Book Review: Eat to Cheat Dementia

Eat to Cheat Dementia by Ngaire Hobbins explains the effect of diet and exercise on dementia. Dementia is the abnormal decline in thinking processes. Alzheimer's disease is a common type of dementia.

Neurotransmitters
Neurotransmitters form a chemical communication pathway between nerve cells. The brain's system of neurotransmitters is unique and manufactured in the brain. The required components of amino acids (proteins), vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fatty acids must be available for assembly. Thus the influence of diet on the brain is critical.

Muscles
Muscles play an important part in supplying the brain with fuel. When we sleep or between meals, the brain still requires fuel to run the body. Muscles serve as a reservoir for this fuel (proteins). As we age, the condition of our muscles becomes critical. Bouncing back and resuming exercise after illness becomes even more important.

Blood Flow
The bloodstream carries nutrients and waste materials throughout the body. Any blood flow restriction can affect brain health. Some factors are: high cholesterol, obesity, and high blood pressure. Dietary substances like alcohol and caffeine also affect blood flow.


This book offers advice and explanations for those wishing to stack the deck against a dementia diagnosis as well as those seeking a better lifestyle with that diagnosis. In her own words, Ngaire Hobbins provides an easy read from "scientific gobbledygook." This book has a wealth of helpful information and I highly recommend it.

Make Your Brain Smarter: Book Review

What does it take to keep our brains functioning optimally into old age? Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D., addresses this issue in Make Your Brain Smarter: Increase Your Brain's Creativity, Energy, and Focus.

Past belief was that brain capacity was a constant until it declined, and little could be done to improve performance.

Dr. Chapman presents new science that refutes this, and indicates that the brain can repair itself and improve performance. Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to reorganize and rewire by creating new neurons and neural pathways.

She discusses the barriers to concentration and deep thinking. Numerous interruptions like texts and emails as well as excessive data and multiple trivial tasks sidetrack the deep thought state.

The danger of that is deep thought improves brain performance. 

Another falacy Dr. Chapman writes about is brain function testing. Speed of the thought process and memory have often been used as determiners of brain health and intelligence, but cognitive functioning necessary for strategic planning, learning a new subject, or problem solving is a better measurement of brain function.

She sorts age ranges into groups called the Intermediates, Finders, Seekers, Thinkers, and Knowers, and gets very specific about brain issues in each of those groups.

Dr. Chapman describes aids to cognitive thinking as "powers." 

• The Power of 1 is focusing on one thing without distractions.
• The Power of 2 is selecting 2 important items on your to-do list, and truly concentrate on those. She calls the 2 "elephants" and the others, " rabbits".
• The Power of Deep is pulling together data, knowledge, experience, etc. to create a new idea. She exclaims "Get off of automatic pilot!" [It's not good for your brain.]
• The Power of Less is reducing the amount of information you're bombarded with. She  claims, "Big data freezes the brain."
• The Power of Innovative Thinking is to avoid the status quo by getting inspired.

Of course, eating healthy, sleeping adequately, and exercise are important as well.

Make your Brain Smarter is a very enlightening book about improving brain health. 

The 10 minute video above is the author giving a TED talk on brain health.
Viewing on an iPad or iPhone? Link to the You-Tube video here.