a negative effect on brain health -- from cognitive function to psychological wellbeing.

While sugar is nothing to be too concerned about in small quantities, most of us are simply eating too much of it. The sweet stuff -- which also goes by names like glucose, fructose, honey and corn syrup -- is found in 74 percent of packaged foods in our supermarkets. And while the Word Health Organization recommends that only 5 percent of daily caloric intake come from sugar, the typical American diet is comprised of 13 percent calories from sugar.

“Many Americans eat about five times the amount of sugar they should consume,”Natasa Janicic-Kahric, an associate professor of medicine at Georgetown University Hospital, told The Washington Post.

It's easy to see how we can get hooked on sugar. However, we should be aware of the risks that a high-sugar diet poses for brain function and mental well-being.

Here's what you need to know about how overconsumption of sugar could wreak havoc on your brain.

It creates a vicious cycle of intense cravings.

When a person consumes sugar, just like any food, it activates the tongue's taste receptors. Then, signals are sent to the brain, lighting up reward pathways and causing a surge of feel-good hormones, like dopamine, to be released. Sugar "hijacks the brain’s reward pathway," neuroscientist Jordan Gaines Lewis explained. And while stimulating the brain's reward system with a piece of chocolate now and then is pleasurable and probably harmless, when the reward system is activated too much and too frequently, we start to run into problems.

"Over-activating this reward system kickstarts a series of unfortunate events -- loss of control, craving, and increased tolerance to sugar," neuroscientist Nicole Avena explained in a TED-Ed video.

In fact, research has shown that the brains of obese children actually light up differently when they taste sugar, reflecting an elevated "food reward" response. This suggests that their brain circuitry may predispose these children to a lifetime of intense sugar cravings.

It impairs memory and learning skills.

A 2012 study on rats, conducted by researchers at UCLA, found that a diet high in fructose (that's just another word for sugar) hinders learning and memory by literally slowing down the brain. The researchers found that rats who over-consumed fructose had damaged synaptic activity in the brain, meaning that communication among brain cells was impaired.

Heavy sugar intake caused the rats to develop a resistance to insulin -- a hormone that controls blood sugar levels and also regulates the function of brain cells. Insulin strengthens the synaptic connections between brain cells, helping them to communicate better and thereby form stronger memories. So when insulin levels in the brain are lowered as the result of excess sugar consumption, cognition can be impaired.

"Insulin is important in the body for controlling blood sugar, but it may play a different role in the brain," Dr. Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, the study's lead author, said in a statement. "Our study shows that a high-fructose diet harms the brain as well as the body. This is something new."

It may cause or contribute to depression and anxiety.

If you've ever experienced a sugar crash, then you know that sudden peaks and drops in blood sugar levels can cause you to experience symptoms like irritability, mood swings, brain fog and fatigue. That's because eating a sugar-laden donut or drinking a soda causes blood sugar levels to spike upon consumption and then plummet. When your blood sugar inevitably dips back down (hence the "crash"), you may find yourself feeling anxious, moody or depressed.

Sugar-rich and carb-laden foods can also mess with the neurotransmitters that help keep our moods stable. Consuming sugar stimulates the release of the mood-boosting neurotransmitter serotonin. Constantly over-activating these serotonin pathways can deplete our limited supplies of the neurotransmitter, which can contribute to symptoms of depression, according to Dr. Datis Kharrazian, functional medicine expert and author of Why Isn't My Brain Working?.

Chronically high blood sugar levels have also been linked to inflammation in the brain. And as some research has suggested, neuroinflammation may be one possible cause of depression.

Teenagers may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of sugar on mood. A recent study on adolescent mice, conducted by researchers at Emory University School of Medicine, found a diet high in sugar to contribute to depression and anxiety-like behavior.

Research has also found that people who eat a standard American diet that's high in processed foods -- which typically contain high amounts of saturated fat, sugar and salt -- are at an increased risk for developing depression, compared to those who eat a whole foods diet that's lower in sugar.

It's a risk factor for age-related cognitive decline and dementia.

A growing body of research suggests that a sugar-heavy diet could increase risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. A 2013 study found that insulin resistance and blood glucose levels -- which are hallmarks of diabetes -- are linked with a greater risk for developing neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's. The research “offers more evidence that the brain is a target organ for damage by high blood sugar,”endocrinologist Dr. Medha Munshi told the New York Times.

Some researchers, in fact, have even referred to Alzheimer's as "Type 3 Diabetes" -- which suggests that diet may have some role in an individual's risk for developing the disease.

Wheat and Mental Health: Does Gluten Affect Blood Flow To The Brain?

The use of gluten is universal. This common protein is found in most of the world’s grains including wheat, barley and spelt, and it is almost always a prime ingredient in the production of breads, processed foods, pastas, rolls and crusts. As is the way of that old expression, “one man’s meat is another’s poison”, gluten can and often does cause serious health problems, the most prominently studied of which is Celiac Disease. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, more than 50 ailments are either caused or intensified by the ingestion of gluten, including anxiety and depression.

It was first suspected that wheat consumption cuts off the blood flow to the brain back in 1954 when the disappearance of symptoms considered part of the schizophrenia syndrome in patients consuming gluten free diets first appeared in medical literature.

In 1966, F.C. Dohan, M.D. conducted a remarkable study involving women in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada and the United States before and after World War II, the purpose of which was to confirm the possible connection between schizophrenia and celiac disease. Findings were published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It was called: Wheat “Consumption and Hospital Admissions for Schizophrenia During World War II.

The most outstanding study dates back to a 1987 case study involving a 33-year-old patient that was published in the Journal of Internal Medicine. This patient had a pre-existing diagnosis of schizophrenia, which was accompanied by classic signs of gluten intolerance; severe diarrhea and weight loss. Thanks to brain scan technology, doctors discovered a decreased blood flow to the brain within the patient’s frontal cortex. Blood flow returned to the area and the diagnosis completely changed after a gluten-free diet was implemented.

