"Hello Health Champions today we're going to talk about the top 10 foods that cause dementia. We also need to understand some of the mechanisms that drive the progression of dementia so that we can understand what the foods have to do with it. Dementia progresses very, very rapidly with age so that between 60 and 65 years of age we have about 1.
33% dementia. Between 65 and 70 we have about 2. 2%, between 70 and 75 it rises to 3.
8%, between 75 and 80 it goes up to 6. 5%, 5 years later it's up to 11. 6% and by the time we're 90 over 20% of the population have dementia and then after 90 more than 40% of the population have dementia.
As you can see it progresses very, very rapidly and we need to understand what the causes are and the foods are influencing that so we can slow down this progression. There are some things that the brain needs that helps the brain stay functional and the first thing is energy because the brain is only 2% of your body weight but it uses over 20% of all your energy. On average it's 10% more metabolically active more needing energy than your body cells on average.
The way the brain makes energy of course is from fuel which is carbohydrates and ketones and in order to oxidize that fuel it needs oxygen. Most of this energy is created inside your cells in little inclusions little things called mitochondria they make the vast majority of all your energy. One more thing that the brain needs that is absolutely essential that virtually no one ever talks about because they just talk about how it makes energy but it also needs stimulation because without stimulation it's use it or lose it just like a muscle if you put your muscle in a cast if you break your arm put a cast then after two weeks you have lost 50% of that muscle that's the half-life of protein and the brain is the same way.
When we're not stimulating when we're not driving signals to the brain on a regular basis then the brain starts degenerating and deteriorating and that's one of the mechanisms contributing to dementia. Then there are the factors that damage that hurt your brain that speed up the progression of degeneration and one of course is poor genetics but we need to understand what that means because most people think that the DNA is is set it's fixed which in one sense it is and another one it isn't. So when we talk about your genome that's your setup your makeup of DNA that's half the chromosomes from your mom and half the chromosomes from your dad they combine and they become your genome there's nothing you can do about that that is what you're born with.
However, what most people don't realize is that is just like the foundation that really is not all that important because there's also epigenetics which means on top of genetics and that is how you express it so you can have genes that are never turned on you can have bad genes that are latent that are never activated you can have good genes that you express well or that you express poorly and like I mentioned disuse is very, very harmful. We need to understand that exercise is not about losing weight or staying fit or looking good it's about stimulating your brain and then we come to the inflammation part of it which is the biggest biochemical driver of degeneration which is chronic low-grade inflammation and there's several components to that. One is oxidative stress which we have to have some oxidative stress because that's how we make energy when those mitochondria make energy they use oxygen we create oxidative stress but the cleaner things burn the more balanced things are and if we get a lot of junk in the body then those mitochondria they tend to rust a little bit they don't burn as clean it's like a little engine that starts smoking and now we get excess oxidative stress and we get less energy out of it.
There are also environmental toxins and those are both the pollution as well as all the things that we add to food like preservatives and artificial colors etc. Then there is food allergies because if you have a sensitivity to a food if it causes a reaction that's an inflammatory reaction so that contributes more to that inflammation. Then there is dysbiosis that we're only recently starting to understand how important that is because if you have an imbalance of bacteria in your gut if you don't have enough of the good ones or you have too many of the pathogenic ones now you start getting a little war zone you start getting chaos down in your gut and that creates inflammation but it also creates damage to the lining and to the mucus layer so now we get leaky gut and we increase the amount of food allergies.
So you can see how all of these things are kind of tied together that they depend on each other and when one thing isn't working it makes the whole worse. Food number one, and these are in no particular order, is excess alcohol. Drnking too much too frequently will cause premature dementia because alcohol is a neurotoxin it directly damages brain cells in excess but it also causes leaky guts now it contributes to food allergies and to inflammation one more way it also contributes to fatty liver and once you have a fatty liver that tends to increase your degree of insulin resistance which is another driver of inflammation and over time because of all these factors it can cause brain shrinkage and we also have to remember that it's dose-dependent that it's not alcohol per se it's excess alcohol so if you have a glass of wine or maybe two a few times a week then that has been shown to have some positive effects but if you have four, five, six drinks most days then that is probably going to speed up that brain degeneration.
