What’s So Great About Good Health

The Brain-Nutrition Connection & the Real Payoff of Being Healthy

We log time on the treadmill. We scrutinize our plates for nutrition. We watch our portions and increase our fruit and vegetable servings.

Why do we do it?

We want to be healthy. But what is good health? And why can “healthy” sometimes seem like it has a PR problem?

Here’s the “problem” with healthy:

  • You can’t show it off like a purse or a haircut.
  • Unlike a weight loss effort or 5K race, it’s constant, dynamic, and never-ending.
  • You can’t plan a party to celebrate the results – health benefits often occur 10, 20, even 50 years down the line.

So what’s to like about health? Where’s the flash? Where’s the sizzle?

Why Healthy Sizzles 

First, health does have some immediate benefits to relish. While it may take decades to see some of the effects of disease prevention, health has advantages in the present as well. It may not be as noticeable as a Gucci purse, but good nutrition is something you can wear – you can see it on your face, in the brightness of your skin and the glow in your eyes, and in the clothes that fit you better. If you are healthy, you can achieve more because you feel better and stronger inside and out, and that’s pretty flashy.

But here’s the real sizzle: health contributes to living a better life. Superfood orginator Dr. Steve Pratt explains health and longevity this way:

“Brain heart, eyes—they all go together. Rarely do you see a brain that’s top notch and poor eyesight. It’s good for the eyes, it’s good for the brain and if it’s good for the brain it’s good for the heart.”

Being healthy means being healthy all over. We don’t want to age without it—getting older is not what it’s cracked up to be if we can’t see, we can’t move, and we can’t remember.

Your Brain IS Your Health

For today’s growing population of baby boomers, cognitive health and health is one and the same. Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline is a grave concern as our longevity potential grows. Without affordable genetic testing, most of us simply don’t know to what degree we are predisposed to diseases of the brain.

All we know is that having our health tomorrow means making efforts to prevent brain disease, among other diseases of aging, today. And if you think about it, the idea that prevention could be possible is as exciting as a purse, a 5K, or the biggest celebration. When you believe that, you’ve got your own definition of good health, and that’s the most important step toward achieving it.

Healthy Today & Tomorrow 

According to Susan Davis, MS, RD, nutrition advisor to the Wild Blueberry Association of North America, “New research is really bearing out the idea that a diet rich in wild blueberries may help prevent cognitive decline.” AARP The Magazine named wild blueberries to its list of the most powerful disease-fighting foods. The research into wild blueberries and their positive effect on the brain in mounting. Areas of recent study include their potential for improving memory loss, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of cognitive impairment.

Notably, recent research shows wild blueberry supplemented diets could improve memory function and mood in older adults with early memory decline. The effect of a short-term blueberry-enriched diet on aged lab animals suggests that they may prevent and reverse a considerable degree of age-related object memory decline. And, in another study, researchers have found that the deeply colored berries enable “housekeeper” cells in the brain to remove biochemical debris, which is believed to contribute to the decline of mental functioning with age. It’s the natural pigments called anthocyanins that give the berries their deep-blue color as well as their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory power. They score twice as high in antioxidant capacity per serving as cultivated blueberries, making them the go-to berry for brain protection.

The bottom line is that something in a large blue bag in your freezer can be your definition of health. The intense benefit of wild blueberries is the best way we can think of to illustrate the potential of nutritional prevention. A small act of eating daily servings have the attention of nutritionists, scientists and consumers alike, especially those of retirement age and beyond. So put a little sizzle in your life (you’ll know it’s there). But do it today. And every day of your long, healthy life.

Read More: See the press release Wild Blueberries – Brain Food for Boomers? in MaineToday.


Can something delicious and readily available help protect you from cognitive decline? Babble attempts to answer with their post Blueberry Brain Boosters and enters their recipe for Fresh Blueberry Morning Bread, which is anything but medicinal, as evidence.

Plate of Prevention: Should Your Food Be Treating You?

