I recently read “Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar – Your Brain’s Silent Killers” by David Perlmutter, MD with Kristin Loberg. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, buy the book here.
“Beyond simply serving as a source of calories, protein, and fat, food actually regulates the expression of many of our genes.” (8)
“Modern food manufacturing, including genetic bioengineering, have allowed us to grow grains that contain up to forty times the gluten of grains cultivated just a few decades ago.” (63)
“If you’ve ever felt a rush of euphoric pleasure following the consumption of a bagel, scone, doughnut, or croissant, you’re not imagining it and you’re not alone.” (63)
“Obesity – and its metabolic consequences – has almost nothing to do with dietary fat consumption and everything to do with our addiction to carbs. The same is true about cholesterol: Eating high-cholesterol foods has no impact on our actual cholesterol levels, and the alleged correlation between higher cholesterol and higher cardiac risk is an absolute fallacy.” (72)
“Science is only recently discovering that both fat and cholesterol are severely deficient in diseased brains and that high total cholesterol levels in late life are associated with increased longevity.” (91)
Dr. Yeon-Kyun Shin says, “If you deprive cholesterol from the brain, then you directly affect the machinery that triggers the release of neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters affect the data-processing and memory functions. In other words – how smart you are and how well you remember things.” (95)
“The more sugars we eat, the more we tell our bodies to transfer them to fat.” (108)
“Fat is an organ.” (119)
“The larger a person’s waist-to-hip ratio (i.e., the bigger the belly), the smaller the brain’s memory center, the hippocampus.” (120)
“For every excess pound put on the body, the brain gets a little smaller.” (121)
“The best diet for maintaining weight loss is a low carb, high-fat one.” (124)
“We can change the expression of more than 70 percent of the genes that have a direct bearing on our health and longevity.” (127)
“The science is stunning. Physical exercise is one of the most potent ways of changing your genes.” (132)
“Suicide attempts have long been shown to run higher in people who have low total cholesterol.” (163)
“If you’ve got low cholesterol, you’ve got a much higher risk of developing depression. And the lower you go, the closer you are to harboring thoughts of suicide.” (163)
“The nerve cells in your gut are not only regulating muscles, immune cells, and hormones, but also manufacturing an estimated 80 to 90 percent of your body’s serotonin. In fact, your intestinal brian makes more serotonin than the brain that rests in your skull.” (164)
“Supplemental zinc has been shown to enhance the effects of antidepressants in people with major depression.” (165)
“U.S. Army researcher Dr. F. Curtis Dohan was among the first scientists to notice a relationship between postwar Europe’s food scarcity (and, consequently, a lack of wheat in the diet) and considerably fewer hospitalizations for schizophrenia.” (167)
“Waist circumference is a better predictor of migraine activity than general obesity in both men and women up until age fifty-five.” (173)
“Don’t skip meals or keep erratic eating habits. As with sleep, your eating patterns control many hormonal processes that can affect your risk for a headache.” (176)
“Go gluten-, preservative-, additive-, and processed-free. The low-glycemic, low-carb, high-healthy-fat diet will go a long way to reducing your risk for headaches. Be especially careful about aged cheese, cured meats, and sources of monosodium glutamate (MSg, commonly found in Chinese food), as these ingredients may be responsible for triggering up to 30 percent of migraines.” (176)
“Get your probiotics through a supplement that offers a variety of strains (at least ten), including Lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidobacterium, and contains at least ten billion active bacteria per capsule.” (191)
“The simple act of moving your body will do more for your brain than any riddle, math equation, mystery book, or even thinking itself.” (194)
“The more refined and processed the carbohydrate, the more out of whack healthy levels of leptin and insulin become.” (213)
“Not a single drug or supplement on the planet can balance leptin levels. But better sleep, as well as better dietary choices, will do the trick.” (213)
“It’s imperative to lower carb intake to just 30 to 40 grams a day for four weeks. After that, you can increase your carb intake to 60 grams a day.” (230)
“Find your sweet spot, leaving approximately three hours between dinner and bedtime.” (235)
“Don’t eat erratically. Eat on a regular schedule. This will keep your appetite hormones in check. If you delay a meal too long, you will throw your hormones out of whack and trigger the nervous system, which can later impact your sleep.” (235)
“Nocturnal hypoglycemia (low nighttime blood glucose levels) can cause insomnia. If your blood sugar drops too low, it causes the release of hormones that stimulate the brain and tell you to eat. Try a bedtime snack to avoid this midnight disaster. Go for foods high in the amino acid tryptophan, which is a natural promoter of sleep. Foods high in tryptophan include turkey, cottage cheese, chicken, eggs and nuts (especially almonds).” (236)
Liked the quotes? Buy the book here.