Dr. David Perlmutter’s best selling book on the subject, Grain Brain, has opened the eyes of the world to the fact that grains can and do negatively affect brain health. The disruption of blood flow to the frontal cortex profoundly concerns mankind, for it is this area of the brain that controls choosing between “good” and “bad” actions, suppressing socially unaccepted behavior, long-term memory and the recognition of consequences resulting from current actions.

Two other important studies researched the gluten-gut-brain connection. The first, “Association Between Headache and Sensitivities to Gluten and Dairy, was published in the Journal of Integrative Medicine. The second study, Overlapping with Crohn’s Disease: A Case Series, appeared in Case Reports in Immunology and addressed what appeared to be three different diagnoses gluten sensitivity.

In conclusion, studies on gluten, while remarkable, are not yet conclusive. It does seem clear, however that mood disorders related to gluten sensitivity have been considerably under-diagnosed. Hopefully, ongoing research will eventually unravel the entire truth concerning its ramifications. It can be assumed however, that if the consumption of wheat interferes with blood flow to the brain in even some individuals, abstaining from it can be the best solution.

http://massreport.com/wheat-and-mental-health-does-gluten-affect-blood-flow-to-the-brain/

Want to Be Successful? Quit Wasting Your Brain.

The most productive time of the day is not early morning. Work productivity has absolutely nothing to do with your daily rituals or habits. And the truth is, your success probably has little to do with productivity in the first place.

Productivity is about efficiency and output. That may count for something if you make cars or semiconductor chips, but for the overwhelming majority of you, productivity doesn’t mean a damn thing.

If being creative matters to you, and it should, it might surprise you to know that you’re probably most innovative when you’re tired. I often have epiphanies when I’m half asleep, during an exhausting workout, or in the shower … not a weird shower, mind you, just a normal one. But that’s neither here nor there.

The thing is, we’re all different. And if you listen to your own body and instincts you’ll do fine. Unfortunately, most of you are much too busy binging on all sorts of online nonsense and distraction to pay any attention to what your body and your gut are telling you.

The great irony is, cavemen had all that figured out. They awoke with the sun, ate when there was food, and slept when they got tired. They somehow managed to accomplish all that with a brain about a third of the size of yours. And everything worked out fine ... as long as they avoided those saber-toothed tigers.  

You know, the only thing that distinguishes modern man from caveman is our highly evolved neocortex. Honestly folks, do you really think humans developed the capacity for complex reasoning so we can sit on our butts and ponder stuff that a caveman or even a frog does without even thinking? Of course not.

A great mind is a terrible thing to waste. So quit wasting yours. And quit wasting the precious time you have to build your career and business worrying about stupid nonsense like what time you get up, how you eat breakfast, your sleep habits, and what kind of showers you take.

Look, you’re supposed to be an entrepreneur, right? And that’s all about business, right? So what do you say we take a step back and look at this logically. When it comes to business, the only important time of day is the time you spend actually working. And the only habits that matter are your work habits.

That’s right, nothing else matters … unless, of course, you’re slacking off when you should be working. So get to work. And for the record, here are five questions that enormous brain of yours needs to answer if you want to make something of yourself and have a successful business someday.

What customer problem do you solve?

I don’t care how much you love doing something or how passionate you are about doing it, if you don’t come up with a big problem that customers will pay to have solved, your entrepreneurial career will be very short-lived.

What’s your solution and what’s its value proposition?

If your products and services don’t offer a far superior value proposition with respect to the competition, then you’ve got what’s called a commodity product. That means you’re going to be slugging it out on price. That’s not a good place to be.

How are you going to win and keep customers?

Even the best solution doesn’t always win. You still need a plan to reach potential customers, win the business, keep customers happy, and put up competitive barriers because competition always goes where the business is.

How are you going to gain market share and scale?

You’re always creating a new market, expanding the overall market, or taking market share from others. Whichever it is, you need strategies and capital to do it. Market share isn’t just costly to lose. It’s costly to gain, as well.

How are you going to fund your growth?

This is where most entrepreneurs and small business owners fall short. You have to have a clear plan with reasonable assumptions to fund your business as it grows. Otherwise, you’ll run out of cash – easily the most common reason businesses fail.

If you come up with those five strategies and successfully execute, I guarantee you’ll do quite well for yourself. If you don’t, you’d better keep working on it until you do, because none of them are optional if you want to get anywhere on your own.  

So quit screwing around on stuff a caveman or even a slimy amphibian can do and put those frontal lobes to work building an actual business.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243805

What Happens to a Woman's Brain When She Becomes a Mother

From joy and attachment to anxiety and protectiveness, mothering behavior begins with biochemical reactions.

The artist Sarah Walker once told me that becoming a mother is like discovering the existence of a strange new room in the house where you already live. I always liked Walker's description because it's more precise than the shorthand most people use for life with a newborn: Everything changes.

Because a lot of things do change, of course, but for new mothers, some of the starkest differences are also the most intimate ones—the emotional changes. Which, it turns out, are also largely neurological.

Even before a woman gives birth, pregnancy tinkers with the very structure of her brain, several neurologists told me. After centuries of observing behavioral changes in new mothers, scientists are only recently beginning to definitively link the way a woman acts with what's happening in her prefrontal cortex, midbrain, parietal lobes, and elsewhere. Gray matter becomes more concentrated. Activity increases in regions that control empathy, anxiety, and social interaction. On the most basic level, these changes, prompted by a flood of hormones during pregnancy and in the postpartum period, help attract a new mother to her baby. In other words, those maternal feelings of overwhelming love, fierce protectiveness, and constant worry begin with reactions in the brain.

Mapping the maternal brain is also, many scientists believe, the key to understanding why so many new mothers experience serious anxiety and depression. An estimated one in six women suffers from postpartum depression, and many more develop behaviors like compulsively washing hands and obsessively checking whether the baby is breathing.

"This is what we call an aspect of almost the obsessive compulsive behaviors during the very first few months after the baby's arrival," maternal brain researcher Pilyoung Kim told me. "Mothers actually report very high levels of patterns of thinking about things that they cannot control. They're constantly thinking about baby. Is baby healthy? Sick? Full?"