Scientists and researchers around the world are engaged in finding cures for disease. They are isolating components in food that could help prevent cancers and diseases of aging, they are engaged in clinic trials of pharmaceuticals, and they are studying the mechanisms of the body to discover how and why diseases occur to make strides toward prevention.

While this worthwhile research persists, the irony is that every day we can be part of treatment and prevention of disease. After all, we eat at least three times a day. Why wouldn’t we be using that opportunity to do what thousands of researchers are in their labs trying to do?

Since the late eighties we’ve heard the term “functional food” – food with health-promoting or disease-preventing property. More recently were introduced to the concept of superfoods – foods like blueberries with a particularly high concentration of phytonutrients. But we often think of those foods as isolated and special, categorized as such for their unique nutritional power.

Instead, perhaps we should be viewing all our food as poised to improve or deteriorate our health. Do you see your meals as disease preventing measures, or simply sustenance and enjoyment?

How We View Food

A recent report from the Hartman Group, a research and marketing firm that focuses on health and wellness, sheds a little light on our views about wellness, including how we view food when it comes to treatment and prevention. According to the report, consumers are more apt to see foods as useful in preventing health issues rather than treating problems. The report includes the following data:

  • 56% use foods to prevent high cholesterol; 30% to treat it.
  • 46% use food to prevent cancer; 10% to treat it.
  • 41% use food to prevent high blood pressure; 15% to treat it.
  • 27% use food to treat osteoporosis; 10% to treat it.

Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, when it comes to being overweight or obese, it’s the exception to the rule of prevention-not-treatment. Nearly equal numbers of respondents said they’re using foods to prevent excessive weight or treat it.

Food as Treatment

There are plenty of authors and nutritionists that advocate the use of food (whole foods that are readily available, not herbs and tinctures) as treatment for disease and ailments by urging us to choose the right foods or food combinations. From white turnip fasts for fibroids to cabbage for depression, advocates say we can prevent addiction, allergies, even ADD, in addition to cancers and heart disease.

There are undisputed ways of treating disease with food as well. Celiac disease is treated by adopting a gluten-free lifestyle, for example. Diabetes has long been known to be a nutritional disease despite non-food treatments. A recent follow-up study by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health
indicates that people with metabolic syndrome may be able to reverse symptoms (in as sense, treat them) through diet. The potential of reversing cognitive ability and other diseases of aging are currently being researched as well and hold fascinating potential for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, age-related memory loss, even neurodengenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.

We also tend to see aging as a disease to be treated. According to the Hartman group study, older people are most likely to be concerned with “treating” aging, while younger people use foods more for energy or stress reduction without concern about anti-aging. While the two are likely to intersect, it may be one example of having the disease before we treat it rather than relying on prevention.

But beyond these food treatments, a shift in views about all foods that go into our mouths is brewing. Talk to nutritionist and laypersons alike, and you’ll likely find them say that they are seeing their food differently – as something that will be incorporated into their body to promote general health and well-being as opposed to seeing it as something tasty, filling, indulgent or fast. They look at their plate and they see medicine.

Food as Prevention

Termed “defensive eating” by the American Dietetic Association, eating for prevention means harnessing the power of vitamins and minerals in food and extracting an aggressively protective, or “anti” effect. For example, because wild blueberries contain nearly 100 phytochemicals, and phytochemicals they are agents of protection: they are antibacterial, antiinflammtory and anitoxdant among a host of other “antis”. Getting “anti” on your diet means you are eating for prevention.

While using food to prevent disease is more common than using food as treatment, sometimes treatment can just be prevention that’s happening too late. Consider those who have experienced cardiovascular events and subsequent operations who use diet as compulsory treatment when prevention could have lessened the chances of having the event in the first place.

