The review finds that citicoline shows consistent improvement of cognitive function in individuals with MCI (especially those with vascular origin), including improvements in cognitive test performance and mental functions—e.g., memory, concentration, counting, and visual-motor coordination.
Citicoline has been shown to improve both memory and behavior in patients with chronic cerebral disorders (such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease) and cognitive deficits linked to cerebrovascular disorders (such as stroke and aneurysms). In Parkinson’s patients, the bioactive has even demonstrated significant improvements in cognitive status, akinesia, tremor, speech, and handwriting.
Simply put, citicoline has clinically backed benefits in enhancing cognitive function and longevity for folks with healthy brains and individuals that struggle with mild cognitive impairment and other brain health concerns.
Individuals with a higher intake of vitamin D and higher vitamin D blood levels are less likely to develop MS1, according to a 2018 review from Neurology and Therapy. Specifically, women that consumed approximately 700 IU of vitamin D daily had a 33% lower incidence of MS compared to those who consumed less vitamin D per day.
To put this amount into perspective, 93%2 to 100% of the U.S. population is failing to consume even 400 IU per day. Evidence suggests that 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily is the average amount needed to help folks reach and maintain truly optimal vitamin D status [i.e., 25(OH)D serum levels of 50 ng/ml or higher].
Research suggests vitamin D deficiency is also extremely prevalent in multiple sclerosis populations—one small study of 149 MS patients published in the EPMA Journal in 2019 found that 90% were vitamin D deficient3. This is significantly higher than the U.S. adult population (of which 29% are deficient in vitamin D4).
While clinical sufficiency is defined as 30 ng/ml or higher, endocrinologists and other leading wellness experts suggest that 50 ng/ml is the cutoff for true sufficiency—and research on disease prevention suggests a higher 25(OH)D level is far more beneficial for lowering disease risk, including MS. In fact, a JAMA study evaluating over seven million U.S. military personnel found that individuals with vitamin D levels greater than 40 ng/ml were 62% less likely5 to develop multiple sclerosis.
The science is clear: Vitamin D deficiency is extremely prevalent in MS patients; maintaining healthy vitamin D status can help reduce your risk of developing MS.
People with REM sleep behavior disorder have potentially disturbing experiences characterized by vivid dreams and movements while sleeping. In REM sleep, our muscles are typically paralyzed temporarily to prevent us from physically acting out our dreams.
Intertwined with hunger and satiety hormones are neurotransmitters, including dopamine. Remember, dopamine stimulates the reward and pleasure centers in the brain, which can impact both mood and food intake. Dopamine is often called the motivator molecule because it is responsible for sending signals to your brain to drive behavior.
While it is true that foods both high in sugar and fat (junk food) spike dopamine levels, there’s a rebound effect. Those same foods can bump up your appetite, lead to overeating, and possibly cause weight gain over the long haul.
So are there foods that can boost dopamine, but without that rebound effect? Yes—protein!
This fact first came to light in a 2014 issue of Nutrition Journal7, in which researchers compared the satiety effects from high-protein breakfasts (containing 35 grams of high-quality animal protein) versus normal-protein breakfasts (13 grams) or breakfast skipping in overweight and obese teenage girls. The high-protein breakfast worked best at curbing postmeal cravings and boosting dopamine levels.
This study was the first to show that dopamine surges after you eat protein. As I noted above, protein contains amino acids, several of which are the building blocks of dopamine. Thus, eating more protein is a healthier way to increase dopamine production.
So, what exactly should you eat if you want to raise your dopamine levels? Among the best choices are foods that are rich in tyrosine, the amino acid building block of dopamine. Think chicken, fish, and lean beef. For animal proteins, choose organic, grass-fed, hormone-free, and antibiotic-free, and, for fish, wild-caught as much as possible.
Plant foods that give a big dopamine boost include nuts and seeds, especially raw almonds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, and chia and hemp seeds.
When there is an excess of the neurotransmitter glutamate, it causes a phenomenon called glutamate neurotoxicity that ultimately leads to the death of neurons. According to a 2018 study published by the Journal of the Neurobiological Studies, vitamin D helps exert antioxidant actions in the brain, protecting it from oxidative stress and glutamate neurotoxicity.
Considering the growing global rate of dementia and the fact that 29% of U.S. adults3 are deficient in vitamin D, achieving vitamin D sufficiency should be top priority when developing a proactive care plan for maintaining healthy cognitive function with age. The problem? This can be easier said than done.
Ben Angel, bestselling author of Unstoppable(Entrepreneur Press® 2018), CLICK, Sleeping Your Way to The Top in Business, and Flee 9-5, is Australia’s leading marketing authority. Founder of benangel.co, a site dedicated to providing entrepreneurs advanced online marketing courses and education, Ben provides easy-to-apply and even easier-to-understand strategies for reaching new customers with ease.