Scientists tracked differences in brain activity among
women looking at photos of their own babies versus
unfamiliar babies. (Society of Neuroscience)

"In new moms, there are changes in many of the brain areas," Kim continued. "Growth in brain regions involved in emotion regulation, empathy-related regions, but also what we call maternal motivation—and I think this region could be largely related to obsessive-compulsive behaviors. In animals and humans during the postpartum period, there's an enormous desire to take care of their own child."

There are several interconnected brain regions that help drive mothering behaviors and mood.

Of particular interest to researchers is the almond-shaped set of neurons known as the amygdala, which helps process memory and drives emotional reactions like fear, anxiety, and aggression. In a normal brain, activity in the amygdala grows in the weeks and months after giving birth. This growth, researchers believe, is correlated with how a new mother behaves—an enhanced amygdala makes her hypersensitive to her baby's needs—while a cocktail of hormones, which find more receptors in a larger amygdala, help create a positive feedback loop to motivate mothering behaviors. Just by staring at her baby, the reward centers of a mother's brain will light up, scientists have found in several studies. This maternal brain circuitry influences the syrupy way a mother speaks to her baby, how attentive she is, even the affection she feels for her baby. It's not surprising, then, that damage to the amygdala is associated with higher levels of depression in mothers.

Amygdala damage in babies could affect the mother-child bond as well. In a2004 Journal of Neuroscience study, infant monkeys who had amygdala lesions were less likely to vocalize their distress, or pick their own mothers over other adults. A newborn's ability to distinguish between his mother and anybody else is linked to the amygdala.

Activity in the amygdala is also associated with a mother's strong feelings about her own baby versus babies in general. In a 2011 study of amygdala response in new mothers, women reported feeling more positive about photos depicting their own smiling babies compared with photos of unfamiliar smiling babies, and their brain activity reflected that discrepancy. Scientists recorded bolder brain response—in the amygdala, thalamus, and elsewhere—among mothers as they looked at photos of their own babies.

Greater amygdala response when viewing their own children was tied to lower maternal anxiety and fewer symptoms of depression, researchers found. In other words, a new mother's brain changes help motivate her to care for her baby but they may also help buffer her own emotional state. From the study:

Thus, the greater amygdala response to one’s own infant face observed in our study likely reflects more positive and pro-social aspects of maternal responsiveness, feelings, and experience. Mothers experiencing higher levels of anxiety and lower mood demonstrated less amygdala response to their own infant and reported more stressful and more negatively valenced parenting attitudes and experiences.

Much of what happens in a new mother's amygdala has to do with the hormones flowing to it. The region has a high concentration of receptors for hormones like oxytocin, which surge during pregnancy.

"We see changes at both the hormonal and brain levels," brain researcher Ruth Feldman told me in an email. "Maternal oxytocin levels—the system responsible for maternal-infant bonding across all mammalian species—dramatically increase during pregnancy and the postpartum [period] and the more mother is involved in childcare, the greater the increase in oxytocin."

Becoming a parent looks—at least in the brain—a lot like falling in love.

Oxytocin also increases as women look at their babies, or hear their babies' coos and cries, or snuggle with their babies. An increase in oxytocin during breastfeeding may help explain why researchers have found that breastfeeding mothers are more sensitive to the sound of their babies' cries than non-breastfeeding mothers. "Breastfeeding mothers show a greater level of [brain] responses to baby's cry compared with formula-feeding mothers in the first month postpartum," Kim said. "It's just really interesting. We don't know if it's the act of breastfeeding or the oxytocin or any other factor."

What scientists do know, Feldman says, is that becoming a parent looks—at least in the brain—a lot like falling in love. Which helps explain how many new parents describe feeling when they meet their newborns. At the brain level, the networks that become especially sensitized are those that involve vigilance and social salience—the amygdala—as well as dopamine networks that incentivize prioritizing the infant. "In our research, we find that periods of social bonding involve change in the same 'affiliative' circuits," Feldman said. "We showed that during the first months of 'falling in love' some similar changes occur between romantic partners." Incidentally, that same circuitry is what makes babies smell so good to their mothers, researchers found in a 2013 study.

The neural correlates of maternal and romantic love, 2003 (University College London)

The greatest brain changes occur with a mother's first child, though it's not clear whether a mother's brain ever goes back to what it was like before childbirth, several neurologists told me. And yet brain changes aren't limited to new moms.

Men show similar brain changes when they're deeply involved in caregiving. Oxytocin does not seem to drive nurturing behavior in men the way it does in women, Feldman and other researchers found in a study last year. Instead, a man's parental brain is supported by a socio-cognitive network that develops in the brain of both sexes later in life, whereas women appear to have evolved to have a "brain-hormone-behavior constellation" that's automatically primed for mothering. Another way to look at it: the blueprint for mothering behavior exists in the brain even before a woman has children.

Perhaps, then, motherhood really is like secret space in a woman's brain, waiting to be discovered. "Although only mothers experience pregnancy, birth, and lactation, and these provide powerful primers for the expression of maternal care via amygdala sensitization," researchers wrote, "evolution created other pathways for adaptation to the parental role in human fathers, and these alternative pathways come with practice, attunement, and day-by-day caregiving."

In other words, the act of simply caring for one's baby forges new neural pathways—undiscovered rooms in the parental brain.

How Playing an instrument benefits Your Brain

How Playing an instrument benefits Your Brain

The Brain Has a Requirement For Cannabinoids And Dietary Hemp Is The Answer

The Brain Has a Requirement For Cannabinoids And Dietary Hemp Is The Answer
 

by MARCO TORRES

There are over 400 phytonutrients that exist in Hemp Plants. Hemp is often mistaken for its cannabis cousin, marijuana, even though smoking an entire garbage bag of hemp would not produce an altered state of consciousness. Optimal brain health is achieved when linoleic acid (LA) and alpha linoleic acid (ALA) are consumed in a ratio only naturally found in hemp.

The brain also has a requirement for cannabinoids, which regulate most of the major functions of the body including alertness, emotions, inflammation and cancer defences. The brain can make a small number of its own cannabinoids, but as 4,000 years of history and decades of scientific research indicate, it operates optimally when supplied with dietary cannabinoids, such as those found in hemp.

