Fuel for Thought: Nutrition and Cognitive Wellness for Lawyers [Webinar]

AMY LEVINE:  

Okay, I think we’re going to get started. And I wanted to welcome everybody to another installment of Webinars for Busy Lawyers on Fuel for Thought: Nutrition for Cognitive Wellness. This is presented by Dr. Amy Reichelt. And this is a webinar, which is a supplement to our three-part series on exploring the impact of aging in the legal community. The first of the three-part series was on cognitive decline, which was in January. And the link is on our website if you want to check it out. The second part of the programming is a panel discussion on cognitive decline and ethics entitled, “Graceful Exits: Identifying Challenges Facing Aging Attorneys & Managing Ethical Risks.” And that is scheduled for February 27th at 4pm, so please sign up. Part three is also a panel discussion entitled, “Reimagine, Refocus or Retire: The Next Stage for Senior Lawyers,” which is scheduled for March 13th at 4pm. And if you are joining us for the first time, Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers is comprised of a team of clinicians, lawyers, and law office practice advisors who provide help in recovery for addictions, mental health challenges, well-being, and law office practice management for the Massachusetts legal community. Our services are confidential and free. 

Now on to our presentation. I am honored to introduce Dr. Amy Reichelt, who has her PhD in neuroscience from Cardiff University and is currently an adjunct professor at Western University in Canada. She is a neuroscientist, researcher, speaker, consultant, and an author with a focus on exploring the intersection of mental health, cognition, and nutrition. She’s also the Chief Innovation Officer for PurMinds NeuroPharma. She will be available for questions after her presentation, so please use the chat for those questions. And we do have a hard stop at 1pm. And without further ado, welcome Dr. Reichelt.  

 

AMY REICHELT:

Is my screen working? Okay, hang on. So, everything’s showing okay, Amy?  

 

AMY LEVINE: 

Everything is showing. It looks great.  

 

AMY REICHELT:

Okay. One second. Okay, so thank you so much to Amy for inviting me today to speak to you all. I wanted to share some insights, really,around how nutrition can influence brain health and how for individuals engaged in demanding professions, how our nutrition has the ability to bolster our resilience in this fast-paced world that we work in. So, not to recap too much about myself as Amy just kindly introduced me, but yes, I hold a PhD in neuroscience and also I hold a professor appointment at Western University here in Canada. I’m based in Toronto. I have my own private practice, which is… my own private nutrition practice called Cognition Nutrition – which really focuses around brain health and how diet can improve brain function – as well as working full-time as Chief Innovation Officer in a small startup pharmaceuticals company, although I do have a background also in Big Pharma.     

So, overall, this is the outline of our talk that I’m going to present today, which is really around how our diet influences our mental capacity and our mental health and how this can be harnessed for high cognitive performance. So, I’m really going to go through why do we love these unhealthy, sugary foods so much and what is the impact of these high fat, high sugar foods on our brain function. And then I also want to reflect back onto situations that I think we face on a daily basis, which is when we’re stressed out, what does this then do to our brain function? And what does this do to our eating habits and our choices? And how do these eating habits and choices reciprocally have an effect on our brain function?  And then lastly, I’ll go through some tips and tricks for how we can improve our brain health to optimize our performance in our fast-paced lifestyles.  

So, I was thinking about this the other day and really around how it’s harder in our world to be healthy than it is to be unhealthy in a lot of ways. So, our diet patterns, we know, help us in terms of maintaining our health and wellbeing. But we’re faced every day with so many choices and options. It’s actually really difficult to stay on track. And it seems that we’re in, society-wise, that it’s designed to incentivize the opposite. It’s easier to eat the cheap, readily available and hyper-palatable foods. They’re everywhere and we know that they are going to reward us of how we feel when we’re stressed out or when we’re hungry compared to our more healthful foods, which quite often require the effort of preparation. They’re less rewarding. I mean, you can’t tell me that a stick of celery tastes better in terms of rewarding satieties and how you feel than say a bar of candy. It’s how our brain is wired. And also, we know that there is both the expense of having these foods, that they’re more expensive when we need to buy organic foods or the healthy versions of these foods because quite simply, they require more effort put into them. So, this is why we tend to sway our way towards these much more, you know, easy access, high palatable, yet unhealthy foods.     

