From Harvard Health to WebMD, the topic of eating for your body and brain has been one circling, well, many minds. Whether it be the foods to eat the night before a big test or what to be putting on the menu in senior centers, there’s a curiosity in the zeitgeist about how what we eat affects the way we think.
In honor of World Alzheimer’s Day on Sept. 21, we turned to Kaitlyn Rundle, a local inpatient dietitian at OhioHealth, for some food for thought.
According to Rundle, good nutrition and healthy eating habits are a long-game strategy when it comes to impacting your health. As she put it:
“If people go down the road of having a healthy lifestyle, then their risk for chronic disease [such as Alzheimer’s or Dementia] drops … [So] putting themselves first is going to help with that cognition — and from a preventative standpoint — from developing those chronic diseases that we see.”
As part of an overall healthy diet, Rundle specifically called out eating your fruits and veggies. “Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables and making sure that those fruits and vegetables have a lot of color to them … can get all of those important antioxidants and phytochemicals,” she said.
According to Rundle, many antioxidants and phytochemicals found in fruits and vegetables have been studied in relation to brain health and function. Among these, Rundle noted Curcumin, which is the primary antioxidant in turmeric, and the catechins found in green tea.
She also noted anthocyanins, the easy-to-spot antioxidants that give foods a blue or purple coloring; you’ll find them in fruits like blueberries and black grapes and vegetables like purple cauliflower and eggplant.
For those who eat meat, or pescatarians, Rundle also suggested incorporating fish into the diet for better brain power. “Omega-3 fatty acids [found in fish] play an important role in brain structure and function,” Rundle clarified, “so the thought is that this is going to play an important role in brain health as well.”
Rundle also discussed how swapping out refined grains — such as white rice or white bread — for whole grains as part of a comprehensive healthy eating plan could also improve your cognition.
“Whole grains have been studied in blood glucose levels … Well controlled blood glucose levels have a lot to do with the inflammatory process and anti-inflammatory properties, and anti-inflammatory foods are shown to help with cognition. So I think that those two things go hand in hand,” she explained.
Rundle also pointed out that it’s about more than just what to eat; how you eat is important, too. Specifically, she cautions against yo-yo dieting, the cyclical process of short-term weight loss but subsequent weight gain.
“Yo-yo dieting, in all aspects of health, is not good. It messes with our [hunger] hormones Ghrenlin and Leptin,” Rundle says. “Instead of doing a yo-yo diet, it’s better to just follow a general healthy lifestyle.”
Indeed, above all else Rundle encourages people to simply focus on the big picture. “Overall eat[ing] healthier is going to help not only cognition but … overall health in general,” she said.
What does that overall healthy diet look like? “Plenty fruits and vegetables, focusing on whole grain, eating lean sources of protein and milk and also watching sugary beverages,” said Rundle.