But evidence suggests food-as-medicine is intensifying, and not at the grass roots – it may be happening from the top down. Recently, doctors have actually begun prescribing healthy foods to patients. As part of an initiative taking place at three Massachusetts health centers, doctors have been giving out free passes to farmer’s markets to those who need them. It should come as no surprise: for years some doctors have advocated going to the fruit and vegetable aisle in order to avoid going to the medicine cabinet. Here is The Color Code author Jim Joseph on prevention:

“By changing what you eat, you can reduce your blood pressure, lower your blood sugar, and diminish the risks of cancer, heart disease and macular degeneration. You can do all these things without pricey pharmaceuticals, just be adopting a more healthy, semi-vegetarian diet—one loaded with dark leafy greens, deep organ vegetables and vibrant red and blue fruits. […] As a Greek adage says, ‘It is the function of medicine to help people die young as late a possible.’  Food is precisely the medicine that let’s you do that. Colorful food that is.”


What’s Your Treatment Plan?

Do you view your food as treatment, prevention or something else entirely? Today, if you’re not viewing what’s on your plate as your three-times-daily “dose” rather than just a palliative for hunger, give it a try. Try seeing everything that goes into your mouth as part of your Rx. It might give you a very different view of how you are “treating” your body and your health.

Want more information? The USDA has information about diet and disease.

Anti-Aging Uncovered Part II: Alzheimer’s, Aging & The Brain

In the quest to uncover the secrets of youth and longevity, the foremost concern is the brain. If we can extend our lives by remaining mobile and disease free, that must include diseases that wreak havoc on our ability to understand and process information from the world around us. Preserving brain function generally means preserving memory.

While it seems all we hear is bad news about poor health and growing obesity rates, the modern lifestyle, taken as a whole, has provided human beings with improved diets, more health conscious lifestyles, and improved social involvement, all crucial elements to life extension. As a result, our life expectancy has increased; many of us expect to live into our 80s and beyond. Consequently, as the population ages, issues of senility and Alzheimer’s have become epidemic. More than 5 millions people have Alzheimer’s disease today and are dealing with its devastating effects.

An Alzheimer’s Epidemic

At the same time, there have been exciting strides in understanding the aging brain. Today, because of this understanding, we no longer feel that senility is just an inevitable part of getting older. We also know that Alzheimer’s disease targets certain segments of the population and is connected to the genes and is therefore inheritable. Also, researchers have found that regular memory loss that accompanies aging and memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease happen in two very distinct parts of the brain.

One of the groundbreaking discoveries in research on the aging brain has revealed that aging degrades certain types of memory while leaving others intact. Memory occurs in the temporal lobe, but within this temporal lobe, differences are clear. These differences are in the “declarative system” – which can be considered a sort of conscious, readily available memory for things like people and places – and the “nondeclarative system” – an unconscious or gained memory of sorts, such as memory for a learned motor skill or for perception and experiences.

While we might consider these both “memory” (we “remember” how to play tennis or that we have a fear of dogs, just as we “remember” what we had for breakfast or who our friends are), they are in fact not unified systems at all. Consider a patient who, because of a disease of the brain, cannot remember relatives or store any memory of meeting or seeing people that he or she has just seen early in the day. Then, consider that this patient can learn a skill over the course of several days and improve upon it. In both of these scenarios memory seems to be at work, but the two systems are not connected.

Has Rick Castle Solved the Mysteries of the Brain?

The nature of this disconnection is not known. However, we do know that this “declarative” or conscious memory system is susceptible to age, whereas the “nondeclarative” memory (or skill at tennis and our fear of dogs) is much less susceptible. We can see evidence of this in an episode of Castle this season, a prime time procedural about solving murder cases. As part of the episode’s plot, a man who may have witnessed or committed a murder had lost his memory. He had no recollection of who he was, where he lived, or who he was married to. In an effort to determine his identity, the quick-thinking detective asked the man to sign something. With pen and paper in front of him, he signed effortlessly, and his name was discovered.

The sly Rick Castle realized that although the man could not recall his name (declarative memory) he would still be able to sign his name (nondeclarative memory) because it was something he had repeated so often, it had become second nature – the act of moving the pen was a motor skill, like driving, not a conscious recollection of what he was writing. While access to one type memory had been blocked, the other was wide open.