Food number two is refined carbs and we really need to understand what those are because they usually only make a big deal out of added sugar and we all know to look at the label and if it has added sugar we stay away from it but added sugar that's the white sugar the crystals but it also in any other form like honey or glucose syrup or agave or high fructose corn syrup or any of those and what they're adding is basically a sugar that consists of a glucose molecule that is tied to a fructose molecule and these are both they're monosaccharides meaning single and we we put them together like in white table sugar then it becomes a disaccharide and this is what we're talking about with added sugar and why is this so bad because the glucose portion of it will raise blood sugar and because these carbs are processed then they're going to break apart very quickly and the glucose will raise blood sugar the fructose will take a different path it's not called blood sugar because it's not blood glucose this is fructose and that has to go through the liver to get processed and in doing that it causes fatty liver it is almost on par with alcohol and how bad and how quickly it causes a fatty liver and of course alcohol is bad because it causes intoxication but at the same time that sort of sets a limit for how much alcohol people consume sugar doesn't do that so there's no limit in how much people eat and therefore we also give it to kids and kids now can get fatty liver at a very, very early age. So we all know to stay away from that however there is also something called natural sugar so when that occurs in fruit it's okay to have some berries it's okay to have fruit occasionally if you're not insulin resistant or you don't have type 2 diabetes but when they dry the fruit then sometimes they add chemicals to it sometimes they even add sugar to it and now it becomes a very concentrated form of sugar like raisins is about 70% pure sugar just like that the other form is when we make juice out of it because now we remove the pulp we remove the fiber we remove all the cell walls the bulk of that fruit and now it just becomes a liquid with sugar floating around in it and that natural sugar is no different it's exactly the same as the added sugar so even if they don't list it on the label we need to understand the difference that there really is no difference we need to understand that sugar is sugar and then there's one more kind of carbohydrate called starch and if we get a little bit here and there in a sweet potato or some tubers that's not a big deal but when we get it in grain we're getting way too much and we're getting it in processed grains now we removed a lot of the fiber everything that slows it down so now that starch raises blood glucose even faster than the sugar does and starch is nothing more, nothing less than these little sugar molecules and then when we link them together two, three and dozens and hundreds and thousands now that's called a starch but it's still only one type of molecule and then we go when we eat these we have something called amylase in the mouth and that starts chopping off these little glucose molecules the moment we get them in our mouth so within minutes we see a rise in glucose in blood glucose from eating starch and like I said this is faster even than sugar and the reason that we want to understand this so well and avoid excess carbohydrate whatever level that is for you and your lifestyle and your genetic makeup is that there's such a strong connection between glucose and insulin resistance and dementia that it's sometimes called type 3 diabetes and that doesn't mean that it is a separate type of diabetes it just means they're trying to focus and help us understand how strong that link is and to understand the link and that mechanism we need to understand the two types of fuel that the brain can use and very often they talk about only glucose if you do a Google search on fuels for the brain the first million hits are going to be for glucose alone and if you talk to 99% of doctors they're going to tell you that the brain can only use glucose but ketones have been critical in human survival and it's critical in babies babies are born into ketosis and that helps drive that huge brain so when we eat a lot of sugar and we eat a lot of starch now we raise blood glucose we get excess blood glucose on a regular basis and if we get excess glucose we get excess insulin if we do that all the time we become insulin resistant and here's something that was not discovered until very recently really like 50 years ago they had no idea because we thought back then that the brain was so dependent on glucose that it could just suck it up out of the bloodstream, that you didn't need insulin to get the glucose into the brain. Well, that proved to be wrong because the brain does depend on insulin.
So if your cells are insulin resistant, if your muscles are insulin resistant, then your whole body also becomes insulin resistant to some degree, and your brain cells are insulin resistant. So for a given level of blood sugar, that means if your brain is insulin resistant, it gets less glucose; it can't properly get into those brain cells. So here is that paradox that is responsible for dementia in people with insulin resistance.
If you have too high a blood glucose level, that results in less glucose in the brain. So the more sugar you eat, the more your brain starves. Some people would look at that and say, "Oh, well, the body is pretty stupid sometimes; that seems like a defective design.
" I would beg to differ. I would say that it's a defective lifestyle that we have introduced something in the last 50 years, 50 to 100 years, that humans have never ever seen before. We have never had the abundance of sugar and starch, especially processed starch, that we've had in the last few decades.
Food number three is sugar, and just like we talked about, sugar is the number one cause of insulin resistance, which keeps that glucose out of the brain. If we keep eating sugar, there's never going to be any ketones to fuel the brain. But if we cut back enough on the carbohydrates, now, even if we're insulin resistant, we're going to make some ketones that can fuel the brain and start reversing that process.