And why do we find these foods so rewarding? Well, our brain has a chemical system that’s ancient. It’s been present in numerous animals as well, and invertebrates even, that our brain has a system of reward. And we know that there is a key component of reward processing that is liking, which is the hedonic impact of a reward. So, how great this makes us feel. And then we also have a wanting impact. And this is how motivated we are to work for a reward. And wanting really fields into that craving that we experience when we want something. And I also think about with reward processing from a psychological perspective, which is that we learn and associate things that are going to be rewarding based on our previous experiences. So, the psychologist in me definitely falls back into this learning theory, which is that we learn about our environment, and we want to be able to recapitulate our past experiences that are pleasant. And this brain reward system, our circuit is called the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system. And our dopamine release in fact motivates our behavior. And the main factor of this is to increase the frequency of engaging in behaviors that we need to survive as a species. So, we know that these can be sex, social contact, or also eating high energy foods. Because if we put ourselves back to our prehistoric ancestors, these foods were the ones that drive survival. They’re the ones that have the highest energy that enable us to function best in pre-society societies. And we needed them for survival, therefore. However, in our modern society, these foods are everywhere. We don’t need to hunt and gather for them anymore. They’re just replete within our supermarkets, but also, they’re the easiest option a lot of the time. So, what happens then to our brain that’s made to be stimulated by these foods, to drive these behaviors, when these foods are just omnipotent? They’re everywhere.  

It’s been shown that junk foods, so these are our diets that are foods that are high in fat and sugar, cause disruption of brain function. And this can be studied both in humans, but then also in the laboratory using, for example, laboratory rats. We know that our rats in the lab have the same reward system as humans. And this enables us to be able to test out in that much more controlled environment how these diets can actually start to change brain function. And one of the key aspects that has been observed in multiple labs is that when we feed our rats huge amounts of foods that are high in fat and sugar. So, in the case of laboratories that I’ve worked in previously, actually feeding rats lard, cakes, biscuits, pies, all the good things that, well, maybe not so much lard, but sugary water, all these deliciousness, and that this actually causes a form of inflammation. So, in the same way that if you stub your toe, your toe swells up. However, when our brain becomes inflamed or as we call it, neuroinflammation, we can’t see that, but we can start to experience firsthand how that makes us feel.   

It can be brain fog, which is typically reported by many people after consuming huge amounts of unhealthy foods. And this is because, when you eat these unhealthy foods, we start to release inflammatory cytokines. So, these are chemicals that are released both from our gut, but also from cells, particularly our adipose tissue when it becomes engorged because we have too much energy. And these inflammatory cytokines get into the bloodstream and then they can cross across the blood brain barrier into our brain. And here they start to wreak havoc by firstly, activating microglia. And so, our brain is made up of numerous different types of cells. So, we tend to think mostly about neurons because they’re sort of the star of the show, but there are various support act or support parts of our brain and critically our glia – which are another type of brain cell, these are important for immune responses, including inflammation and our microglia – actually can become activated by the presence of cytokines, but they can also release cytokines themselves. So, you really need to keep a good control on your microglia. And it’s been shown in studies that our microglia become activated in areas of the brain within just the space of three days of a high fat diet exposure. So, this was really interesting because this is before changes in body weight occur. So, this is showing that actually at a neurobiological level, within just a few days, I mean, think about the period over Christmas, we can definitely eat bad food for more than three days, but this is engaging these microglia and causing them to become activated. And that means that they can start to have detrimental effects in the brain themselves.    

And other studies have shown that going hand in hand with the microglia activation and inflammation, that high fat, high sugar diets also can decrease neuroplasticity. And this manifests in numerous ways. So, neuroplasticity being how adaptable our brain is. And it’s a process needed for learning and memory, and also just rewiring in face of different situations that when neuroplasticity is reduced, we see both reduced hippocampal neurogenesis, which is the birth of new highly excitable neurons within the hippocampus, which is the key part of the brain for forming memories. We also see a reduced dendritic spine density. And this beautiful picture here from Alexis Stranahan’s lab shows not only neurons, but the fine projections coming out from these neurons are covered in little spines, and these little spines are where they connect together, the handshakes between the different molecules. And these become actually stripped by the consumption of high energy diets. And it’s thought that the dendritic spines themselves are actually stripped by microglia, which are over-activated through the expansion of excess inflammation. And also, we see a decrease in brain derived neurotrophic factor, which reduces synaptic plasticity itself. And BDNF is almost like miracle grow for our brain. It’s the fertilizer for our neurons that allow these little spines to form when needed. And without that, it’s almost as if our plants or our neurons, they don’t flower and blossom as they need to. So, this schema just shows in basic forms how our high fat, high sugar foods interact with our brain to both reduce plasticity at a molecular and cellular level, but also cause this inflammation, and this inflammation in turn can then affect plasticity as well.    

