Many people adjust their diets in order to have a healthier body or to lose weight, but not many think about basing their food intake on what their mind craves. The truth is they could be damaging or protecting it without even being aware of it. Don’t worry there’s a ton of good tasting food that can boost brain functioning, like the much loved dark chocolate.
One might just assume dark chocolate makes them feel good because of the taste, but the actuality is that it increases the chemicals called endorphins that make us feel good. Deane Alban author of “9 Brain Boosting Benefits of Dark Chocolate states that “Endorphins bind with opiate receptors in the brain leading to feelings of euphoria, like the kind joggers get from “runner’s high.”(Alban) …show more content…
On studies done on dementia it was found that the MIND diet, a Mediterranean and Dash hybrid with improvements, works best as a prevention for dementia. This diet like the Mediterranean and Dash put limits on animal products and an increase in plant based meals, however, green leafy vegetables and berries are also incorporated into the MIND diet. Green leafy vegetables, like spinach, having the greatest effects against cognitive decline. In the scholarly article “Nutrition and Risk of Dementia: Overview and Methodological Issues” author Martha Clare Morris says that “Green leafy vegetables are rich sources of lutein, folate, vitamin E, beta carotene, and polyphenols, nutrients that have been related to brain health.”(Morris). Lutein, vitamin E, beta carotene, and polyphenols are all antioxidants which protect against free-radical damage- unpaired electrons of atoms or molecules that steal electrons from cells- by neutralizing them. Folate is a B vitamin which reduces homocysteine that causes inflammation in the brain, the article “What Does the Brain need to Function Nutritionally” by Tracey Roizman it states that this can decrease blood supply to the brain “and can also directly damage brain cells that control coordination and reaction speed”. (Roizman) The MIND diet provides many of the nutrients the brain requires to stay healthy and delay or prevent
One might just assume dark chocolate makes them feel good because of the taste, but the actuality is that it increases the chemicals called endorphins that make us feel good. Deane Alban author of “9 Brain Boosting Benefits of Dark Chocolate states that “Endorphins bind with opiate receptors in the brain leading to feelings of euphoria, like the kind joggers get from “runner’s high.”(Alban) …show more content…
On studies done on dementia it was found that the MIND diet, a Mediterranean and Dash hybrid with improvements, works best as a prevention for dementia. This diet like the Mediterranean and Dash put limits on animal products and an increase in plant based meals, however, green leafy vegetables and berries are also incorporated into the MIND diet. Green leafy vegetables, like spinach, having the greatest effects against cognitive decline. In the scholarly article “Nutrition and Risk of Dementia: Overview and Methodological Issues” author Martha Clare Morris says that “Green leafy vegetables are rich sources of lutein, folate, vitamin E, beta carotene, and polyphenols, nutrients that have been related to brain health.”(Morris). Lutein, vitamin E, beta carotene, and polyphenols are all antioxidants which protect against free-radical damage- unpaired electrons of atoms or molecules that steal electrons from cells- by neutralizing them. Folate is a B vitamin which reduces homocysteine that causes inflammation in the brain, the article “What Does the Brain need to Function Nutritionally” by Tracey Roizman it states that this can decrease blood supply to the brain “and can also directly damage brain cells that control coordination and reaction speed”. (Roizman) The MIND diet provides many of the nutrients the brain requires to stay healthy and delay or prevent