The brain can build itself from saturated and monounsaturated fats but it has a preference for Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids. Research on humans and animals suggests that optimal brain health is achieved when linoleic acid (LA) and alpha linoleic acid (ALA) are consumed in a ratio of between 3.5:1 and 4:1--a ratio only naturally found in hemp.

Like other oil seeds, the hemp nut consists mainly of oil (typically 44%), protein (33%) and dietary fiber and other carbohydrates (12%, predominantly from residues of the hull). In addition, the nut contains vitamins (particularly the tocopherols and tocotrienols of the Vitamin E complex), phytosterols and trace minerals. Overall, hemp's main nutritional advantage over other seeds lies in the composition of its oil, i.e. its fatty acid profile, and in its protein which contains all of the essential amino acids in nutritionally significant amounts and in a desirable ratio. More and more people are discovering the nutritional benefits of hemp seed, nut and oil.

What's The Difference Between Hemp and Marijuana?

Confusion amongst the public on how exactly hemp oil differs from cannabidiol, or CBD, oil, has prompted the nonprofit Hemp Industries Association to issue a statement explaining the difference between the oils in order to ensure that consumers -- specifically, medical marijuana patients -- are not misled about the intended uses.

Confusion between hemp oil and marijuana oil has spiked recently, as states have passed medical marijuana laws that allow for the use of strains of marijuana that are low in THC and high in CBD. Consumers often confuse hemp oil with CBD oil because both are low in THC and contain CBD.
"With hemp research and development pilot programs taking off this spring, and the hemp retail market growing at an incredible rate, it's crucial that consumers and retailers alike understand the difference between hemp oil and CBD extracts," Eric Steenstra, executive director of Hemp Industries Association, said in a separate statement.
"Our Hemp Industries Association position regarding this distinction calls on makers of CBD products to brand and market their products truthfully and clearly, so as to not further the confusion surrounding CBD products in the marketplace."
Though hemp oil does contain low levels of CBD, typically less than 25 parts per million (ppm), CBD extracts "are produced either directly from cannabis flowers that are up to 15 percent CBD (150,000 ppm), or indirectly as a co-product of the flowers and leaves that are mixed in with the stalks during hemp stalk processing for fiber."
Because of this distinction, the association says, "It is important for American farmers and processors of hemp to understand that most CBD in products mislabeled as 'hemp oil' is a product of large-scale hemp stalk and fiber processing facilities in Europe where the fiber is the primary material produced at a large scale.
"CBD is not a product or component of hemp seeds, and labeling to that effect is misleading and motivated by the desire to take advantage of the legal gray area of CBD under federal law."

The reason hemp is illegal is not because of any negative impact to the environment or human health, but exactly the opposite. It is so environmentally friendly, nutritionally and medicinally beneficial, that it provides too many abundant resources which would make it impossible for powerful corporations to compete.
Although hemp was once the most important cash crop in the United States -- more so than corn and wheat combined -- hemp was banned and classified as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. While classification as a Schedule I drug meant hemp could no longer be grown in the U.S., products containing hemp, such as lotions, fabric and food, are legal for purchase in the U.S. and are often found at natural and health food retailers including Whole Foods, Costco and Sprouts grocers.

Epilepsy and Brain Health
In many forms of epilepsy, damage to or faulty development of glucose receptors on brain cell membranes can starve brain cells of their preferred energy source. Going hand in hand with demand for glucose is oxygen delivery to brain cells. Depletion of either can result in a significant decrease in mental function.
Furthermore, essential fatty acid deficiency can lead to instability of brain cell membranes. This leaves the brain susceptible to damage and can cause aberrant electrical activity, resulting in seizures which in turn can cause further brain damage. This is a vicious circle of deficiency, dysfunction and deterioration.
A ketogenic diet is one in which a dietary emphasis on the medium chain triglycerides found in coconut oil leads to the production of ketones that can serve as an alternative energy source for brain cells. It has shown some limited success in improving function in metabolic conditions such as epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.
One possible reason for the modest success of some ketogenic approaches was the substitution of real food with highly processed powdered formulas consisting mostly of synthetic chemicals. Some even include synthetic omega 3 and 6 compounds, the synthetic sweetener sucralose and genetically modified high fructose corn syrup, all of which are suspected of actually causing brain damage and/or seizures.