While all of these risk factors are technically modifiable, there are some that are not as easy for an individual to address (e.g., air pollution if you live in a polluted city and are unable to move, less education if you live in a country that does not mandate public education for certain ages, etc.).
That said, there are still many things you can do to help address dementia risk factors, such as:
It’s no secret that sleep deprivation has a negative impact on the brain, but why? That’s what this research wanted to find out, and to do so, the study authors observed the brain activity and neural connections of participants who had experienced overnight sleep deprivation versus those who’d had a sufficient night’s sleep.
Based on their observations, not only is brain activation affected by sleep deprivation, but neural connections are affected as well—and not for the better, as you might imagine. Further, both of those brain functions play a big role in cognition and memory.
For instance, when we sleep, fresh memories from the previous day are stored via strengthened neural connections. (This is known as neuroplasticity.) So essentially, inadequate sleep equals fewer and/or weaker encoded memories.
As the study authors write, “Our data indicate that upscaled brain excitability and altered plasticity, due to sleep deprivation, are associated with impaired cognitive performance,” adding that sleep hygiene could play a role in both disease prevention and improved cognition.
Each of these brain-boosting ingredients imparts unique nootropic mechanisms and actions in our body and brain. There are countless supplements on the market that include these ingredients, each designed to promote brain health in different ways.
However, not every brain health supplement includes scientifically backed (i.e., by clinical research trials) nootropic ingredients in efficacious doses and forms that deliver proactive support to promote brain longevity for all ages. Enter: brain guard+.
We know that the time to think about your longevity and nurture your cognitive well-being is—well, now! Whether you’re 20 or 80, brain guard+ was designed for you. This innovative formula includes premium and patented nootropic ingredients (i.e., citicoline as Cognizin®, kanna as Zembrin®, and resveratrol as Veri-te™) clinically shown to promote cognitive flexibility, improve memory, increase processing speed, bolster neurotransmitter production, and increase cerebral blood flow to enhance mental clarity.*
Whether your goal is to elevate executive functioning, improve neuroplasticity, promote recall of memories, or combat occasional brain fog, mbg’s brain guard+ can help you achieve your brain health goals today, tomorrow, and down the road.* But don’t just take our word for it—leading cognitive health experts agree that this nootropic formula yields incredible results for brain health and longevity.
See what board-certified neurologists, longevity dietitians, award-winning neuroscientists, and nutritional psychiatrists have to say about the brain guard+ formula and the cognitive support its nootropic trio of citicoline, kanna, and resveratrol delivers to enhance neuronal function, brain health, and mental performance throughout the life span.*
Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of stressors or suffering in this world—but the good news is, the study authors believe managing negative emotions that subsequently come up could have protective benefits for the brain.
They recommend meditation, for one thing, which has a long-standing reputation for easing stress, improving concentration and mindfulness, and yes, working through emotions. And even if you don’t meditate, mindfulness can still be incorporated throughout your day, helping you to identify and feel your emotions so you can work through them.
Working with a mental health professional who can guide you in emotional management can also be beneficial if you’re just getting started.
And if you want any additional help with managing your emotions for the sake of your brain, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to incorporate targeted botanicls into your routine. Ingredients like CBD, lavender, and ashwagandha are research-backed and have been shown to help support feelings of calm and a balanced mental state. Don’t know where to start? Check out this roundup of our favorite supplements for stress, all backed by a nutrition Ph.D.
“I think the results of the different studies encourage the baseline thought that the gut microbiota is of importance not only for physical health but also for mental health (via the gut-brain axis),” Witteman tells mindbodygreen.
While it’s exciting to see probiotics being used and tested against severe conditions like AD, science still has a ways to go when it comes to validating these early findings. There’s an interesting path ahead, as research has yet to meaningfully examine related factors like the effect of prebiotics on AD.
Plus, it’s always encouraging to have studies reconfirm the idea that supporting a healthy gut promotes our body’s ability to prevent and fight disease, which functional and integrative medicine doctors have been asserting for decades.
“An interdisciplinary approach to investigate the interactions between host and microbiota could potentially lead to a strategic advance in treatment and prevention of AD in future,” writes Witteman.
The research on the benefits of probiotics for diseases like AD is still emerging, but there are plenty of reasons to consider probiotics as a key part of your health toolkit right now.
Defined as ‘the length of time for which a person is able to concentrate mentally on a particular activity,’ attention refers to where we direct our thoughts (and, for how long).