And I did mention a key area of the brain, and I’m going to talk about two key areas of the brain really for the control of how food is consumed and key for our cognition. And this is the first one, which is the hippocampus. And the hippocampus is the key site for encoding memories, but also it’s involved in mood regulation and internal satiety signaling. And this is really interesting because it was shown that in patients who have severe hippocampal damage, so they have pronounced amnesia, that they’ll over-consume foods. This isn’t just because these people can’t remember what they’ve just eaten, but also because they have an impaired satiety processing. So, the hippocampus itself just isn’t able to stop them from eating, not only because they don’t have a memory of what they’ve consumed, but also because their brain isn’t sensing that they’re full. And fascinatingly as well, that we see that high fat and high sugar diets, our junk food diets themselves are damaging the hippocampus and this then creates a vicious cycle. So, if our hippocampus is no longer functioning properly, then this means that we’re not able to process how sated we are. And this means that then we can eat more and overconsume. So, you can see that this is the vicious cycle.    

Another area of the brain that is obviously really important to us for performing in high stress situations and making decisions whenever we’re in an environment where we need to think on our feet is our prefrontal cortex. And this is the seat of our brain that conducts what we call executive function. So, this is like our brain CEO. It’s our C-suite for our brain. It’s making decisions. It’s what you pay attention to. It’s allowing us to adapt behaviors and control our impulses. And this is of course then vital for our food choice behaviors because we need to make decisions about what we’re eating. Do we choose the high road and eat the apple or do we just grab the donut or the second donut because it’s there? And what we think about as neuroscientists is that when the frontal cortex function becomes suboptimal is that our inhibitory control becomes diminished, and this has been shown in numerous studies with both humans and in rats. And also, we see a change that reversing habits, so our behaviors that we’re just predispositioned towards, is that these become more difficult. So, we understand that when the prefrontal cortex isn’t able to override certain behaviors or just wants to go with our normal route of making our food choices, that this can then have an impact on how we choose to eat on a daily basis. 

In particular, from my research in the lab, I was really interested in GABAergic interneurons, so our inhibition and how we are able to resist the temptations of these high fat and high sugar foods, and whether or not something bad happens when we eat too much of these foods. In particular, I was interested in these inhibitory interneurons because they act as brakes on excitatory neurons to control and balance our brain effectively. And we want this because when our brain is dysregulated in terms of its balance between excitation and inhibition, it means that we don’t have the same cognitive capabilities as we normally do. And what’s really interesting about these inhibitory neurons as well is that they are very susceptible to their environment, particularly damage from inflammation. And this is because these neurons, kind of, they work overtime. They’re really busy. They’re controlling, as one neuron, they’re often controlling multiple other neurons that are very excitable. You know, they’re putting the brakes on. They’re like the teachers in the classroom or the CEO trying to manage the corporate entity. They’re always on. And what I saw in my lab was that when we gave rats access to a lot of sugar, so, we had a sugary solution that my rats would love to drink, they would drink it very, very rapidly over the course of just a few hours. When I stained the brain and looked actually at the neurons within the brain, we saw a decline in the number of these inhibitory interneurons in this critical prefrontal cortex region. And this also reflected onto these animals’ behavior which was impaired when it came to a task that required them to control their behavior in a very specific way. So, these animals lost behavioral control, and this went hand in hand with losing the numbers of these inhibitory interneurons.     