According to scientific and clinical studies, hemp oil has the potential to help a range of conditions including epilepsy, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic pain, alcoholism, schizophrenia, PTSD, antibiotic-resistant infections, and various neurological disorders.
In addition to trying an alternative energy source, what if it were possible to address the underlying source of the brain's energy problems? Here are five ways hemp could be the answer to combating epilepsy.
1. Glucose transport
It has been shown that glucose receptor dysfunction in the brain is related to membrane instability from dietary essential fatty acids (EFA) deficiency. Restoration of adequate membrane EFA content increases glucose uptake and utilisation in brain cells.
2. Membrane stability
Researchers from Israel tested the idea that optimising EFAs could help prevent seizures in rats. The rats underwent four different treatments known to cause seizures. One group of rats was fed an EFA mixture of LA and ALA in a ratio of 4:1 for three weeks prior to the experiments and the control group was fed a diet deficient in EFAs.
At the end of the period, all rats underwent procedures to cause seizures. Over 90% of the deficient rats suffered seizures as expected, though the EFA-fed rats had profoundly better outcomes.
In total, 84% of the EFA rats stopped having seizures altogether. Of the remaining EFA rats, the onset of seizures was delayed by 2,200% and the duration of seizures was reduced by 97%.
The researchers attributed the success to stabilisation of brain cell membranes in the EFA-fed rats. It is worth noting, however, that rats have a faster membrane turnover of EFAs, so while three weeks may be sufficient time to replenish membrane EFAs in the rodents it may take much longer in humans.
3. Cellular oxygenation
One of the functions of omega 3 and 6 fatty acids is to act as oxygen magnets and transporters. It is known that Haemoglobin carries oxygen around the body; however, before oxygen can bind with the haemoglobin in red blood cells, it first has to be attracted to and released into the cell. This is exactly what omega 3 and 6 do.
Research in cystic fibrosis has shown that as cell membrane levels of linoleic acid (Omega 6) decrease, and levels of oleic acid increase, the amount of oxygen entering the cell decreases. Linoleic acid, aas found in hemp seed oil, undergoes "reversible oxygenation" much more easily than oleic acid.
The researchers concluded that a diet overly rich in oleic acid and too low in linoleic acid can impair the oxygenation of cells.
4. Cellular energy
Human cells run on electrical energy. The more of this electrical energy we have, the more alive we feel and healthier we become.
This energy ultimately comes from the sunlight energy that green plants absorb and store electrically in their leaves and fruits. When eaten, the body uses some energy to break down the plant until its stored electrical energy is released and available to power the cell.
LA and ALA are especially electron-rich molecules. In the 1950s, German physicists discovered that the vibration frequency of the electrons in LA and ALA matches the vibration frequency of sunlight energy. This makes LA and ALA perfect receivers and carriers of sunlight energy.
They pick up this energy through the skin as the blood circulates the oils near the surface of the body, and can release it directly into cells. If we consume enough EFAs and regularly expose our body to sunlight, we literally act like plants and freely absorb this life-giving energy from the sun directly into our blood cells.
It is these oxygenating and energising processes that acclaimed German cancer doctor Johanna Budwig attributes to the rapid recovery her patients experienced when increasing their intake of EFAs and exposing themselves to sufficient sunlight each day.
5. Cannabinoid production and function
As mentioned, the brain can produce its own cannabinoids, all of which are made from metabolites of linoleic acid as found in hemp seed oil. The receptors cannabinoids interact with are also made from omega 3 and 6. Recent research showed that omega 3 deficiency leads to destruction of cannabinoid receptors resulting in various mental, emotional and physical dysfunctions. The entire endocannabinoid system is best fuelled by Hemp Seed Oil.
In summary, hemp seed oil's unique content of omega 3 and 6 fatty acids may be capable of addressing a number of medically neglected metabolic issues in epilepsy, as well as optimising the function of the endocannabinoid system and transporting little parcels of sunlight energy around the body.

"The stories you have heard about people reversing epilepsy, cancer, pain and most other ailments come from the use of special strains of marijuana that are low in THC [which produces a high] and high in CBD," Paul Benhaim, managing director of Hemp Foods explains.
"One of the best known examples is Charlotte's web, grown by the Stanley brothers in Colorado. This plant was originally called 'hippies' disappointment' due to the fact that no matter how much of it you smoke, you just can't get high."
The strain was later renamed after a little girl called Charlotte who went from having hundreds of life-threatening seizures a week to zero after eating a high-CBD oil extracted from the plant in one go.
"Charlotte had been on every epileptic drug there was," says Benhaim, who has visited the family. "The drugs had ruined her brain and body; they were highly psychoactive, which would stop her heart bleeding, and most importantly failed to stop the seizures.
"Within hours of taking the CBD oil, the hundreds of seizures stopped, and in two years they have not returned. Charlotte consumes a blob of CBD oil about the size of a grain of rice twice a day. There are no negative side-effects.
It should be noted that the horrific side-effects of the drugs she was taking are well known and they are still approved for her and other children. It should also be considered that the western governments have known since 1971 that cannabis safely halts epilepsy, says Benhaim.
"The US government used research to release a patent for cannabinoids as a medicine for multiple conditions while publicly claiming that cannabis had no known health benefits. In 1971, the publication Medical World reported that 'Cannabis is probably the most potent anti-epileptic known to medicine'."
According to the WHO, 50m people suffer from epilepsy worldwide. There are currently 300,000 children in the USA suffering from epilepsy, and 90,000 in Australia.

Sources:
earthsciencetech.com
preventdisease.com
nutraingredients.com
mintpressnews.com
http://preventdisease.com/news/15/011315_Brain-Has-Requirement-Cannabinoids-Dietary-Hemp-Is-Answer.shtml

Dark Chocolate Could Improve Memory By 25%, But You’d Have to Eat Seven Bars a Day

For years, scientists have been trying to prove that chocolate is good for us. The idea was based on more than the desires of a sweet-toothed scientist—cocoa is high in antioxidants known as flavanols. But proving those hypothetical health benefits hasn’t been easy.

Now, there’s new evidence to suggest that chocolate dramatically improves the memory skills that people lose with age. When healthy people between the ages of 50 and 69 drank a mixture high in cocoa flavanols for three months, they performed about 25% better on a memory test compared to a control group of participants.

Dr. Scott A. Small, a neurologist at Columbia University Medical Center, led the study, which was funded by the chocolate company Mars, the National Institutes of Health, and two other research foundations. The results were published yesterday in Nature Neuroscience.

When healthy people ages 50 to 69 drank a mixture high in cocoa flavanols for three months, they performed about 25% better on a memory test.

Here’s Pam Belluck, writing for The New York Times:

The findings support recent research linking flavanols, especially epicatechin, to improved blood circulation, heart health and memory in mice, snails and humans. But experts said the new study, although involving only 37 participants and partly funded by Mars Inc., the chocolate company, goes further and was a well-controlled, randomized trial led by experienced researchers.

Besides improvements on the memory test — a pattern recognition test involving the kind of skill used in remembering where you parked the car or recalling the face of someone you just met — researchers found increased function in an area of the brain’s hippocampus called the dentate gyrus, which has been linked to this type of memory.

While the study supports the idea that cocoa flavanols help reverse age-related memory decline, it probably won’t ward off Alzheimer’s. The participants didn’t show any marked difference in the functioning of the entorhinal cortex, which is impaired in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The distinction shows that age-related and Alzheimer’s-related memory loss are not the same thing, and that flavanols won’t have an effect on cognitive disease.

Even if you don’t have Alzheimer’s, though, binging on any old chocolate this Halloween will help you remember where you left your keys. Milk chocolate won’t help since processing usually removes the key flanvanol epicatechin. Eating dark chocolate may not help much, either. To ingest the same amount of epicatechin as the study group, you’d have to consume the equivalent of about seven average-sized bars a day, which would probably invite other health problems.

