Mega heart and brain health all in one

You already know that inflammation is bad. Just the word doesn’t sound good. High blood pressure, heart disease, pain, and Alzheimer’s are just a few of the results of the disease of inflammation.

Surprisingly, a section of your brain that is partly under your control can turn this process on or head it off.

Duke and Stanford researchers say that the part of your brain you activate when you get angry or anxious also increases the levels of chemicals in your body that cause harmful inflammation.

“Brain activity linked to negative emotions — specifically efforts to regulate negative emotions — would relate to physical signs of risk for heart disease,” explains researcher Peter Gianaros.

When the researchers measured people’s brain activity, they found that people who had greater brain activation when trying to control negative emotions also had higher levels of a chemical called interleukin-6, a pro-inflammatory molecule.

They also had increased thickness of the carotid artery wall, showing they were developing atherosclerosis.

“These new findings agree with the popular belief that emotions are connected to heart health,” says Gianaros. “We think that the mechanistic basis for this connection may lie in the functioning of brain regions important for regulating both emotion and inflammation.”

Fortunately, there is a nutritional way to both heal your heart and ease anxiety and elevate mood. It’s omega-3 fatty acids.

Major mood disorders are associated with both fatty acid deficiency and too much inflammation. But a new study shows that increasing omega-3 fatty acid intake reverses the effects of inflammation on mood.

And the effects of getting enough omega-3s on your heart can’t be overstated. They can keep cholesterol healthy, keep your heart in rhythm, and of course reverse inflammation.

One gram a day of omega-3 is best. You should get as much as you can from whole fresh foods like cold-water fish and eggs. If you supplement, make sure what you choose has a high DHA content, since DHA is the omega-3 your brain doesn’t get enough of even from fish or regular fish oil.