Foods and Habits That Quietly Destroy Your Brain and The Antioxidants and Supplements That Protect It

0.031 - 11.345 Dhru Purohit

Hi everyone, Drew Proat here. You know, the older that I get, the more and more passionate I am about the topic of brain health and the more and more appreciation I have for how strongly certain inputs influence the brain.

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Often, long before we ever notice any cognitive symptoms. The good news is that simple, everyday choices that we make, that we're all doing, can have a massive impact on the strength and resilience of our brains. That's why I want to share this highlighted segment from my conversation with Dr. Datis Kharrazian.

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Now, these moments that we feature here, and this is one of them, they're taking key sections of a previous interview and they're highlighting them. We're highlighting them. We're putting the spotlight on them. Something really profound, a strong distinction that will help you walk away with a better understanding of health.

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And in today's conversation with Datis, and I'll tell you a little bit about him in a second, we're talking about the foods that fuel early brain aging for some people.

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Wow. why certain proteins can trigger brain inflammation if you're sensitive to them, and how that becomes more common after the age of 40. We also talk about the link between leaky gut and leaky brain, something that's part of the emerging science that's out there. And we discuss some of the most powerful protective tools, including glutathione, NAC, and fish oil.

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I'm a huge fan of all these things. And this episode is full of practical science-backed levers from Datis that we can use to start pulling at any age to protect the brain, pulling those levers to protect the brain, reduce inflammation, and get more clarity and resilience. Now, really quickly, before we jump in to this featured moment, a little bit about Datis.

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Datis Karazian is a clinical research scientist, academic professor, and functional medicine healthcare practitioner. He's an associate clinical professor at Loma Linda University School of Medicine, and he is a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, and a researcher at the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

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What are some top foods that are out there that people might be wanting to pay attention to?

145.443 - 169.505 Dr. Datis Kharrazian

We definitely want to avoid partially hydrogenated fats. That's definitely up there. So partially hydrogenated fats are fats that are in boxes, bags, processed food. Those types of fats are devastating for neural membranes. they will be a serious factor in your brain health if you consume those on a regular basis. So you definitely want to avoid partial hydrogenated fats.

170.166 - 187.312 Dr. Datis Kharrazian

And then there's a strong relationship with certain food proteins that have been linked to brain inflammation in more and more of the population. Most common ones are gluten sensitivity, dairy, casein sensitivity. Other ones are egg, protein sensitivity. But those are specific to if you actually are sensitive to them and you react against them, right?

188.334 - 193.661 Dr. Datis Kharrazian

And then you can look at it from food groups that just secrete more insulin.

194.041 - 209.484 Dr. Datis Kharrazian

So higher carbohydrate, higher sugar, higher concentrated sugars release more insulin. Insulin turns on the inflammatory mechanisms in the brain. Insulin causes insulin resistance in the brain. insulin elevations can disrupt neurotransmitter transport mechanisms of the brain. So they can cause a lot of disruption.

209.945 - 223.847 Dr. Datis Kharrazian

So it's really just like processed fats, certain inflammatory foods people are reactive to, really high carbohydrate, high sugar grains. Those are all the things that for sure are bad for the brain. It's the stuff everyone already knows.

223.827 - 238.143 Dhru Purohit

You would think everybody knows it, but then you go to the grocery store and it's obviously very clear that a lot of people don't know it, which is why we put some of this content and so much of what you do is putting out information for free because slowly, slowly, slowly, more and more people are learning.

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But if you go to Times Square and you talk about partially hydrogenated fats or certain types of fats that are not good for the brain, you're going to get a blank stare and most people are going to not have any clue what you're talking about. Right. That's true. So what is it about those fats and... Also, what do you think about seed oils?

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You know, there's a lot of conversations about seed oils online and you have people that are using sort of big, large observational studies on seed oils, things like canola oil and soybean oil and showing that seed oils are associated with less vascular disease and things like that. And then you have a lot of functional medicine doctors