Experts have other qualms about the study, including whether or not participants’ overall diet was account for, but the new study is at least a step forward in understanding dark chocolate’s rich rewards.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/seven-bars-dark-chocolate-improve-memory-25/

Sharpen The Brain For Memory

Sharpen The Brain For Memory

Here Is What’s Actually Happening To Your Body During A Hangover

by Jeff Roberts

We’ve all been there. The parched mouth. The throbbing headache. The degradation of basic cognitive abilities. The sulking in one’s own self pity. Yes, it’s the all feared hangover.

Considering the painful aftermath of binge drinking, it’s surprising to note that one out of six adults in the US binge drinks 4 times per month, consuming at least 8 drinks per binge. Perhaps this is partly due to the heavy promotion of alcohol in mainstream commercialism, which was reported to have spent $8 billion on advertising between 2002-2009.

But what’s hardly talked about in those clever marketing campaigns is the aforementioned aftermath of a ‘good’ night out, which finds many mercilessly clinging to their porcelain friend in the early hours of the morning.

What exactly is happening to our body during a hangover that causes the insistent headaches, nausea and lethargy? Many would likely claim the culprit of these symptoms to be dehydration, and while this may be a part of the equation, studies suggest other significant factors are at play.

Looking Inside The Body

Hangover symptoms have been attributed to several causes, including direct physiological effects of alcohol on the brain and other organs, alcohol withdrawal, and non-alcohol factors, such as the toxic effects of other biologically active chemicals (congeners) in the beverage and broken sleeping patterns.

Although current evidence suggests that more than one factor most likely contributes to the overall hangover state, the following sections address each of the proposed causes.

 Your Stomach & Intestines Are Inflamed

Alcohol directly irritates the stomach and intestines, causing inflammation of the stomach lining (i.e., gastritis) and delayed stomach emptying, especially when beverages with a high alcohol concentration (i.e., greater than 15 percent) are consumed.

High levels of alcohol consumption can also produce a fatty liver, an accumulation of fat compounds called triglycerides and free fatty acids in liver cells. In addition, alcohol increases the production of gastric acid as well as pancreatic and intestinal secretions.

Any or all of these factors can result in the upper abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting experienced during a hangover.

Your Brain Is Hungry

Because alcohol leads to a condition known as fatty liver (mentioned above), the buildup of lactic acid usually follows, which can inhibit glucose production in the blood. Furthermore, not eating sufficiently enough due to nausea can also inhibit glucose production.

Because glucose is the primary energy source of the brain, hypoglycemia can contribute to hangover symptoms such as fatigue, weakness and mood disturbances. Diabetics are particularly sensitive to the alcohol-induced alterations in blood glucose. However, it has not been documented whether low blood sugar concentrations contribute to hangovers symptomatically.

You Are Thirsty & Depleted

It’s a no brain-er that alcohol increases urination. The consumption of 50 g of alcohol in 250 milliliters (mL) of water (i.e. approximately 4 drinks) causes the elimination of 600 to 1,000 mL (or up to 1 quart) of water over several hours.

Alcohol inhibits hormone release from the pituitary gland, a hormone which normally causes the kidneys to reabsorb water and electrolytes, therefore instead of being reabsorbed, it’s eliminated in the urine. Sweating, vomiting and diarrhea also commonly occur during a hangover, and these conditions can result in additional fluid loss and electrolyte imbalances.

 Your Brain Is Sending The Wrong Sleeping Signals

Although it’s known as a depressant, alcohol actually has counter-active sedative effects on the brain. Alcoho linhibits glutamate production, a stimulant whose job is to keep us awake. However, when our alcohol blood-levels reach zero (i.e., hangover time), our body reacts by overproducing this stimulant, resulting in broken sleeps as well as stomach irritation.

Your Brain Chemicals Are Out Of Whack

Although the complete etiology of alcohol induced headaches is still unknown, research suggests it has something to do with alcohol’s effect on the neurotransmitters histamine, serotonin and prostaglandins. Alcohol intoxication also results in vasodilatation, which may induce headaches.

You’re Actually Going Through Alcohol Withdrawal (AW)

Several lines of evidence suggest that a hangover is a mild manifestation of the AW syndrome in non-alcohol dependent drinkers. First, the signs and symptoms of hangover and mild AW overlap considerably.

One clinical scale used to assess the severity of a withdrawal episode in alcohol-dependent patients measures 10 withdrawal-associated items that are usually present during a hangover, including nausea and vomiting, tremor, sweating, anxiety, headache and sensory disturbances.

Furthermore, the observation that alcohol re-administration alleviates the unpleasantness of both AW syndrome and hangovers suggests that the two experiences share a common process.

Stay Away From The Dark Stuff: Other Compounds In Liquor That Perpetuate Hangovers

Most alcoholic beverages contain smaller amounts of other biologically active compounds. These compounds, known as congeners, contribute to the taste, smell and appearance of alcoholic beverages.

Research has suggested that beverages composed of more pure ethanol, such as gin or vodka, induce fewer hangover effects than do beverages containing a large number of congeners, such as whiskey, brandy, or red wine. However, further research must be conducted to quantify these findings.

Some Final Suggestions To Avoid The Aforementioned Hangover

The sure-fire way to avoid hangovers is clearly abstinence from drinking. However, considering alcohol consumption is engraved into our social culture, avoiding drinking completely just isn’t an option for most. That being said, let’s review some quick and simple steps to avoid inducing a painful hangover. You can read the full article HERE~

6 Tips To Avoid Alcohol-Induced Hangovers

In our previous article, Here Is What’s Actually Happening To Your Body During A Hangover, we took a look inside the body to try and understand why hangovers usually correspond with the all-feared symptoms of nausea, headaches and extreme fatigue.

While avoiding alcohol all-together is the only sure-fired way to prevent a hangover, this isn’t an option for most considering alcohol consumption is engraved into our social culture. So on that note, let’s review some simple steps to help reduce alcohol-induced hangover symptoms.

1) Stray away from diet soda (and soda all together)

One study found that people who drank alcohol mixed with diet soda’s had higher breath alcohol concentrations compared with the same amount of alcohol consumed with a similar beverage containing sugar. The study suggests the lack of sugar simply allows the rate of alcohol absorption to occur in the stomach without hindrance.

