Brain Disorders and Nutrition

Stroke

Each year more than 5 million people worldwide suffer strokes and over 100,000 lives are claimed. The death rate for strokes has been cut down to less than half of what was fifty years ago, thanks largely to a better understanding of the underlying causes, especially the key risk factors, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, arteriosclerosis and diabetes.

A number of unhealthy lifestyle habits also increases the risk of stroke. These include smoking, excessive use of alcohol, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle Diet plays an important role in reducing or eliminating these risk factors. A good starting point is to adopt a diet that is low in fats, especially saturated animal fats and tropical (palm and coconut) oils.

About sixty per cent of the daily intake of calories should come from carbohydrates, with emphasis on such starchy foods as noodles and pasta, grains and legumes, along with five to ten daily servings of fruits and vegetables.

These foods are high in the soluble fibres that help control cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of arteriosclerosis, which narrows the arteries and sets the stage for developing blood clots that block the flow of blood to the brain.

Eat Plenty of :

• Fresh fruits and vegetables for Vitamin C and other antioxidants.
• Nuts, seeds, green leafy vegetables, wheat germ and fortified cereals for Vitamin E: bananas for potassium
• Oily fish for omega-3 fatty acids
• Oat bran, 'chira', legumes, and fruits for pectin and other soluble fibres.
• Onions and garlic, which may help to prevent blood clots

Cut Down on :

• Animal and dairy products that are high in saturated fats and cholesterol
• Salt, which may raise blood pressure

Avoid:

• Smoking
• Excessive weight gain
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Alzheimer's Disease is the leading cause of dementia worldwide in people over the age of 65. There are no specific diagnostic tests for Alzheimer's, but before arriving at a diagnosis, tests are needed to rule out a stroke, a brain tumour, nutritional deficiencies, thyroid disorders, syphilis and other possible causes of dementia.

Foods That May Slow Alzheimer's:

• Eggs are a good dietary source of choline -a component of lecithin. They are also a good source of protein, iron, Vitamin B12, and other B Vitamins.
• Soybeans and other soy products are rich in choline and provide protein, carbohydrate, calcium and fibre.
• Wheat germ and whole grains supply choline, carbohydrate, Vitamin E, B Vitamins and numerous minerals.

Avoid :

• Zinc supplements, which may hasten the onset of symptoms
• Alcohol, which can worsen memory loss and dementia.

Neuralgia

Specialised nerves in the body carry pain messages to the brain, where they are interpreted and responses are transmitted over other sets of nerves. Neuralgia is an umbrella term for any type of throbbing, or paroxysmal pain that extends along the course of one or more peripheral nerves. Tumours, both cancerous and benign can cause neurlagia. So too do structural problems in which nerves become compressed or pinched; sciatica, the throbbing pain that can extend from the lower back and buttocks to the feet, is one of the most common examples.

Eat plenty of :

• Lean meat, poultry, eggs, and low-fat dairy products for Vitamin B12, and fortified breads and cereals for thiamine; spinach, potatoes, and melons for Vitamin B6.
• Eggs, poultry, seafood, nuts, seeds, wheat germ, and wholel-grain foods for Vitamin E.
• Meal Plan for the Nutrition of the Brain and the Circulatory System
• On waking. Fruit juice, or tea with a little milk
• Breakfast. Any cereal with milk. Fruit juice. Eggs cooked any way using olive oil or soybean oil or margarine, or boiled or poached in water. Fish (such as hilsha) kedgeree, or grilled fish. Bread and preserves. Tea or coffee with small amounts of milk.
• Mid-morning. Fruit juice or tea
• Midday. Soup. Lean meat (100 gms) or fish(150 t0 200 gms ). Vegetables. Sweets or cheese.
• Tea. Tea or coffee. Small portion of cakes or biscuits (prepared with oil and no salt)
• Evemning. Lean meat (100gms) or fish (150 to 200gms), cooked vegetables or salad. Fresh fruit
• Bedtime. Fruit juice.

Health & Wellbeing :

Upgrading Your Memory

Who do we forget? And how can we improve our ability to remember?

