Change Your Brain Every Day - Eat This Salad Every Day for a Younger and Healthier Brain, with Max Lugavere

Episode Date: March 3, 2020

More and more research is coming out about the health benefits of a Mediterranean-style diet. Dark, leafy greens and colorful veggies are like medicine for your brain and body, so incorporating them into your diet can be a game changer. In the second episode of a series with “Genius Foods” author Max Lugavere, he reveals the salad you can eat every day for a brain that looks 11 years younger.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We are still with our friend Max Lubavir, and we're talking about genius foods. And I just, your story is just so touching

and so painful because it's so personal to so many of our patients. So I love the motivation behind this. I don't know if you know this, but that was my motivation as well. I was on nine medications and sick. I had thyroid cancer that kept coming back and a laundry list of other things. And when the doctor told me I needed to see a psychiatrist, like it was my fault, I was done. And that's when I went on my journey to research this. So I'm just resonating so clearly with what you're saying. And I love this. And that is not how we met, not how we met, but, um, but we, um, this, this idea of genius foods, it's just such a great title. And so I want to talk in this episode, if we could about practical ways, um, that people can, cause that's really the big

thing for our listeners. It's it's how do I make this practical? I don't have to, I know you hear the same thing. Don't have time. Don't have money. Those are the two big ones, right? I'm too busy. And my, my thought is you're always, if you're too busy, you're too busy not to do this, but how do you make it practical for them? What are your tips? That's such a good question. I mean, time is our most limited resource these days. And so what are, what are the things, what are the steps or the tactics that you can integrate into your life that are gonna have the biggest wins? So one of the recommendations that I make in Genius Foods is to have a large fatty salad every single day. And this is for a number of reasons, and I'll get into those reasons specifically.

But researchers out of Rush University, specifically Martha Clare Morris, who's on a team, she's the originator of the MIND diet, which is a Mediterranean-style diet, very similar to the diet that I talk about in genius foods is showing us that people who eat about a cup and a third of dark leafy greens every day have brains that perform up to 11 years younger. So correlation isn't pretty much assumed that greens, a cup and a third of greens. That's it. That's it. That's it. Yeah. People who adhere to that rule. That's not hard to do.

You know, I mean, they call it a big bowl. That's not even, I mean, for you and me. Oh, I know. I have that in my smoothie in the morning. That's before lunch amount of greens to try to ingest every day. Well, when you look around the produce section of the supermarket, fruits and vegetables are colored with compounds called carotenoids. Some of the pigments that are used in produce are called carotenoids. There are anthocyanins and there are other pigments. But carotenoids specifically, I think, are crucially important to having an optimally performing brain. These include compounds called lutein and zeaxanthin. Another carotenoid that you might have heard of is beta carotene, which in the body becomes vitamin A. But lutein and zeaxanthin have

been primarily considered for their value to eye health over the past couple of decades. About six milligrams of combined lutein and zeaxanthin every day can help ward off a condition called age-related macular degeneration. But it's now known that these compounds also accumulate in brain tissue and they actually can help us have more efficient brains. And, and researchers out of University of Georgia, when using lutein and zeaxanthin supplementally have shown that even in young and healthy college students, you can achieve a 20% boost in visual processing speed by consuming

these carotenoids every single day. And where are these compounds found? They're found in produce. Anytime you see colorful veggies, dark leafy greens, they're rich in these two compounds. And kale, in particular, is the most abundant in them. In about a cup of cooked kale, you get 24 milligrams of combined lutein and zeaxanthin. So if you take raw kale, for example, which is probably what you might use in a salad, about a cup and a third, you're getting about 24 grams or milligrams, rather, of these carotenoids, which have been shown not only to be associated with better brain health and better brain function as one ages, but can actually boost the processing speed of your brain. So one important thing that people don't understand is that eye health, your eyes are the only part of your brain that is uncovered. So your eyes are really part of your brain. And so to have something that's good for your eyes, good for other parts

of your brain, just completely makes sense. So I like that because a green leafy salad with fatty, as you said, like either nuts or olive oil or salmon on it or something like that, you can get you either make it at home or you can buy it out. You can pretty much buy that almost anywhere. So that's not a hard thing to buy. So that's an easy that's an easy tip. So just make that your lunch. Like I tell people, just get used to the idea. Make if you don't know what to eat for breakfast, eat a smoothie just just for a while for a week, make it a smoothie and add greens to it. And, you know, so there's a specific thing you put in them, but if I, if we give them very specific things to do, it just makes it so much

easier. So the salad I love. Yeah. I mean, every single day I'm trying to eat a big bowl of dark leafy greens with, you know, maybe I'm making it my, the entirety of my meal. Maybe I'm having it on the side, but either way, I'm trying to get those greens, whether it's kale, spinach, arugula, they all have different benefits. But another important tip, as you mentioned, you want to, you know, you definitely want to include fat because these valuable compounds are not absorbed without fat consumed concurrently. So you want to douse that salad in extra virgin olive oil. That's the primary fat that I recommend. You definitely want to avoid commercial salad dressings, which usually use very brain unhealthy oils like canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil. You want to avoid those oils. And all you got to do is look at the ingredients list of your