From looking at rats, I wanted to know whether or not this also applied to humans. Unfortunately for – well maybe fortunately – for humans, I was unable to actually just look at the neuronal populations actually in the brain, but what I can look at is human brain waves. And so, l used a technique called MEG, which is like a fancy version of EEG, so this sticks electrodes to your scalp and is able to measure how different frequencies of your brain waves are engaged. And to look at this I looked at two specific brainwave frequencies. So firstly, I looked at gamma, which is involved in excitation, and I also looked at alpha, which is looking at inhibition. So therefore, if these were dysregulated, I would be able to infer that potentially my interneurons were changed because there would be too much excitation because they weren’t present. And this is a study that we carried out looking at a population of normal weight individuals, who, this is measured by their BMI, versus a subset of individuals with obesity. And we’ve extended out this study, but this is the preliminary data that has been analyzed so far. And it showed that there was an elevation in the gamma frequency, the high frequency in the frontal cortex, as shown in the red, in these individuals. And these are the key areas, we know, of cognitive control and flexibility. And we also saw a trending decline in the alpha frequencies, the inhibition. So, these individuals had a higher BMI, but then they also showed therefore increase in excitation of the frontal cortex, but a decline in inhibition. So, this is again, reflecting very closely the effects that were seen with my rats that consumed a lot of sugar.  

And we brought this all together into, kind of, again, a cycle of how our environment is changing our brain when we consume too much of these palatable, hyper-palatable foods. And in fact, what we see here is that we see these changes and they can then reflect into both an increase in reward sensitivity, you’re more likely to go for the rewarding food because your behavioral control becomes decreased, because your frontal lobe isn’t functioning as well as it should do. This then leads to a decline in your dietary self-regulation. So, you could not eat the other donut, but it’s just sat there. You might as well. And this then leads to this excessive consumption of the appetitive calorie-dense foods, which can then in turn lead to weight gain and obesity. And again, this precipitates further how your frontal cortex dysfunctions, and changes in our executive function, and also goes hand in hand with the risk of neuropsychiatric conditions like depression. 

And when we start thinking as well about our brain and how we function on our daily basis, for individuals working in, you know, demanding professions like being a lawyer, stress is another way that we can quite easily impair our brain function. And one of the things that I’ve really thought about as well is how, when we’re stressed, why do we crave and often end up giving into the consumption of our sugar and high fat foods? And this again, I’m going to go through three main behaviors that happen and… how this is occurring in the brain. And firstly, we have a psychological response, a learned behavior, and this is why we crave. We also have the neurobiological responses. So, the physiological and hormonal response, what happens when we’re stressed? Why does that make us want to eat these foods? And our neurobiological response as well. So, what, this is happening in the basis of our brain function.    

So, to cover firstly the psychological response. So, this is our learned behavior. And really what this falls back down to is our coping mechanism. We know that palatable foods activate our reward system. This is a soothing way that – we had a hard day. It’s been long and stressful and you’re just craving those foods that you know will make you feel good. You don’t want to spend time preparing food or going and buying a salad. It’s just like, you want that satiating feeling and you want to satisfy your brain’s cravings as well. And this is a learned response and l’ve put it here as a cycle again that when you become stressed you want to relieve the negative mood. So, what’s the easiest thing to do is you know reach for the chocolate bar or reach for a pizza because it’s those high energy, high sugar foods that allow us to satiate those dopamine cravings. This then leads to a neurochemical release in the brain of various pleasure hormones and pleasure neurochemicals. And this allows us then to feel temporarily better at least. So, it puts kind of the bandaid on the situation. 

But also, there is the stress circuit response. So, when we’re really stressed out, this causes the activation of a hormonal system in our brain that is called our Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis or HPA axis. And when this becomes activated, this releases cortisol, which is a hormone. And it gets a lot of bad press, but cortisol actually keeps our body up and running. It’s what gets us out of bed in the morning. The surge of cortisol is actually really important for our general functioning. But when we have a period of acute stress, when we release cortisol, we have a loss of appetite. But then we also know that when we’re chronically stressed, which means there’s just too much cortisol present all the time because we’re just experiencing these stressful events just constantly throughout the day, this can, you again, result in either an increase in appetite, and for some individuals as well, a decline in appetite, but it also starts to change us physiologically. And the basis for this is that cortisol in our body acts as a mobilizer of glucose stores. So, when we were our prehistoric ancestors, this was the energy that we needed for our fight or flight response. This was the surge of energy that we needed to run away from a saber-toothed tiger or get the hell out of a really dangerous situation. But we’re not in typically really dangerous situations all the time in our modern-day life. We don’t need to run away from saber-toothed tigers. We’ve just been landed with a huge amount of work or told that something unexpected has happened and you’ve got to deal with this and put all these fires out. Our body’s not really made for this energy expenditure. You’re not having to run away from anything, but simultaneously you’re there and your glucose is suddenly becoming hugely mobilized. And this is because our stressed-out brain itself uses more glucose than a resting unstressed brain, in fact to the degree of about 12%. So, when we’re stressed out, our brain is working overtime and it’s using up lots and lots of glucose stores because it’s needing that for all the energy that it’s expending. 