Science is beginning to unravel the mysteries of recall, Safiq Qaadri writes:

Memories are our soul's private collection, the store of experience and emotion, the defining element of our most personal selves. The modern world rewards a better memory, and many seek to enhance their recall. Others struggle to maintain their current memory, and are terrified of it fading away. Society itself is said to have a collective memory, and psychologists and scientists are researching techniques and medications to turbo-charge recollection. But can memory be improved?

"I wish I could install another hard drive in my brain," says a 43-year-old man who changed jobs and is undergoing skills-retraining. Unfortunately, for now, human memory can not be upgraded as easily as a computer's. And in our busy workaday world, there are so many things to remember: names, numbers, password, appointments, instructions, birthdays, directions. Where did you park your car? Did you shut the lights off? You didn't forget your anniversary again?

Certainly, some people are born with extraordinary gifts of recall. There are individuals, even whole families, with eidetic (photographic) memories: Such people can look at a painting or newspaper, close their eyes and retain a fully detailed image, with all its colour, nuance and text.

But most people are not so gifted, and many seek advice on bettering their recall. "Doc, isn't there some kind of memory pill you can give me?" asks a 25-year-old law student who is bewildered by her course load. While there are many products and programmes that promise information mastery, social success and total recall, there is no ideal solution, despite the many marketing claims.

No single memory-enhancement approach will suffice, as there are many subsystems to memory: How well you learn information initially, how deeply you process it, will have an impact on how efficiently you can retrieve material later. Distractions, depression, alcohol and sleeping pills, for example, all dull concentration and interfere with learning. Fear and anxiety, on the other hand, are good memory-inducers, making certain life experiences difficult to forget.

"I can't bear the scent of cedar and pine," says a divorced woman whose husband informed her of his affair at their cottage. This is an example of cued recall, and smells - whether of a lover's perfume or a favorite childhood meal - also rivet memory, cutting through our filters and going straight into storage. The brain is hard-wired to respond to fragrances, and that's why particular odours are so transporting, something the cosmetics industry seeks to exploit.

Neuroscientists are still uncovering the unimaginable complexity of memory, and continue to map the anatomy of recollection. The brain is the original supercomputer, and its 100-billion nerve cells, which form trillions of interconnections, are the infrastructure of mind, the basis of the richness and texture of thought. When confronting the brain, even usually non-poetic scientists rhapsodise about its intricacy. Freud was so impressed by the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain responsible for higher learning, he proclaimed, "Anatomy is destiny." To some extent, he may be right. Our attention-wiring can only handle about seven new items of information at once. Also, the brain stores different kinds of information in different sites: Memories of faces, numbers, skills, even first and second languages, reside in separate locations.

And functionality is distributed also: An injury to one part of the brain (say, Broca's speech area, about the size of a quarter, in the left hemisphere) prevents a person from speaking, yet they can still sing. Injury to the hippocampus - a seahorse-shaped structure that is the brain's arrival's terminal - prevents a person from forming new memories, yet long-held memories remain intact. With such labyrinthine complexity, no one memory-enhancement approach will work.

Nevertheless, there are several self-help books, Websites and courses that teach memory-management skills. Chunking information into smaller bits is the most familiar, and makes a string of numbers such as 3759421 more easily remembered as 375-9421.

Another suggestion is to attach an image to information. "Visualisation is a strong tool to use for some people," says Anne Unken-stein, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Melbourne, and author of remembering well. How Memory Works and What to do When it Doesn't." For example, if you park on level 4C, imagine "Four Cats" on your hood to remember your spot later.

Mnemonic devices are another approach, and add chained structure to otherwise disparate items. Want to remember the colours of the rainbow? Meet ROY G. BN: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Without dozens of such mnemonics, medical students would not survive their schooling, as their memory circuits are always overloaded. For example, to pass psychiatry oral exams, students must ask depressed patients about key symptoms, and many students have been saved by a the mnemonic SIGECAPS: Sleep, Interest, Guilt, Energy, Concentration, Appetite, Psychological agitation, and Suicidal thoughts. Other techniques carry this approach further, and describe how m to chunk, chain and add story line in for 25, even 100 items. It is a matter of processing time, concentration, rehearsal and how elaborate - even bizarre - your imagery can become. All these mental exercises are part of neurobics, brain work-outs, which help to consolidate memory and learning.