While a prime time murder series shouldn’t be considered a reliable source for science, the scene seemed to have a handle on the idea that different types of memory occur in different systems, and while one can be eroded or wiped clean, the other can remain intact. Finding out what portion of the temporal lobe is in charge of the declarative and nondeclarative systems can play an important role in isolating the disease discovered by Dr. Alzheimer back in 1906.

Brain Aging & Cholesterol Metabolism

Isolating Alzheimer’s disease is one step toward the achieving the ideal: anti-aging. If we can preserve brain function, along with body function, we can delay the aging process. Unfortunately, we cannot currently modify our genes or treat Alzheimer’s disease or the memory loss that comes with the aging brain. We can only take precautions by understanding its risk factors. Researchers have discovered that one of the risk factors appears to be how the body handles glucose. Studies of the genetic code of those with Alzheimer’s disease appear to suggest it is connected to cholesterol metabolism.

One of the normal processes in our body is that it releases insulin from the pancreas and allows the muscles to metabolize it. But as we age, we all become a bit insulin resistant. For some, this can lead to type-2 diabetes, an age-related disease. For others, it may not lead to a diagnosis of diabetes, but it can still pose challenges to the aging body.

Knowing that increases in insulin are risk factors provides important knowledge in the prevention of this disease. For example, lately there has been much interest in eating foods with a low glycemic index as part of a healthy diet. Understanding the glycemic values of food makes healthy meal planning easier especially for people with diabetes. A food’s glycemic load measures both the type and quantity of carbohydrate consumed, telling us how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns into sugar and how much of that carbohydrate a particular food contains. (While research is currently underway to evaluate these claims, GI foods may also have an effect on weight loss and appetite control.)

When we talk about “brain food” we are talking about food that is good for our brain because of how efficiently our body can process its glucose. Foods with a low glycemic load keep our glucose levels steady and can keep us clear headed – perhaps not just in the short term but in the long term. So, when it comes to preventing diseases of the aging brain, one thing we can do is watch our glucose intake and take measures to prevent diabetes.

What else can we do to prevent aging in the brain?

1) We can exercise – our bodies and our minds. That the healthy brain is associated with a healthy body is not just lip service. Moreover, high brain function is related to social engagement and intellectual activity. Cognitive involvement, especially social involvement, is a major factor in preserving brain function.

2) We can hope for a cure. First stage Alzheimer’s disease is known to affect the synapses of the brain, not the cell itself. This means that if caught and treated early, because cell death is not occurring, chances are good that the brain could repair itself. At the same time, finding the gene responsible for Alzheimer’s does not automatically mean there will be a cure. (Consider the search for the right drug to treat Huntington’s disease: while the gene can be isolated and families can be tested, finding out you have the gene only means you can prepare, not be cured.) It is, however, a first step.

3) We can embrace the benefits of the aging brain. While age-related memory loss and Alzheimer’s can occur, there are other benefits to growing old with the brain you have. The aging brain retains wisdom and perspective. Anxiety generally decreases in the aging brain. And, while details may be lost, the big picture is not: the aging brain appears to retain is ability to grasps the “gist” of things – a benefit that is both advantageous and valued.


Interested in more information on Alzheimer’s Disease? The Alzheimer’s Project is a series of films produced by HBO which provide an in-depth look into the scientific advances being made in research and medical understanding of this disease.

Participate in Alzheimer’s Research. Scientists are making great strides in identifying potential new interventions to diagnose, slow, prevent, treat, and someday cure Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, more than 90 drugs are in clinical trials for AD, and more are in the pipeline awaiting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to enter human testing. Find out about how to be part of a trial or study at the National Institute of Aging.

Educate Yourself & Find Support. The Alzheimer’ Association can help you to understand the warning signs of aging and provide you with avenues for support when it comes to living with this disease.

The Charlie Rose Brain Series was used as a source for some of the information in the above post.