“Attention is the sort of overarching, colloquially used term, but it can mean many, many things,” says Elizabeth Ricker, neuroscientist and author ofSmarter Tomorrow: How 15 Minutes of Neurohacking A Day Can Help You Work Better, Think Faster, and Get More Done. “When we talk about executive function (the more formal term for what attention can often fall under), it’s composed of working memory (your ability to move from one idea to the next) and inhibition (the ability to inhibit unwanted thoughts or behaviors).”
There are an infinite number of things happening around us at all times, but the brain can only process so much. To illustrate how our brains decide what to pay attention to, psychologists use the classic example of a cocktail party.
At this cocktail party, you could focus on any number of stimuli in a room: the music playing, the sound of glasses clinking, the person walking by, or the conversation happening behind you. Thanks to the brain’s filtering processes, you’ll usually tune in the person in front of you, with surrounding sights and sounds blurring into mere background noise. But say someone walks by and says your name. Even though you weren’t previously paying attention to their conversation, it now comes into focus as the person in front of you fades into the background.
Of course, for someone with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), this process can be more difficult. Both conditions present challenges with executive functioning2, which includes attention and focus. This can be compounded by overly sensitive sensory systems3, which make it easier to focus on certain sounds and stimuli in the environment and harder to tune other ones out. (You can read more about how ASD and ADHD affect women specifically in our 2023 wellness trend.)
The study followed 5,022 adults over the age of 65 from the National Health and Aging Trends Study—a longitudinal and nationally representative group of older adults in the U.S.—over the course of nine years (i.e., 2011 to 2020).
Within the group, approximately one in four older U.S. adults faced social isolation—i.e., they had few social relationships and infrequent contact with others. the results showed that social isolation was associated with a 28% higher risk of developing dementia (25.9% of the socially isolated group had probably dementia, compared to 19.6% of the non-isolated group).
While this statistic seems high, researchers warn that the association between dementia and social isolation may be underestimated, as older adults living in nursing homes and residential care facilities (in which dementia and social isolation are highly prevalent) were not included in this study.
While the findings did not vary by race in this study, scientists conclude that more research is needed to determine the specific dementia-related implications of social isolation on different racial and ethnic groups, as a higher prevalence of dementia has been found in African American, Hispanic, American Indian, and Alaska Native older adults compared to White older adults. With the growing diversity of the aging population, accounting for racial and ethnic disparities within the design of future longitudinal population studies is imperative.
Since we’re a long way off from using light therapy to change the brain in more significant ways, it’s worth asking: What proven alternative methods can we start using today to benefit brain health and response time?
Another great practice for promoting brain health is meditation. Meditation has been shown to keep your hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for learning and emotional regulation, healthier, and some studies have found it can help decrease brain cell volume in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain responsible for fear, anxiety, and stress. It has even been shown to alter the behavior and conductivity of neurons3, like how light therapy did in this new MIT/Harvard study.
“When I wake up, the first thing I do, in my mind with my eyes still closed, is think, ‘I love my silk pillowcase. I love my side-sleeping pillow. I love my mattress. I love my silk duvet. I love all my pets,” Swart explains.
Essentially, she says, start the day with gratitude: Remind yourself how much you love little or even larger aspects of your life. You could also write down a list of what you’re grateful for (depending on how much energy you have in the early hours of the day).
Or you can even add a bit of structure to it, if you know that will help you stay committed to the practice. Rather than simply listing off what comes to mind, you may designate specific categories: Write, for example, one thing you love about your home, one thing you love about your personality, one thing you love about your friends or family, one thing you love about your job, one thing you love about your daily routine, and so on.
For those who dread early morning wake-up calls, this practice might remind you that getting up (although it’s not always enjoyable) doesn’t have to be filled with dread. In fact, gratitude is associated with some pretty significant brain health benefits.
Reader, I hate how quickly I was able to make this image. Image: Trigger / CD Projekt Red / Netflix / Kotaku / artpartner-images (Getty Images)
It’s official: the ability to smell shows and movies is finally here.
The cutting-edge tech in question, called the Aroma Shooter, was shown off at CES 2023 today by a Japanese-based developer Aromajoin. The Aroma Shooter can “digitalize aromas and create a new communication channel in the same family as text, images, and audio.” If you aren’t in attendance at CES this weekend, fear not, you can check out its demo video below:
Smell-O-Vsion-type products aren’t anything new to the entertainment medium. If you’re a millennial like myself, you may have experienced the 4D gimmick in action for the 2003 theatrical release of Rugrats Go Wild! that featured The Wild Thornberrys. However, instead of scratching a parchment of scented paper while watching a film or movie, Aroma Shooter…well, shoots smells at your face.
