Why Our Brains Are Shrinking

My guest today is Dan Kittredge, who knows more about what makes food nutritious than anyone I know.  Dan Kittredge has been an organic farmer for more than 30 years and is the founder and executive director of the Bionutrient Food Association (BFA), a non-profit whose mission is to “increase quality in the food supply.”  Known as one of the leading proponents of “nutrient density,” Dan works to demonstrate the connections between soil health, plant health, and human health. Out of these efforts was born the Bionutrient Institute, which has engineered a prototype of a hand-held consumer spectrometer, designed to test nutrient density at point of picking or purchase.  He has decades of experience literally testing growing methods and measuring the nutrient density both in plants and livestock. As people extol the benefits of organic, zero-dig, regenerative farming and the harms of our herbicide and pesticides laden food supply, Dan has actually been measuring and working out what farmers and growers have to do to get the healthiest soil for the healthiest plants. Not only am I honoured to have Dan as my podcast guest but also he’s coming to our farm in the Black Mountains in June to teach us, and others, how to grow super-nutritious food. See foodforthebrain.org/kittredge-workshop

Ask the man in the street what’s driving Alzheimer’s and they’ll probably say a third is in the genes. Or that it’s just what happens when you age. Neither of these statements are true. Alzheimer’s is a largely preventable disease and my guests today are tackling the two fundamental questions. Firstly, what are the positive and negative behaviours – diet, lifestyle, environment – that prevent and drive dementia? And secondly, how do you change those behaviours. In today’s podcast I talk with Assistant Professor Tommy Wood, from the University of Washington about the what, then Dr Kristina Curtis, a behavioural scientist and honorary lecturer at the University College London who heads the Applied Behaviour Change team, about the how of behaviour change. Go to my website for more information on nutrition and mental health See also my book Optimum Nutrition for the Mind. In April I'll be publishing my new book Upgrade Your Brain - sign up to my E-News at www.patrickholford.com to receive news updates and book availability. 

My podcast guest is Dr Georgia Ede, MD, a Harvard-trained, board-certified psychiatrist based in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Her interest in nutrition arose after discovering a new way of low carb ketogenic eating that reversed several bewildering health problems. Her speciality is nutritional and metabolic psychiatry and ketogenic diets. Her passion is empowering people with psychiatric conditions to reduce or eliminate the need for medications by changing how they eat. But which changes are worth making, and why? That’s both the subject of her new book Change Your Diet Change Your Mind, just out, and this podcast. Go to my website for more information on ketogenic dieting in the Go Hybrid section and for nutrition and mental health See also my book Optimum Nutrition for the Mind. In April I'll be publishing my new book Upgrade Your Brain - sign up to my E-News at www.patrickholford.com to receive news updates and book availability. 

My guest today is Uma Naiidoo who founded and directed the first and only hospital-based program in Nutritional, Lifestyle and Metabolic Psychiatry and is Director of Nutritional and Psychiatry Service at Massachusetts General Hospital and serves on the faculty of Harvard Medical school. Her books Your Brain on Food and The Food Mood Connection are bestsellers in the US. Here we focus on anxiety and her new book How to Calm Your Mind with Food - out yesterday. For more on nutrition and anxiety see the Anxiety topic on my website. Also see my book The Stress Cure.    

My podcast guest today is a legend in the world of omega-3. Dr Bill Harris is Professor in the Department of Medicine in the Sanford School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota. He has been a front runner in measuring omega-3 status and developed the omega-3 index, running studies on the effects of omega-3, with more than 300 published pieces of research to date, backed by five National Institutes of Health grants. Perhaps best known for his expertise in relation to omega-3 and heart health. He obtained his PhD doctorate. in Human Nutrition from the University of Minnesota and did post-doctoral fellowships in Clinical Nutrition and Lipid Metabolism with Dr. Bill Connor at the Oregon Health Sciences University back in the 80’s and has had his finger on the pulse of oemga-3 research ever since. In this podcast, we are discussing his latest study on omega-3 status as a predictor of Alzheimer’s and  dementia risk.  Read more about Alzheimer's and Dementia on my website. Also see my book The Alzheimer's Prevention Plan. 