With exercise comes nutrition, and there are several vitamins and herbs that are gaining reputations as "brain foods."

"Increasing levels of Vitamin E were associated with better memory performance," concludes a study from the Indiana University Center for Aging Research. Vitamin E is an antioxidant found in vegetable oils and fruits, and keeps the brain rust-free, cleaning the blood by neutralising damaging chemicals known as free radicals. Folic acid is found in grains and uncooked vegetables, and is also a circulation protector, according to the Human Nutrition Research Center at Tuft University in Boston. Doctors now recommend folic-acid supplements to pregnant women to help prevent fetal brain malformations, so there is a general beneficial effect on nerve cells. Some studies are now hinting at a potential role for folic acid in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
Gingko biloba, the dried leaf of a tropical tree, is the much-publicised Oriental herb. Proponents feel it is a "universal brain tonic," that it promotes blood flow and prevents hardening of the arteries. Medically approved studies cautiously note using gingko biloba has an improving effect on alertness, mental clarity. reaction time, vision and memory. "But so little is known with certainty," says professor Robert Green, a neurologist at the Boston University School of Medicine Memory Assessment Clinic. Physician-supervised studies are under way, and more definitive conclusions are pending, despite the ambitious claims by the industry.

For some individuals, the problem with their memory is that they can't forget. "I want to move ahead with my life," says a 59-year-old woman who was widowed after 33 years of marriage. She is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder: Two years after her husband's death, she still finds herself phoning him, or wearing clothes for him to admire. "Then it hits me - he's gone." With psychotherapy and medications, she is making modest progress.

But what are the treatment options when memory truly goes wrong?

Alzheimer's disease, also known as aging dementia, is a medical catastrophe, a devastating illness in which people become shells of their former selves.

Interestingly, the patient who asks about Alzheimer's usually doesn't have it. But many do - about 5 per cent of people over 65 - with more expected as Canada ages.

Medications such as donepezil and its cousins help to restore levels of a messenger molecule in the brain, the neurotransmitter acetyl-choline, which is important for memory circuits. But despite the intense research, these medications have only moderate benefits, helping to delay disease progression, with only mild cognitive improvement.

Even so, certain findings from Alzheimer's research have broader implications on how to maintain an agile memory: The more you use your brain, the more protected you are.

What activities qualify as brain exercises?

Writing essays, learning a second language, earning a graduate degree, playing a musical instrument and regular reading.

What doesn't strengthen the brain?

Passively watching television is not memory-enhancing.

Exercised brains have more juiced wiring, collateral circuitry and spare links. "You strengthen a particular series of connections, the way a heavily trodden pathway in the woods becomes more visible and easier to follow," says professor Guy McKhann, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and author of Keep Your Brain Young: The Complete Guide to Physical and Emotional Health' and Longevity. Exercised brains and more efficient and have multiple access points to memories.
But the hunt continues for a memory pill. Neurologist Eric Kandel, the Nobel laureate who founded Memory Pharmaceuticals in 1998, is searching far a "Viagra for the brain," as are dozens of bio-tech and drug companies and university laboratories. "If we continue making the kind of progress we are now," says Dr. Kandel, "we will have drugs for age-related memory loss in five years."

Dr. Shafiq Quadri is a Toronto family physician with a special interest in continuing medical education.

Stimulating Ideas

• Write essays, learn another language, play an instrument, read regularly, take up ballroom dancing, play chess or bridge, do crossword puzzles, learn to paint, earn a graduate degree.
• Concentrate and focus on new Information to be learned.
• Distribute learning over several sittings.
• Use encouraging self-talk.
• Use Post-It notes.
• Use mnemonic devices.
• Practise other-handedness. If you're right-handed, comb your hair or write with your left hand.
• Add a visual or story line to your information.
• Have restful sleep.
• Relax and avoid anxiety.

Adapted from The Centre for Biomedical Informatics, Brazil

Vitamins, Herbs and Medications That May Aid Memory:

1. Vitamin E
2. Folic acid
3. Gingko biloba
4. Ayurvedic bacopa
5. Estrogen replacement therapy in post-menopausal women
6. Anti-inflammatory drugs (super-aspirins): Celebrex, Mobicox, Volaren

Submitted By: Mahbub Husain Khan