A Healthy Tomorrow

Building Wellness Into The Next Generation

Dr. T's Blog

Want a Healthy Kid? Start Before…

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Want a healthy kid?  It starts before she’s born.  A recent study, led by Dr. Suzan Carmichael of Stanford University, shows that pregnant women who eat a healthy diet decrease their risk of having a baby with a neural tube defect (the neural tube forms the brain and spinal cord), or a cleft palate.

What’s in a healthy diet? Plenty of

  • fruits
  • vegetables
  • whole grains
  • fish

A healthy diet also is low in fat and sugar.  So protect your child’s brain health, and overall health, before he even gets here!

 

Reference:

Reinberg, Steven. Mom’s Healthy Diet Might Cut Birth Defect Risk. Healthy Day News, October 3, 2011.

Feeding Your Child’s Brain (And Yours!) for Optimal Concentration, Creativity and Cognition

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This month, we’re focusing on ways to optimize your child’s brain for maximum performance.  The first step?

Feed It!

 

“In order to ensure that your child’s brain is able to function well…you must first ensure that it is being properly nourished.…Poor diet is without a doubt one of the major reasons we’re seeing such an incredible spike in the number of kids diagnosed with and medicated for mental and emotional disorders.  Even drugs can’t help our kids when they are quite literally being starved of their mental and emotional health.” Scott Shannon from Please Don’t Label My Child

 

Now that our kids are back in school, they’ll need all the brain power they can get.  Does it surprise you to know that our brain function is so vitally connected to what we eat?  We can either eat “brain food” or we can eat “brain drain food.”  More and more studies are showing just how powerful food is in the function and growth of the brain.  On the other hand, the wrong foods are absolutely detrimental to brain function.

Recently, I went to visit my son at his elementary school during a morning enrichment session.  In a room full of kids working at computers, the vast majority of them were eating Skittles, which were provided to them by the school store.  I was flabbergasted that these bright students were being supplied with a load of candy at the start of their school day!

Candy is not brain food; in fact, it’s the very opposite, a brain drain.  We as parents need to equip our children with the tools they need for better concentration, creativity and cognition.

So here are four great nutritional brain boosters:

Eat lots of fruits and vegetables! 

Our children need at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day.  Just yesterday I spoke to a woman who told me that her 13 year old son does not eat any fruits or vegetables.  Being the parent of a picky eater myself, who only likes corn (not even sweet potatoes, can you imagine?!), I’ve had to be very creative about getting the fruits and veggies in, such as smoothies and milkshakes doctored with hidden fruits and vegetables.

How do fruits and vegetables boost brain power?

  • The brain consumes a whopping 20% of the body’s total energy expenditure. As a great source of complex carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables provide a supply of healthy carbs for the brain to work optimally.
  • Fruits and vegetables release an abundant supply of antioxidants which are powerful chemicals that your body uses to fight oxidative stress, thus protecting the brain.
  • Fruits and vegetables are also good sources of fiber.  Perhaps you thought fiber was only important for gut health?  Yet fiber is a detoxifying agent for the body.  Therefore, it protects the brain by removing toxic chemicals.
  • Fruits and vegetables have a high water content, providing proper hydration for the brain to function optimally.

 

Supply your brain with a healthy dose of essential fatty acids: 

Two are especially important:  DHA and EPA.  DHA helps support nerve cells while EPA is responsible for signaling and communication inside and between nerve cells.  EPA may also be key in maintaining BDNF levels (a brain growth chemical).

Good sources of essential fatty acids are:

  • fatty fish, such as salmon and tuna
  • nuts (such as walnuts and almonds) and
  • seeds (e.g. pumpkin seeds)

In his book, The Brain Diet, Dr. Alan Logan states “dietary and supplemental omega-3 fatty acids may be the most significant brain insurance policy you can purchase.”

Maintain a Healthy Weight

Did you know that obesity is also bad for brain health? Studies show that excess weight is associated with brain shrinkage!  And obesity is associated with higher rates of ADHD, depression, and anxiety, all of which are increasing in incidence in our children.

Don’t Forget Breakfast and Healthy Snacks

Do your children, like mine, often want to run out of the house without having eaten a decent breakfast?  That sets them up for fatigue, irritability, and poor concentration.  Breakfast is a must to kick start the brain, and then the rest of the day should include regular snacking on nutritious foods, such as mentioned above. I applauded one of my son’s teachers when she instated a snack time rule that the snack had to be fruit or a granola bar.  She banned candy, cookies and chips from snack time.

