The eating secret to a much faster brain

If you want to boost your brainpower, there’s an easy way.

Feed your brain a little less.

This sounds counterintuitive, but this doesn’t mean starve your brain. It means avoid overeating.

Charles Mobbs, a neuroscientist from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, calls this the “metabolic mystery.”  Since the early 1930s, research studies have consistently demonstrated that too many nutritional resources, resulting in conditions like obesity and diabetes, can be toxic to the brain.

A study published in National Academy of Sciences Journal finds there is a link between the amount of energy available to the brain and its ability to learn and adapt, and “over-nutrition.”

This means that overeating can result in more rapid aging and an accelerated loss of brain function. It can also lead to mature-onset diabetes that accelerates oxidative stress on our brains.

And further research conducted in Italy demonstrates that eating less turns on a molecule in the body that keeps the brain from aging as quickly.

The team of Italian researchers at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart in Rome discovered that this molecule, called CREB1, is triggered by low-calorie diets in the brains of lab animals. CREB1 apparently activates specific genes that are linked to brain functioning and a longer life span.

There have been numerous studies demonstrating that obesity is bad for the brain and actually slows its functioning. This can lead to early brain aging that can be fertile ground for the diseases to which older brains often succumb, including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s syndrome.

In comparison, caloric restriction keeps the brain from aging and keeps the mind young.

But again, there’s no starvation involved here. Overeating is the real enemy.

“Our findings identify for the first time an important mediator of the effects of diet on the brain,” says researcher Giovambattista Pani. “This discovery has important implications to develop future therapies to keep our brain young and prevent brain degeneration and the aging process.”

For a younger, faster brain, there are several things you can do. Alternate-day fasting is one, where you eat only 6-800 calories as opposed to a normal 2,000. You can also do the occasional water or juice cleanse, which you can learn more about here.