The reason that sugar, this disaccharide, is even worse than the starch is that it's 50% fructose, which causes a fatty liver and is also highly addictive. Another problem is that it contributes to dysbiosis; it messes up your biome and thereby causes leaky guts, more food allergies, and so forth. But we still have to remember that it is a very natural molecule.
This molecule, the glucose, and to some degree the sugar, is part of all foods, but the dose makes the poison. When we concentrate it, refine it, and eat too much of something, that's when it becomes very damaging. It's not carbohydrates per se, because leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables still have some sugar, but there's so little, and there's so much water and fiber that those foods behave nothing like this.
Food number four is fish, and this is a little confusing because, on the one hand, if you get clean wild-caught fish, it can be incredibly beneficial for the brain because it has Omega-3s, EPA, and DHA. DHA is the main building block for brain tissue, so we absolutely have to have that. It also provides a really good source of protein.
But wild fish can also have mercury. It's a heavy metal, a neurotoxin, and it's incredibly destructive; it will literally chew away and dissolve brain tissue in excess. So we want to make sure that we get fish that have very, very low amounts of mercury.
The high amounts of mercury are in the fish that are predatory, that eat other fish, because all fish absorb a little bit from the water, but then the large fish that eat the smaller fish concentrate that. When they're predatory, they're usually larger, live longer, and the longer they live, the more they accumulate this mercury, this toxin. So the safe fish to eat are typically very small fish like sardine, herring, and to some degree, mackerel, as long as you don't eat the king mackerel that get huge.
Also, the small flat fish like sole and flounder, and cod are very safe. The ones you want to avoid are swordfish, tuna, and any other large predatory fish or any fish that lives for a very long time. Then there's farmed fish, and in some cases, that could be okay if they farm it responsibly, give it good quality nutrients like natural food for that species, and keep it in good conditions with clean water and no parasites or mold, or all the things that can occur.
But for the most part, they're just trying to save a buck, and the conditions are usually very deplorable. So they feed the fish low-quality foods, the cheapest thing that will keep them alive, and very often they also feed them hormones, antibiotics, chemicals, and artificial colors. Number five is what I call the dirty dozen, and those are the types of plants that are most often using a lot of chemicals, a lot of pesticides to produce them.
Pesticides are toxic to the body and toxic to the brain. On this year's list, we have strawberries, nectarines, blueberries, apples, grapes, peaches, cherries, pears, and plums. You want to check for what's going on in your region because it's going to differ between different countries, different continents, as there are different farming practices, and also they change over time.
These items can vary from year to year. Among the vegetables, we have bell pepper, hot peppers, green beans, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, spinach, kale, and celery. These are the foods that you want to pay extra attention to, and either you get them organic or you pass by altogether and eat something else.
Very often, they're going to say they're still better than none, so eating sprayed toxic plants is still better than not eating them at all because plants are so good for you. Now that's just one of those things that we've heard and it's been repeated so often that nobody really thinks about it. For some people, that's going to be true.
If they have a good tolerance against toxins, if they have a strong gastrointestinal tract, if they have a strong liver, they can probably break down those pesticides pretty well. But if you have a genetic weakness, if you have various genetic variants where you don't tolerate, where you don't break down toxins so well, then that's probably not going to be true for you. Then it's probably better to avoid them altogether.
If you have a weak microbiome, if there's imbalance or dysfunction, now you're going to be more prone to food intolerance, you're not going to have that protective mucus layer, and you'll also be more sensitive to various forms of toxins. The other thing to understand is that all of these pesticides, all this spraying, all these chemicals, it's a very modern thing. It's all happened basically in the last 50 years.
In the previous 50,000 or a million years, there were no pesticides. Our genetic makeup, our genome, has never seen pesticides. Even if one isn't going to do all that much damage, today we have hundreds and thousands of them, and that body burden starts piling on top of each other.
So it's something that we really need to pay attention to and start really understanding what food is. It always cracks me up when I go into a store and see a little sign and a little section that says "natural food. " I always ask myself, if that's the natural food, then what's the rest of the store?
Number six is artificial sweeteners, and I'm going to mention a couple that are more common than the others. The first is aspartame, which goes under the brand name NutraSweet. This is a well-established neurotoxin.
When people did poorly on that one and started complaining, they brought out another one called sucralose, which goes under the brand name Splenda. Now we have sucralose in 5 to 10,000 different products. For several years, they said Splenda is the new thing, the clean thing, it's made from natural things, it's not going to harm you.