Another study also found that carbonated drinks in general increase absorption rate by relaxing the sphincter between the stomach and the small intestine. The alcohol then can get into the intestines faster, where it is absorbed into the bloodstream.

2) Stay hydrated before, during and after

As previously mentioned, alcohol increases urination and loss of water. If you know you are going to be drinking that night, make sure to drink plenty of water before hand to stay hydrated. While drinking, try water and lemon or lime as your mix, it’s more refreshing than you may think. And at the end of your night, chug back a few large glasses of H20, your body will thank you in the AM.

3) Eat something

Having food in your stomach slows the absorption of alcohol into your system so you have more time to metabolize what you’ve been drinking. Consumption of fruits, fruit juices, or other fructose-containing foods is reported to decrease hangover intensity.  Also, bland foods containing complex carbohydrates, such as toast or crackers, can counter low blood sugar levels in people subject to hypoglycemia and can possibly relieve nausea.

4) Avoid smoking

Although the exact mechanisms are still unclear, researchers at Brown University found that at the same number of drinks, people who smoke more that day are more likely to have a hangover and have more intense hangovers. Her team controlled for other factors as well, such as whether students reported drug use in the past year. Smoking itself was linked to an increased risk of hangover compared with not smoking at all.

According to Cancer Research, tobacco smoke contains the chemical acetaldehyde which is also formed in your tissues when you drink alcohol and is thought to be responsible for many nasty hangover symptoms.

Anecdotal evidence strongly supports the idea that nicotine and alcohol go hand-in-hand, and that smoking when drinking leads to higher levels of alcohol consumption.

5) Choose your spirit wisely

In their analysis of multiple studies, researchers Robert Swift, M.D., Ph.D., and Dena Davidson, Ph.D, discuss the evidence for choosing a clear or more distilled spirit versus a darker liquor.

“The type of alcohol consumed also may have a significant effect on reducing hangover. Alcoholic beverages that contain few congeners (e.g., pure ethanol, vodka, and gin) are associated with a lower incidence of hangover than are beverages that contain a number of congeners (e.g., brandy, whiskey and red wine).”

6) Shake it off

Besides being fun, dancing up a sweat also increases your metabolic rate which will clear alcohol out of your blood faster. Taylor Swift’s lyrics suddenly make more sense…

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/12/13/6-tips-to-avoid-alcohol-induced-hangovers/

IS YOUR BRAIN STARVING? (MIND-BLOWING Q&A)

Just when you think you've learned everything there is to know about nutrition, you unearth information that gives you an "Ah-Hah!" moment. Today, we're sharing with you an amazing Q&A with Delia McCabe, a once Psychologist turned Nutritional Neuroscience Researcher, who delves into the link between nutrition and your brain.

Delia McCabe lost her enthusiasm for the “talking cure” after completing her Master's degree in Psychology. She had discovered that what you eat affects your brain function and that until the brain is properly nourished, no amount of talking will get it working properly. For nearly two decades, she's immersed herself in the fascinating world of nutrition and the brain and offers a focused and insightful approach - based on solid science - into how specific foods can improve your mood, concentration, memory and learning ability, as well as reduce stress.

Food Matters: What made you realize the connection between nutrition and mental health?

While I was completing my master's degree in psychology, I was working with a group of very smart school children. They were very capable of getting great grades, but were all doing very poorly at school. They were also suffering from other psychological challenges, like anxiety and even depression. My research was based on which psychological variables could be used to motivate them and help them achieve according to their potential. I had an extra space on one of the questionnaires that I’d designed for them and I threw in the question: "What is your favorite food?" The answers astonished me, and when compared to the control group, (a group of children who were smart and doing well at school), it was even more amazing. All the children who were underachieving loved junk food, while the other group did not. This changed the course of my research, and gave me a passion that wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t asked that simple question.

Food Matters: Are people surprised and curious when they find out what your area of research is?

I’m amazed at how many times people tell me that when they eat certain foods they feel anxious, jittery or even depressed. It’s as if by realizing that this is a valid area of scientific research, they can speak out about how they actually feel. And they are very curious about which foods would help them to feel calm, more focused, and prevent them experiencing cognitive decline. Many people are also surprised that the information that I have given them isn’t provided by their doctors. Some actually get angry about not having known about it earlier. I’ve seen many reactions that used to surprise me, but now I expect them.

Food Matters: What is one of the most important insights you have learned in life at this point in your health discovery?

It was a real epiphany for me to realize that the brain, being our greediest organ, when well nourished, will allow the rest of the body to flourish too. As the primary "survival" organ, it will take nutrients first, in a sense, and then leave the rest of our body battling to stay well if there are not enough nutrients to go around. It made perfect sense to me then that by feeding the brain optimally, the rest of the body would be able to benefit too. And, if you take into account that a malnourished brain will make poor decisions all round, it is quite sobering to realize that a hungry brain will lead to a poor quality of life on many different levels.

Food Matters: What is the biggest misconception you would like to clear up concerning mental health?

This is a good question, and I’ll have to choose from a few. But the winning one is that most people are completely oblivious to the fact that what they eat every day, has a short- and long-term impact on their brain functioning, mood, memory, learning and capacity to be alert and focused. Each day, the brain requires raw materials for both functioning and structure maintenance. People take it for granted that they are getting the right nutrients for those amazingly complex and super-important tasks. But over time, the brain not only becomes less and less efficient at performing the tasks that we take for granted, it also becomes less and less capable of keeping itself structurally sound. What we eat affects our brain in a real, profound way.

A further point is that so many people are still confused about fats and oils, and this is another huge misconception that I’m passionate about clearing up. The right fats are critical for optimal health, and without them, nothing you do can make up for their absence. When people start consuming the right fats and oils, AND remove the bad ones from their diet, their health can improve so quickly and profoundly, that it sometimes seems like magic to them!

Food Matters: What are some of the most important nutrients that people need to consume for a healthy brain?
 