Aromajoin
The Aroma Shooter involves the use of two pieces of tech: the shooter itself and the aroma cartridge. Rather than using oils or mist, the aroma cartridge is a solid-state device that can apparently “toggle between scents in 0.1 second and blend scent permutations instantly with no lingering sensations.” When combined with the aroma shooter, a device PCGamer described as a wireless gadget that sucks in air and creates the scent fired toward your nose, you’ve got some sniff-able media.
As the video above demonstrates, users can program the Aroma Shooter’s over 100 scents to blast fragrances at their face holes in sync with a TV show, VR game, or anime like QuintessentialQuintuplets or Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. For those curious, the featured scents for QQ are cherry blossoms, grapes, and peaches. The Edgerunners demonstration clip featured smoke, caramel, coffee, and clove bud. Chances are they’re still figuring out what cyberpsychosis smells like. You can also create your own scented viewing experience by linking a YouTube video to the software and marking timecodes when your techo-snoofs occur.
While I think the tech is impressive in passing, I’m not exactly sold on the daily practical use of it. Although the thought of programming the Aroma Shooter to its maximum capacity to smell bomb my apartment with gourmet food from any given Studio Ghibli movie is tempting, I can’t see myself using this ridiculously expensive device. I’m a lazy bitch who has enough of an imagination to carry me through watching anime characters gorge themselves on food that looks better than real life. Should the day ever come where Elon Musk’s Neuralink chips take off and the smells of my childhood memories are paywalled (you know he’s thought about it), then we’ll talk.
Here comes the catch: The Aroma Shooter 2 packaged with six aroma cartridges will run you $998. Should you have enough disposable income to require more individual cartridges, they’re gonna cost you $54 each. Currently, Aromajoin is working on crowdfunding a VR/AR attachment for its smell-o-rific device, as well.
Simply put, omega-3s are brain food, and supplementation is a smart and effective strategy for getting adequate amounts.
“When looking for supplements, I prioritize omega-3s, as these are the brain’s essential building blocks,” Leaf explains. “Research actually suggests that when we do take omegas, specifically DHA and EPA, it does help to improve brain and mind and body health.”*
However, not all omega-3 supplements are created equal. Finding a high-quality fish oil with optimal dosage that prioritizes purity and sustainable sourcing is no small feat. According to Leaf, omega-3 potency+ fits the bill.
“I prefer mindbodygreen’s formula for its potency (1,500 milligrams of EPA plus DHA per serving) and premium quality,” Leaf shares. “It’s made of the highest quality, wild-caught, cold-water, sustainably sourced, pure fish oil with an optimized EPA:DHA ratio and absorption profile (thanks to the triglyceride form).”
She continues: “The results have blown me away. I’ve noticed significant improvements in my memory retention, clarity, and cognition—I even feel it has helped my overall mood. It truly is brain food.”*
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), aka seasonal depression, occurs in areas that experience lower levels of sunlight during certain times of the year.
In the United States, it’s most prevalent in the northern regions of the country—i.e., Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, and the Northeast. The further north you live1 (i.e., the further you are from the equator), the more susceptible you are.
According to a 2015 article from Depression Research and Treatment, SAD is four times more common in women than men and cases typically begin between the ages of 18 and 30.
While seasonal depression is a clinical diagnosis, a subsyndromal type of SAD with milder symptoms called S-SAD, or “the winter blues,” is more common. For example, 15% of the Canadian population and 20% of the U.K. population experiences the winter blues, while only 2%-6% and 2% experience SAD in Canada and the U.K., respectively.
First thing’s first: It’s important to stop the cycle of generational trauma. Of course, it’s not easy to “heal” someone else’s trauma that you didn’t experience first-hand—but it is possible.
If you’re in contact with any of your older family members, talking with them about what traumatic experiences they’ve gone through might be a good first step. If they’re either not alive or in your life anymore, you can do some digging on your own: Take note every time you feel yourself becoming emotionally triggered. Then analyze the event that happened and why it made you feel upset—did you feel abandoned? Let down? Scared? Betrayed? Violated?
Once you know the root emotion you’re feeling, you’ve answered the “why.” Next, move on to the “what,” which entails asking yourself what you can actually do to feel better. It could be calling a friend to talk through the emotions, going on a walk to clear your mind, journaling, etc.—however you choose to move through those emotions, do so with one baby step at a time.
While unraveling generational trauma may feel like a burden, it’s an act of love that will only positively impact you, your children, and those to come after. That said, releasing deeply rooted emotions isn’t easy, so here are a few more tips from a trauma specialist to help you out.
It’s important to note that if you have access to therapy, it can also be a helpful tool for unraveling trauma and coming up with personalized ways to cope that make sense in your life. If not, you can talk to a trusted friend or family member. After all, you might not be able to see your trauma clearly until someone starts asking you the right questions.