Is Death a Disease to Be Cured? Anti-Aging Uncovered: Part I

Recently, we read a fun post from the Idaho Statesmen that takes a global look at the Top Antiaging Foods. The “You” docs, the force behind www.RealAge.com, also known as Oprah pals Mehmet Oz and Mike Roizen, the authors of You: On a Diet, are responsible for the list. To make the case for anti-aging and preventing age-related diseases, the Docs take one cautionary step away from anti-aging marketing and one forthright step toward foods that those who live long healthy lives actually eat. From Nova Scotia’s Blueberry Grunt to the wine of France, they celebrate proven healthy eating around the world.

The “You” Docs are right to consider our eating habits from a global as well as a historical perspective. As our lifestyle becomes more and more modern, our food choices evolve and contract too, and tunnel vision sets in. Because foods like berries, nuts, fish, veggies actually work in opposition to the modern lifestyle, our need for these “real” foods has increased, and our consumption of them has dropped.

When it comes to the impact of nutrition on longevity, the claims seem almost magical. That nature is full of powerfully nutritious foods that conspire to offer a fountain of youth seems too good to be true. But what’s even more magical is the idea that some foods and how we eat them can not just prevent aging but reverse the aging process. All the prattle about anti-aging on everything from a bottle of face cream to a cereal bar begs the question: what is anti-aging? Is death itself a disease that can be cured?

An Amazing Mechanism

Dr. Pratt, Superfoods guru and author of Superfoods Rx – 14 Foods That Will Change Your Life credits longevity to foods like blueberries, avocados, yogurt, tomatoes and wild salmon. He gave an interview to Wild Blueberry Health News this past fall.

“Your body is an amazing repair mechanism given half a chance,” Pratt said, opening the door to the idea that foods can not only slow the aging process but reverse it. “These foods they are very important to us. They lower inflammatory markers. They cause basal dilation, they lower blood pressure.” The very things responsible for the diseases of aging.

You’ve heard it before. People say, understandably, that they don’t want to live “too” long because they would be bed-ridden and feeble-minded. But the very idea of longevity is that we don’t want to just live longer, we want to be healthy, too. Pratt said he has talked to patients for decades that are afraid to get old. “They are afraid to get old because they’re afraid they’ll be blind, deaf, in a wheelchair…all of these things that put people in a nursing home. And berries [and other foods on his list, too] offer a tasty way to avoid all that.”

Wow. Really? Avoid all that?

“It’s really that simple.”

Enter anti-aging – of the body’s mechanism, not its chronology – which includes all aspects of the body: the brain, the heart, the eyes – those things that pop up first on the list of what’s important to preserve during our more mature years. They all go together, says Dr. Pratt. “Rarely do you see a brain that’s top notch and poor eyesight. It’s good for the eyes, it’s good for the brain and if it’s good for the brain it’s good for the heart,” he said.

The Science of Anti-aging

In fact, it’s really not magic, it’s science. One of the most important aspects of “anti-aging” that these foods can deliver is anti-inflammation.

Some foods (like berries) lower inflammatory markers, as Pratt said. They cause basal dilation and lower blood pressure and improve blood flow. They work on the capillary level to keep microcirculation working well, and that affects the heart, the brain and eyes and prevents the diseases of aging that attacks them.

Chronic inflammation at the cellular level is at the heart of many degenerative age-related diseases. For example, when rats with neuronal lesions were fed a blueberry-supplemented diet, not only did they perform better in cognitive tests, the concentration of several substances in the brain that can trigger an inflammatory response was significantly reduced. The polyphenols in blueberries appear to inhibit the production of these inflammatory mediators. Dr. James Joseph, Ph. D., from the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging has been studying the anti-inflammatory potential of the polyphenols in blueberries, his research is published in Nutritional Neuroscience.

Preventing the disease of aging is an important and nascent issue in the field of nutrition, and research into its implications is exploding. In future posts, we’ll explore more of the science behind longevity, otherwise known as healthy aging, anti-aging, and age-related disease prevention. Behind each term may lurk the key to making our golden years truly worth living.