The brain, being made up of 60% fat at its dry weight, needs the right kinds of fat to operate optimally. A large percentage of this fat is made up of specialized omega-3 and -6 fats. Unfortunately, these fats are also very delicate. This means that many of these fats that people consume today are damaged. Organic nuts and seeds, and undamaged oils, as well as lots of green leafy greens, supply both omega-3 and omega-6. Most people get enough omega-6, although in a damaged form. So if you focus on omega-3 found in ground flax seeds and chia seeds, as well as undamaged essential fatty acid oil blends, you will be supplying great, undamaged fats to your brain. In addition, unrefined carbohydrates provide steady blood glucose for a greedy brain, and clean protein provides for  enzyme and hormone production and the foundation for the brain messengers – the neurotransmitters.

Food Matters: What role does stress play in causing damage to the brain?

We all live in an overwhelming world, and the brain takes a huge "hit" with the stress we experience in ever-increasing amounts. Why? Our brain evolved to respond quickly and efficiently to any threat to our survival. We could run very quickly away from our threat, we could stay and fight for survival or we could stand very, very still, and hope to be bypassed. Today, we very seldom do any of those things. We sit and worry in traffic, wait for ages for resolutions to problems that we have no control over, or engage in meaningless but stressful interactions online.

Our brain cannot tell the difference between a real, physical threat and a perceived, psychological one. And so we don’t get rid of the naturally produced compounds like adrenaline that the brain uses to spur us on to physical activity, because it’s all going on in our brain and there’s nothing physical to do about it. Unfortunately, cortisol, which is produced when adrenaline has been circulating for a while, is very damaging to the brain, because it stops brain cells – neurons – from communicating effectively with each other, and disrupts the process of energy production within the cell. Over time, excess cortisol production leads to neuronal death, which is not a positive thing, as well as stopping the growth of new neurons.
http://www.foodmatters.tv/content/is-your-brain-starving-mind-blowing-q-a

Did You Realize Your Brain Could Actually Be Affected By These 15 Things?

http://9gag.com/gag/ae3Arg5?ref=fsidebar

Limitless - An experimental drug that allows you to use 100% of your brain

Limitless Movie Trailer

Limitless

 - An experimental drug that allows you to use 100% of your brain

Does Exercise Really Make Us Smarter?

Exercise seems to be good for the human brain, with many recent studies suggesting that regular exercise improves memory and thinking skills. But an interesting new study asks whether the apparent cognitive benefits from exercise are real or just a placebo effect — that is, if we think we will be “smarter” after exercise, do our brains respond accordingly? The answer has significant implications for any of us hoping to use exercise to keep our minds sharp throughout our lives.

In experimental science, the best, most reliable studies randomly divide participants into two groups, one of which receives the drug or other treatment being studied and the other of which is given a placebo, similar in appearance to the drug, but not containing the active ingredient.

Placebos are important, because they help scientists to control for people’s expectations. If people believe that a drug, for example, will lead to certain outcomes, their bodies may produce those results, even if the volunteers are taking a look-alike dummy pill. That’s the placebo effect, and its occurrence suggests that the drug or procedure under consideration isn’t as effective as it might seem to be; some of the work is being done by people’s expectations, not by the medicine.

Recently, some scientists have begun to question whether the apparently beneficial effects of exercise on thinking might be a placebo effect. While many studies suggest that exercise may have cognitive benefits, those experiments all have had a notable scientific limitation: They have not used placebos.

This issue is not some abstruse scientific debate. If the cognitive benefits from exercise are a result of a placebo effect rather than of actual changes in the brain because of the exercise, then those benefits could be ephemeral and unable in the long term to help us remember how to spell ephemeral.

Studying this issue, however, is difficult. There is no placebo for exercise and no way to blind people about whether they are exercising. They know if they are walking or cycling or not.

So researchers at Florida State University in Tallahassee and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign came up with a clever workaround. They decided to focus on expectations, on what people anticipate that exercise will do for thinking. If people’s expectations jibe closely with the actual benefits, then at least some of those improvements are probably a result of the placebo effect and not of exercise.

The scientists had seen this situation at work during an earlier study of video games and cognition. Past research had suggested that playing action-oriented video games improves players’ subsequent thinking skills. But when scientists in the new study asked video-game players to estimate by how much the games would improve their thinking, the players’ estimates almost exactly matched the gains seen on cognitive tests after playing. In other words, the cognitive benefits of playing video games appear to be largely a result of a placebo effect.

For the new study, which was published last month in PLOS One, the researchers repeated this experiment but focused on exercise. Recruiting 171 people through an online survey system, they asked half of these volunteers to estimate by how much a stretching and toning program performed three times a week might improve various measures of thinking, including memory and mental multitasking.

The other volunteers were asked the same questions, but about a regular walking program.

In actual experiments, stretching and toning regimens generally have little if any impact on people’s cognitive skills. Walking, on the other hand, seems to substantially improve thinking ability.

But the survey respondents believed the opposite, estimating that the stretching and toning program would be more beneficial for the mind than walking. The volunteers’ estimates of the likely cognitive improvements from gentle toning averaged about a three on a scale from one to six. The estimates of benefits from walking were lower.

These data, while they do not involve any actual exercise, are good news for people who do exercise. “The results from our study suggest that the benefits of aerobic exercise are not a placebo effect,” said Cary Stothart, a graduate student in cognitive psychology at Florida State University, who led the study.

If expectations had been driving the improvements in cognition seen in studies after exercise, Mr. Stothart said, then people should have expected walking to be more beneficial for thinking than stretching. They didn’t, implying that the changes in the brain and thinking after exercise are physiologically genuine.

Of course, this study was small and involved a self-selected group of people who happen to like completing online surveys. Some said they exercised, others said they did not. None claimed to be familiar with the science related to exercise and the brain, but it is impossible to know if people were being forthright.

Still, the findings are strong enough to suggest that exercise really does change the brain and may, in the process, improve thinking, Mr. Stothart said. That conclusion should encourage scientists to look even more closely into how, at a molecular level, exercise remodels the human brain, he said. It also should spur the rest of us to move, since the benefits are, it seems, not imaginary, even if they are in our head.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/does-exercise-really-make-us-smarter/