Homo sapiens brain size is 20% less than it was 29,000 years ago. IQ is also falling 7% a generation. Mental illness is on the increase. Why?   Why are our brains shrinking?   Today’s guest is Professor Michael Crawford. He discovered that brains are made out of omega-3 DHA in the 1970s. He is the Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition.   At Chelsea & Westminster he has shown that pregnant women lacking omega-3 make a ‘filler fat’ called oleic acid, blood levels of which predict brain developmental and cognitive problems in their babies. His new book The Shrinking Brain explains why humanity is devolving, with dire consequences, unless we take action now to put nutrition and brain health at the top of the agenda.   Find out more about brain health on my website.     

For a change, in this month’s podcast I’m interviewed by Philly J Lay,  a long-standing advocate for our health and that of our planet. She is passionate in her belief that everything is connected and that when we learn to heal ourselves, we will start to heal this beautiful planet. After a near death experience and years of grief, resulting in a range of chronic illnesses, she discovered personalised natural medicine and the associated miracles of the body and power of the mind, which she wrote about in her first book, The Natural Wellness Journal. In this podcast she interviews me about my health journey and why I’m passionate about the power of optimum nutrition on mental health. We'll be covering: Understanding Alzheimer's Disease: Explore the basics of Alzheimer's disease, including its symptoms and prevalence. The Impact of Nutrition: Discover how nutrition plays a pivotal role in brain health and the prevention of Alzheimer's. Brain-Boosting Foods: Insights into specific foods and nutrients that can support cognitive function and reduce the risk of Alzheimer's. Nutrition and Lifestyle: Learn about the holistic approach to Alzheimer's prevention, including the role of lifestyle factors such as exercise and stress management. The Importance of Early Intervention: Understand the significance of early dietary interventions in promoting brain health throughout life. Visit my website to learn more about optimum nutrition and mental health. Or see my books The Optimum Nutrition Bible, Optimum Nutrition for the Mind and The Alzheimer's Prevention Plan.

We are told serotonin deficiency causes depression; too much cholesterol excess causes heart disease; too much acid causes heartburn. Now we are being told too much amyloid causes Alzheimer’s.  These statements are the key rationale for selling antidepressants, cholesterol lowering drugs, antacids and soon, anti-amyloid antibody injections. But are they true or are they myth stories designed to sell drugs, cloaked in dubious circumstantial evidence, backed up by medical guidelines, but not by the actual science or what actually causes these diseases? Join me in conversation with award-winning medical journalist, Jerome Burne.  Read more in my blogs and reports on my website.

Why does your brain fuel on either glucose or ketones, derived from fat? Why do the brains of babies need ketones for rapid building on their neural network? Can eating fats, such as C8, help prevent or reverse brain ageing? Do you have to go ketogenic to get the benefit? How can a ketogenic diet or supplements help mental health and mental illness? To answer these and other questions and explore the whole role ketones and fat play in your brain health, my podcast guest this month is the leading world expert, Professor Stephen Cunnane, who heads the Brain Research Team at Sherbrooke University in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Professor Stephen Cunnane holds the clinical research chair in ketotherapeutics. His research is focused on how ketogenic interventions (supplements, diets) can help prevent Alzheimer’s, slow down cognitive decline and deliver more ‘brain power’. We will also be talking about the latest research showing how ketogenic diets can help Parkinson’s, epilepsy and other mental and neurological conditions including their effects on mood and anxiety. Find out more about Ketogenic dieting and mind health on my website.      

The number of children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders has escalated from 1 in 250 to 1 in 58 last year in the US. Although often described as ‘genetic’ obviously the genes haven’t changed, so what’s going on in the environment that’s driving this rapid breakdown in neurodevelopment? Paul Shattock OBE has spent his life researching autism, and is the Chair of the ESPA (Education and Services for People with Autism) and former director of the Autism Research Unit at the University of Sunderland. There he showed that many autistic children had ‘casomorphins’ and ‘gliadorphins’ – opioids created from wheat and milk when the gut is leaky – in their urine. This is but one of many factors linked to increasing risk for ASD and other neurodevelopmental problems. We’ll be having a frank discussion about everything from vitamins to vaccines, essential fats to environmental toxins - learning from a man whose dedicated decades to finding out what’s going on and how to help children and their families. For more information about nutrition and brain health go to the mind health topic on my website or see Optimum Nutrition for the Mind.