Brain Nutrition

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The importance of brain nutrition for mental health and optimal brain function cannot be overstated. Let’s take a look at the key components essential for a healthy, well-functioning brain. These are: essential fatty acids, amino acids, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Here in part 1 we discuss the first two. (Please see Key Brain Nutrition Components Part 2 for a discussion of carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals.)

Essential Fatty Acids

The brain is made up mostly of fat. It is no wonder then that fats are a vital component of proper brain nutrition. Don’t get too excited though; this is not to say that eating as much fat as we can is good for our brains. Instead, we must consider the different types of fats in our diet and then consume the right amounts of the right fats in the correct proportions.

Omega-3 fatty acids are the good fats. They are said to be the most important nutrient required for our cells and brains to function properly. An overwhelming majority of people are deficient, however, because omega-3 fats come from wild sources – like wild fish, seaweed, and algae. Most of the fats in our diet are unhealthy omega-6 fats, found in soybean oil and other oils made from seeds. Thus, to improve our brain health we have to up our intake of omega-3 and lower our intake of omega-6 fats.

Amino Acids

Amino acids from protein are converted into neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers in the brain. Neurotransmitters allow brain cells to network and communicate with each other – your brain can’t really do much of anything without them. The levels of the different neurotransmitters in the brain affect your mood, attention, memory, learning, basically all brain function. Low levels of specific neurotransmitters in the brain are associated with mental ailments, like depression, anxiety, and attention deficit.

The neurotransmitter serotonin, for example, is the happy molecule, and low levels of serotonin are thought to be responsible for depression. That’s why the first-line treatment for depression in psychiatry is a pharmaceutical that affects the availability of serotonin. Specifically, SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) like Prozac and Zoloft do just what the name implies, they inhibit serotonin from being reabsorbed after it sends its message, so it continues its action of happy message sending and makes you feel, well, good.

Most psychiatric drugs, in fact, focus on affecting or mimicking the different neurotransmitters in some way, whether to elevate mood, improve attention, or reduce anxiety. But these pharmaceutical solutions are somewhat akin to slapping some duct tape on a broken window – sure it may hold for a while, but did you really fix it?

This is where brain nutrition and amino acids come in. By ingesting enough of the required amino acids though foods and supplements, we are providing our bodies with the building blocks necessary to manufacture neurotransmitters to the brain’s desired level. So do you trust the pharmaceutical company to play with your brain chemicals? Or do you trust your body and your brain, which do all kinds of amazing things that those guys in the lab coats can’t even begin to explain yet, although they sure do like to pretend.

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In part 1 we talked about the importance of essential fatty acids and amino acids for proper brain nutrition. Let’s now look at carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals and how our intake of these has a huge impact on our mental health and brain function. (Please see Key Brain Nutrition Components Part 1 to learn about essential fatty acids and amino acids.)

Carbohydrates

Yes, carbohydrates are super important for proper brain function and good health in general. Carbohydrates convert to glucose which fuels the brain by giving it the energy it needs for optimal function. But here’s the key: good carbs versus bad carbs. The main difference is the rate of conversion from carbs to glucose.

To clarify, good carbs – which come from unprocessed, whole foods – convert to glucose slowly, providing the body and brain with a steady stream of reliable energy. The body can metabolize the low, steady levels of sugar without complication, turning this sugar to energy at a comfortable rate using insulin.

In contrast, bad carbs – those from heavily-processed and refined foods – turn to sugar quickly. Our bodies respond to the high levels of sugar by producing too much insulin. Over time, as we keep eating too many bad carbs while our bodies keep responding by producing more and more insulin to metabolize the sugar, we develop what is called insulin resistance. This is much like what happens when we build up a resistance to a drug due to frequent use. Just like we would then need more and more of this drug to get the same effect as before, the body makes more and more insulin to do the same thing it it used to do with much less. Our insulin levels thus increase out of control which leads to all kinds of problems in the brain, as in the rest of the body.

Vitamins and Minerals

There are essential vitamins and minerals without which our bodies and brains cannot function. This doesn’t just mean that we aren’t performing at our peak potential and health when we don’t get enough of these nutrients; it means that if we are deficient in any of these nutrients, something is bound to go wrong, sooner or later. Thanks to the relevant research done in recent years, we no that this is no longer just brain nutrition theory or hearsay – it’s our biochemistry.

So we have these things called enzymes which are the catalysts of chemical reactions in the body, they convert chemicals into other chemicals, like turning the amino acid tryptophan into the neurotransmitter serotonin. But in order to complete its task, the enzyme needs help. Specifically, the enzyme needs the right nutrients to help it turn one chemical into another. In order to turn tryptophan into serotonin, for example, the enzyme requires vitamin B6. Nutrients are required for enzymes to perform their chemical conversions. Without nutrients, the body cannot make the chemicals it needs to function. So our brains not only need amino acids, the building blocks of neurotransmitters, to make neurotransmitters, they also need the right nutrients to help with the conversion. Hence the ‘essential’ vitamins and minerals.

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