Dr. Barnard Confirms Food Greatly Affects the Brain

I went to Dr. Neal Barnard’s book signing/talk at Powell’s Books in Portland on April 11, 2013 for his new book, “Power Foods for the Brain”.  It was so great to see Dr. Barnard spreading the word on how powerful food is in relationship to brain function. This subject is especially exciting because when I did my research article “The Importance of Nutrition for a Healthy Brain and Successful Learning” (which is dated October 30, 2012 on my blog), I got the feeling that many lay researchers, medical doctors, and psychologists have been disassociating the reality that foods significantly affects brain function.  I was very happy to hear Dr. Barnard talk about how we all need to spread the word of much food does in fact impact how the brain works because he also has encountered many medical professionals who are oblivious of this.  For some reason the average American, and sadly even medical professionals, think that what goes on in our brains is magically isolated from the complex chemicals, nutrients, vitamins and minerals which our stomach processes to fuel our brains throughout every day of our lives.

Dr. Barnard discussed how animal foods (meat, fish, diary, and eggs) contain high amounts of saturated fat, cholesterol, and other damaging chemicals that significantly increase the chances of not only Alzheimer’s (which is of course considered a very serious mental disease) but also, “Mild Cognitive Impairment” (which occurs much earlier than Alzheimer’s)!  Our “Fast Food Nation” is becoming more and more saturated with animal fats, thus causing saturation of mental impairments in America ranging from ADD to Alzheimer’s.

The bottom line is, eating a whole-foods plant-based diet does in fact greatly protect your brain and Dr. Barnard strongly and effectively supports this through medical research involving live people.  

-Kimberly Garrett

Reference: 

Neal Barnard, MD (April 11, 2013). Powell's Books Speech for "Power Foods for the Brain".

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