commercial. You know, if you're buying a pre-made salad dressing, you want to make sure that it doesn't have any of those oils. No canola, no corn, no soybean oil, no grapeseed oil, extra virgin olive oil, maybe avocado oil, close, you know, runner up. Those are the primary oils that you want to use in that salad. And that helps, it creates like a slip and slide, essentially, so that those brain valuable nutrients are going to be able to enter circulation and make their way up to your brain. People think of the Mediterranean diet and pizza. So could you talk to us about gluten and dairy and your thoughts on them as they relate to the brain? Yeah, there hasn't really been a very direct connection in the literature. Well, speaking openly, there hasn't really been a connection between gluten consumption and Alzheimer's disease or any form of dementia. But there is this idea that gluten in everybody stimulates unnecessary intestinal permeability.

And this happens to a violent degree in people with celiac disease. But gluten is a protein that nobody can properly digest. Now, the dose makes the poison, I think, with something like gluten. No human can properly digest it, and yet it's become saturated in the modern food environment. We're consuming high amounts of gluten at every single meal, whether it's, you know, pasta, wheat-based pastas or sandwiches or wraps. Wraps are actually made using the addition of even more gluten so that the wrap stays stretchy and it doesn't break. And then you have gluten added to sauces and gravies and soy sauce and things like that. So it's this protein that no person can properly digest. And we're

just consuming more of it than ever before in human history. So I think that it's definitely worth avoiding, or at least minimizing your consumption of it if you're not overly sensitive to gluten. And acknowledging that gluten can have effects in the body that are purely extra intestinal, meaning that you could be consuming gluten, you won't necessarily get bloating or diarrhea afterwards, but that it could be having an effect, right? How this relates to Alzheimer's disease has not been elucidated in the literature. But just to hedge my bets, that's my opinion on gluten. And also gluten is found in foods that are usually processed. And so I think it's worth avoiding for that reason as well. So I don't personally

consume bread. I don't think pasta is a health food, even though they do consume pasta, you know, in the Mediterranean, um, obviously, but, uh, but I try to avoid those foods and I try to build my diet around foods that are more nutrient dense. So, um, grass-fed beef, fatty, you know, uh, cold water fish, um, nuts, seeds, dark leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, eggs, things like that. And if I am traveling and I want to try some unbelievable bread, I'll do that. But it's definitely not a staple in my diet. And as far as dairy goes, most adults are lactose intolerant. But if you're not overtly sensitive to dairy, I do think that there are some worthwhile nutrients in dairy that I think are interesting. We can talk about vitamin K2,

which is found primarily in grass-fed dairy. It helps deposit calcium in your bones and teeth, really important for maintaining bone health. The dentist who pioneered looking at how nutrition affects dental health, Weston A. Price, was a huge fan of grass-fed dairy and things like that. I also think Greek yogurt is a great source of protein. And in my new book, The Genius Life, I actually talk about the value of protein for achieving a healthier body composition. If you're going to consume dairy, the research suggests that full fat dairy is the way to go. People who consume full fat dairy, not low fat or fat free dairy, but full fat dairy seem to be protected against metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease, things like that. And you also want to make sure that you're not,

you know, where while yogurt can certainly be healthy, you want to make sure that you're not, you know, where while yogurt can certainly be healthy, you want to make sure that you're not consuming yogurt with lots of added sugar, which is definitely not going to be good for the brain. You know, my concern about dairy is almost all of it is raised with antibiotics and hormones. And, you know, whatever an animal is fed or given, you get the residue of that. I'm also concerned that so both gluten turns into gluteomorphins in your stomach when mixed with stomach acid that works on the heroin centers of your brain and dairy turns into caseomorphins, which so when people take it out of their diet, they're beginning to go, well, when can I have it back? And that's sort of the reason,

which is why I used to be addicted to my mother's pizza. And I agree with you on the full fat, even like butter. If you're going to have grass fed butter, I'd rather you do that than margarine and stuff like that. It's also got butyric acid, which is good for your gut, which I really like. But with milks and things like that, I think people need to be really careful because the pasteurization is a process that actually causes other problems when you're drinking it. And it's the same with homogenization. So they homogenize the milk, which actually can cause some health problems for people if you're drinking a lot of it. I always tell people if you're having a little bit and you're not intolerant to it, that's fine.

It's when they're drinking, you see kids drinking massive amounts of it. They don't know if they're lactose intolerant, but they've got brain fog or they've got dark circles and it's worth trying to limit it at least. And if you have no problem, like, you know, less to worry about. But I've found in my autistic kids, when I took them off dairy in particular, their ear infections went down because ear infections cause all sorts of problems because then they go on antibiotics and then they have general surgery to have their,

the tubes put in their ears. But they talk more that their language the first time i learned this which is almost 30 years ago i took an autistic child of dairy and the next week they gained 50 words and so you know was that because they were sort of in this opiate fog and getting rid of that really helped. Well, certainly some people are more sensitive. When we come back, we're going to talk more specifically about Max's new book, The Genius Life. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode.

And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain healthy supplements from BrainMD, you can use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at brainmdhealth.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.