05/10/2021
SMOOTHIES THAT NOURISH YOUR BRAIN
Our brain requires three things to function properly: sufficient exercise, plenty of sleep, and proper nutrition. Unfortunately, if you’re
one of the billions of people who follow the typical Western lifestyle, you
probably aren’t getting enough of any of these. The up side is that your
brain is extremely good at making due for short periods of time, but it
can’t function optimally for too long without getting what it needs. As a
matter of fact, many degenerative brain disorders are now being linked
to poor dietary choices.
For most of human history, the functions of the brain have been a
mystery, but in recent decades, scientists have begun to understand
more clearly how it works. Just like a car, your brain functions only as
long as you feed it the proper fuel. It requires specific nutrients to keep
your thoughts flowing well and your memory operating efficiently. If you
offer it a lifetime of garbage, it can literally wither up and quit working.
Recent research is actually calling Alzheimer’s disease “type 3 diabetes.”
To completely oversimplify how sugar leads to Alzheimer’s, let’s take
a basic look at how things work. Your pancreas produces insulin, which
is what tells your cells to absorb blood sugar, aka glucose, that your
brain uses for fuel. When the insulin sends signals to your cells too often, such as when you have too much sugar in your blood, your cells
start ignoring the insulin. Now you’re insulin resistant, and your brain
isn’t getting sufficient glucose to function properly. You begin to lose
