Grain Brain summary

It might be hard to believe that a bowl of pasta or a baguette could cause a brain disorder; however, wheat and grain products contain a dangerous protein called gluten, which can cause health problems ranging from headaches to depression to, as mentioned earlier, Alzheimer’s.

A common health problem caused by gluten is celiac disease, which results from extreme gluten-sensitivity in the small intestine. A doctor discovered it in the early 1900s after finding that some children had a better toleration for fat than they did for carbohydrates.

You can live quite well without eating that many carbohydrates. Fats, on the other hand, are essential: we can’t survive long without them.

The body fundamentally needs a low-carb, high-fat diet. Fat is the brain’s secret love.

You probably know that consuming lots of sugar isn’t going to shrink your waistline. What you might not be aware of is how dangerous all sugar is to your entire body, including your internal organs and brain.

Let’s start with fructose, the sweetest of all sugars. Naturally found in fruit and honey, it’s known to biochemists as the most fattening carbohydrate.

You might think that cognitive decline is an inevitable part of aging, like wrinkles or bad vision. But this is simply untrue.

The fact is that we’re not genetically built for the lives we lead nowadays, and many common diseases stem from this disjunction between evolution and lifestyle. The good news is that DNA can still change, and it can still return to its original formation.

Carbohydrates are so inflammatory that they don’t just increase your risk of dementia – they’re also linked with neurological conditions like ADHD, anxiety disorder, Tourette’s syndrome, migraines and even autism!

Pediatricians often diagnose children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and attempt to treat it with powerful medication. A colleague of Perlmutter’s once worked with a woman who was having trouble with her four-year-old son, a victim of the disorder. He ran a simple test for gluten-sensitivity on the boy and found that he was 300 percent more sensitive than normal.

There’s a special feature of the human brain that sets it apart from the brains of other mammals: it can use alternative sources of calories during times of deprivation.

There’s a common misconception that fasting lowers your metabolism and forces your body to hold onto its fat. In reality, fasting is quite healthy when it’s done correctly. It boosts energy production, improves brain functioning and promotes bodily reactions that can accelerate weight loss.

Here’s another important tip for your health: simply moving your body can help your brain as much as eternal nights of diligent study.

Exercise has a number of healthy effects on your brain. Aerobic exercise, for instance, activates the genes associated with living longer. It also targets the gene that codes for BDNF, the neurogenesis gene.

You might be feeling overwhelmed by all the nutrition and health information you’ve read over, so here’s the single most important tip: sleep more. High quality sleep improves almost every system and organ in the body, especially the brain.

Sleep can determine our dietary needs, the rate of our metabolism, how quickly we gain or lose weight, the strength of our immune system and even our creativity! It also influences how we cope with stress, process information, learn new things and store and organize our memories.