But of course, it's artificial, so it will do damage. Very recently, they found that it starts breaking apart DNA. Both of these will disrupt your gut bacteria, and in doing that, they contribute to leaky gut, more inflammation, and allergies, etc.
The biggest reason that they've brought these to the market is that people are starting to understand how bad sugar is, but we still have that sweet tooth and that addiction. So now they're marketing this as a no-calorie alternative, and people see it as a good thing and start overconsuming it. The whole idea was that if you drink or consume these artificial ones, you lose weight.
Sugar puts on the weight; if you stop the sugar, you lose the weight. But unfortunately, it doesn't work like that because it also tends to increase cravings. You eat something sweet, but you're not getting anything of substance, so now your body starts looking for more and more and more.
Also, people confuse these artificial sweeteners with Stevia and Monk Fruit because they're all non-caloric sweeteners, but they're not all artificial. Stevia and Monk Fruit are natural; they're plant extracts. In moderation, I would say that they're okay.
If you start overconsuming, thinking it's a good thing that you can eat it unlimited, then there's some evidence that it may actually start to disrupt your microbiome as well. Number seven is bad fats, and it's not what you usually hear that saturated fat is bad fat. Saturated fat is very stable and safe to consume; it's a very stable source of energy and doesn't cause any inflammation in the body.
The bad fats are damaged fats, and these are primarily trans fats. They realized how bad they are, so now they're moving away from trans fats. But instead, they tell us to start consuming vegetable oils, and these are not vegetable oils at all.
They're seed oils, grain oils, and legume oils. The problem with these is that they have too much Omega-6. A little bit of Omega-6 is okay, but today we're getting like 20 times more Omega-6s than we should have, and most of that is coming from these so-called vegetable oils.
An even bigger problem is that they're processed so harshly. They have to use high temperature, high pressure, and chemicals to get the fat, the oil out of these sources, and in doing that, they damage the oils and oxidize them. So now we have another source of excess oxidation and free radicals.
Another source of bad fats is fried foods when you use vegetable oils. These are already damaged, they're already high in Omega-6s, and now when you fry things and reuse that oil over and over, you're just increasing the damage and oxidation over and over. Number eight is anything that increases food sensitivities.
One thing that can do that is called lectins, and they're usually associated with a group of plants called nightshades. Nightshades are things like eggplant, bell pepper, tomato, and potato. There are many more, but these are probably the ones that people consume the most.
However, it's not just these nightshades, but grains like rye, barley, and rice also have lectins. The biggest grain to stay away from is modern wheat because it is processed, hybridized in so many different ways, it's not really a food anymore, and it is also the richest source of gluten, the type of gluten that people tend to react to. Then there's something called the gut-brain axis.
If we disrupt the gut bacteria and damage that mucus protection, we get leaky gut. Now all sorts of things start leaking through, getting into the bloodstream. Anything that gets into the bloodstream, anything that causes a leaky gut will tend to create a leaky brain.
The things that get out into the bloodstream are going to circulate and start creating brain inflammation, which can be very damaging and really progress the development of dementia. But again, this does not mean that these are bad foods. It's going to be important for some people to avoid these, but if you start restoring your microbiome, if you start getting a healthy gut again, you can probably get to the point where these things do not become a problem.
Number nine is excess caffeine. Here's one more thing that can actually have some benefit in low doses. It tends to improve focus and give you a little bit of energy.
However, if you start having high doses, if you start depending on it to stay awake and get things done, if you're not limiting yourself to two cups but you're having six, seven, eight, ten cups a day, now it becomes a stressor. It will drive your endocrine system and your stress hormones, and anything driving the stress hormones will also shut off melatonin, which is your sleep hormone that regulates your sleep and circadian rhythm. Number ten is food additives.
These are things that we add to make things look a certain way or feel a certain way. We have artificial colors, artificial flavors, and then there's tons and tons of other additives that are texturizers and keep things from separating and so forth. Then there are preservatives, and that sounds like such a positive thing, right?
We add preservatives; we preserve the food. Now, if you do canning and things like that, that's okay; that's a totally different thing. But when they add chemicals, basically what they're doing is they're making the food so unattractive that no other living things want it.
You have to ask yourself, is that what your body is looking for? Is that what you want to feed yourself if it's so unattractive that not even the mold wants it? If you enjoyed this video, you're going to love that one.
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