You’ll find that strengthening your child’s diet in these ways will boost his/her brain performance and overall health!

 

References

Logan, A. The Brain Diet. (2006). Nashville, TN, Cumberland House Publishing.

Rhor, Monica. Brain foods help send kids to the head of the class, Published 01:20 p.m., Wednesday, August 24, 2011 in chron.com

 

Stroke Rate Rising in Teens and Young Adults

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“The number of people aged 15 to 44 hospitalized for stroke jumped by more than third between 1995 and 2008, say researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The increase may be due partly to the increasing numbers of young people who have diseases such as high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes — diseases usually associated with older adults, they added.” Click here to read more…

Time to Can the Soda Habit!

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Soda has become the All-American drink.  Soda drinking has increased substantially over the past 30 years in adults and children, and now accounts for 25% of all drinks consumed in the U.S.  But that 12 ounce “soft drink” is really hard on the body.  Until a year ago, I regularly drank soda like most people.  But when I started to learn about what soda was actually doing to my health, I canned the habit for good.  So I want to make sure that you know that soda is no “soft drink.”  Here are 4 ways that soda wreaks havoc on your body:

Soda is full of sugar: An average 12 oz soda contains 10 to 12 teaspoons of sugar, usually in the form of high fructose corn syrup.  By now, most people know that sugar is a major culprit in weight gain.  But here’s a lesser known fact: the amount high fructose corn syrup in a single can of soda can raise the oxidative stress levels in your body for up to four hours!  Oxidative stress is a process in the body that causes damage to the cells and DNA.

Soda acidifies your body:  Space does not permit me to discuss the critical relationship between your body’s pH and your health.  But in summary, your body requires a slightly alkaline pH to perform optimally.  When the body’s pH drops merely from the optimal 7.4 down to 7.2, you are extremely sick.  Well, the pH of soda ranges between 2.3 to 4, which is highly acidic.  Introducing such an acidic liquid into your body makes it work hard to eliminate the acid and retain its alkaline state.  Disease thrives in acidic environments!  So, can the soda habit, and instead, drink water (pure, alkaline water is ideal) to keep your body disease-resistant.

Soda is bad for your bones:  And not just old bones, but even adolescents experience weakened bones from soda consumption. The cause may be a direct effect of leaching calcium from the bones because of excess phosphoric acid in soda.  On the other hand, the cause may be a low calcium diet in soda drinkers.  Whatever the case, is that Pepsi or Sprite really worth an increased risk of a broken hip?

Diet soda is equally bad: You may be thinking that you’re doing your body a favor by drinking diet soda.  “At least,” you may reason, “I’m not taking in all those calories and sugar!” Aside from the fact that artificial sugars are toxic chemicals (e.g. aspartame is associated with fibromyalgia, seizures and panic attacks, reduced memory and cognition), new research shows that artificial sugar increases your craving for sugar, and is associated with increased weight gain in the long term.

Soda is one of the many non-foods that we regularly consume that toxifies our bodies.  Instead, we need to start building up our bodies with whole foods and whole food nutrients that strengthen our systems for optimal performance.

References

http://www.americanchiropractic.net/general_%20interest/Statistics%20and%20Dangers%20of%20Soda%20.pdf

Logan, A. The Brain Diet.  (2006). Nashville, TN, Cumberland House Publishing.

Has life expectancy substantially improved in the past 100 years?

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Watching an interesting show.  “Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole.” It’s a fascinating show about indefinitely extending longevity.  The show started out by stating that human life expectancy has doubled from 40 years to approximately 80 years over the past 200 years due to medical breakthroughs.  But this often quoted statistic ignores an important detail.  Over one hundred years ago, in 1900, if you lived to 45, you had a good chance of living to 70.  A person today who lives to 45 can expect to live to age 76.  Therefore, using this perspective, we’ve only seen a six year gain in life expectancy over the past century.  In fact, we are now anticipating a shorter life expectancy in the coming generations, because of the epidemic of obesity and its associated diseases.  We can reverse this trend with the right eating and lifestyle choices.  www.ahealthytomorrow.org