Striving4Zen

The only things as important as eating the right foods for brain health are limiting your toxic exposure and enhancing your detoxification system.

Avoid Brain-Damaging Foods

The list of brain-damaging foods you need to avoid is short:

1. Processed, refined carbohydrates and sugar
2. High-fructose corn syrup
3. Toxic fats—especially trans fats
4. Food additives and preservatives
5. Alcohol
6. Caffeine
7. Food allergens (the two most common are gluten and dairy)

Eat Detoxifying Foods

If you want to enhance your detoxification and develop an UltraMind, you need more glutathione, a sulfur-like substance that transports toxins out of your body via your urine and stool. To naturally increase your glutathione, increase your intake of the following foods:

• Cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, collards, kale, Brussels sprouts, Chinese cabbage, bok choy, arugula, radish, wasabi, watercress, kohlrabi, mustard greens, rutabaga, turnips)—at least one to two cups, cooked, daily
• Curcuminoids (turmeric, curry)
• Garlic (a few cloves a day)
• Green tea, one to two cups a day (boosts liver detoxification)
• High-quality, sulfur-containing protein (eggs, garlic, onions)

Take Vitamin D3

In addition to what is in your multivitamin, you should take vitamin D3 because it is significantly deficient in so many people.

Reduce Your Heavy Metal Exposure

Heavy metals are some of the most toxic chemicals in our environment. The two biggest culprits are lead (from lead paint, leaded gas, and coal-burning factories) and mercury (from dental fillings, vaccinations, and industrial pollutants).

Avoid Environmental Petrochemicals

Limit your exposure by doing the following:

• Do not dry clean your clothes.
• Avoid the use of garden chemicals.
• Buy furniture that has been built without the use of formaldehyde or other preservative agents.
• Eliminate your exposure to secondhand smoke and car exhaust.

Source

Labels: brain, cruciferous vegetables, detox, detoxify, Dr. Mark Hyman, formaldehyde, garlic, lead, living holistically, mercury, toxins

In his revolutionary new book, The UltraMind Solution, Dr. Mark Hyman offers not just an explanation validated by hundreds of recent peer-reviewed medical studies, but a solution for this invisible epidemic that now affects 1.1 billion people worldwide and will cripple one in four among us during our lifetime.

So, what's causing our "broken brains"?

Essentially two things - our modern diet and environment - both of which are loaded with brain-toxic compounds, including:

• Brain-toxic foods, such as high-fructose corn syrup and trans/hydrogenated fats
• Excessive consumption of sugar, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine
• Additives and toxins in our foods (more than 3,500 can be added to food; more than 3,000 are in our homes)
• Toxic chemicals (more than 80,000 have been introduced since 1990; 500 have been tested for safety)
• Heavy metals, including lead, mercury, cadmium
• Over-the-counter and prescription medications, which interfere with the body's use or production of several compounds essential for brain health (e.g., coenzyme Q10, B vitamins, glutathione)
• Mycotoxins, which, according to a number of very current studies, cause severe symptoms of brain damage in 70%, and autonomic nervous system abnormalities in 100% of patients living with them.
• Sleep deprivation
• Sedentary lifestyle, which lowers brain repair mechanisms (e.g., IGF-1 and brain-derived neurotropic factor)
• Chronic stress, which chronically elevates the "stress hormone," cortisol

What's the UltraMind Solution? Heal the Body, Heal the Brain

First, as the discussion of current research in Part I makes clear: the brain is not disconnected from the rest of the body. Dr. Hyman sums it up saying: "the barrier between the body and the brain is no iron curtain. It is more like cheesecloth."

What this means is that brain disorders are not only in the brain. Their root cause(s), and therefore their cure, is to be found in finding and treating imbalances in the rest of the body-in the body's seven key systems. Restoring balance to these core systems restores health, both in the body and the brain.

Dr. Hyman marshals these seven key systems as the Seven Keys to UltraWellness.

They are:

• Optimize nutrition
• Balance your hormones
• Cool off inflammation
• Fix your digestion
• Enhance detoxification
• Boost energy metabolism
• Calm your mind

Source

Labels: caffeine, Dr. Mark Hyman, high fructose corn syrup, living holistically, stress, sugar, The UltraMind Solution, toxic metals, toxins, UltraWellness