Your brain's perception of food

Your brain's perception of food

think. Your brain is always on. "It takes care of your thoughts and movements, your breath and heartbeat, your senses - it works hard 24 hours a day, even when you're asleep." That means your brain needs a constant supply of energy. This "fuel" comes from the food you eat - and what's in the fuel makes a difference. In short, what you eat directly affects the structure and function of your brain, and ultimately your emotions.

Like an expensive car, your brain works best only when you get good fuel. Eating high-quality foods rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants nourishes the brain and protects it from oxidative stress - the "waste" (free radicals) produced when the body uses oxygen, which can damage cells.

Unfortunately, like an expensive car, if you ingest anything but premium fuel, your brain can be damaged. If substances from "low-end" fuels (such as those you get from processed or refined foods) enter the brain, the brain has little ability to get rid of them. For example, a high sugar diet is bad for the brain. In addition to worsening your body's regulation of insulin, they also promote inflammation and oxidative stress. A number of studies have found that a diet rich in refined sugar is associated with impaired brain function, and even aggravates emotional disorders, such as depression.

It makes sense. If your brain lacks high-quality nutrition, or free radicals or destructive inflammatory cells circulate in the closed space of the brain, further damage to brain tissue will be expected. Interestingly, the link between emotion and food has not been fully recognized in medicine for many years.

Today, fortunately, the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry is discovering that there are many consequences and correlations not only between what you eat, how you feel and your final behavior, but also between the various bacteria that live in your gut.

How does the food you eat affect how you feel

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate sleep and appetite, mood and pain. Since about 95% of serotonin is in the gastrointestinal tract, and your gastrointestinal tract is lined with 100 million nerve cells, or neurons, it makes sense that your digestive system not only helps you digest food, but also guides your emotions. More importantly, the function of these neurons - and the production of neurotransmitters like serotonin - is largely influenced by the billions of "good" bacteria that make up the gut microbiota. These bacteria play a vital role in your health. They protect the inner walls of your gut, making sure they provide a powerful barrier against toxins and "bad" bacteria; they limit inflammation; they improve your ability to absorb nutrients from food; and they activate the neural pathways between the gut and the brain.

 studies compared "traditional" diets, such as the Mediterranean diet and the traditional Japanese diet, with the typical "western" diet, and showed that people who ate the traditional diet had a 25% to 35% lower risk of depression. Scientists explain the difference because these traditional diets tend to be rich in vegetables, fruits, unprocessed grains, fish and seafood, with only a small amount of lean meat and dairy products. They also lack processed and refined foods and sugar, which are a major part of the "western" diet. In addition, many of these unprocessed foods are fermented and therefore play the role of natural probiotics.

This may sound incredible, but the idea that beneficial bacteria not only affect what you digest and absorb in your gut, but also affect the level of inflammation in your whole body, as well as your mood and energy level, is getting more and more attention from researchers.