But what happens is once the stress has resolved, it’s got to the end of the day, you’ve put things away or, you know, the case is over, and you can just sit back and relax for a minute. But what happens in our brain is that it’s used up loads and loads of our blood glucose. And now we have a reduction in blood glucose, which is called hyperglycemia. And for our brains, when they experience low blood glucose, this is called neuroglycopenia. And without enough energy going to our brain because we’ve expended it all, we get irritable, we get headaches, we have crappy judgment all of a sudden, and now we’re also faced with probably the fact that we’re hungry. And what’s the first thing that we do, is to change our food preferences to that simple carbohydrate rich food stores that is just readily available for us. So, you might as well just grab a bag of chips or a slice of pizza because you know that that energy is going to be rapidly synthesized in your body, helping you to regain energy once again. So again, I’ve put this into a cycle here that we become stressed, our brain has too much energy demands, and this then leads to the use of glucose and this causes neuroglycopenia, then we feel like crap. So, then we eat high energy or high sugar foods. 

Then we’ve also got, the final trifecta here, is our neurobiological response. So, when we are stressed, this is causing changes to the frontal lobe function. So, once we lose control of our prefrontal cortex, we’re not able to make the appropriate food choices. And it’s been shown that during periods of acute stress, effectively our prefrontal cortex just goes offline. It’s almost as if the executive controller just walks out and it’s just like, ‘I just can’t deal with this anymore.’ And everything just runs on automation, and habits become dominant. And this leads to the fact that you can’t make a decision. And also, our prefrontal cortex is really important for making control of our amygdala, which is our emotion center of the brain. And when our amygdala is, then, unchecked, then emotional eating can take control as well. And it’s been shown that in rodents, that chronic stress exposure – so being exposed to stresses on a daily basis – actually leads to the dendritic atrophy of neurons. So, the dendrites being the little connections that our neurons need to communicate with each other. These actually start to decline. So, the stress is actually having an effect primarily on the neurons at the prefrontal cortex. So, as the cycle goes here, stress leads to reduced prefrontal cortex function. It’s decreasing our ability to control our cognition. So, now we’ve got a need for immediate rewards because that’s our habit, we want these tasty foods. And we’ve also got heightened emotions because our amygdala is left unchecked. And so what would we do? We just eat these high energy, high sugar foods.  

So unfortunately, we have a perfect storm there. And when we put it all together, we have stress, it’s causing a learned coping response, a need to restore glucose because we’ve had this stressful experience, and our prefrontal cortex is taken offline. This is all pointing towards the behavior that is eat these high fat, high sugar, highly rewarding foods. But in turn, they all point towards, then, an impairment of prefrontal cortex function. And when our prefrontal cortex becomes impaired, then we’re having a negative impact on our mental health. We’re becoming more and more stressed. We’re unable to make the right decisions. We feel foggy. And this is either pointing us in the direction of just eating more high fat, high sugar foods, but also being more susceptible to stressors as well. So, this cycle just continues and continues.    

But I don’t want to just be the bearer of bad news. I like to be the scientist and the nutritionist that can tell you, look, this is what is happening, but then there are things that we can do to address it. And I think that the first thing that we need to do is to know your adversary. We know when we’re going to be stressed. We can sit as passive observers and say, ‘I was stressed at that point,’ but we’ve got to learn from these situations as well.  

When we’re stressed, we need to know that our brain is going to tell us to eat these unhealthy foods. And one of the key things to do is to prepare in advance to avoid these cravings. And this could be as little as, you know, knowing that you’re going to have a really hectic day and just filling up with a really healthy breakfast to start with, you know, getting the good food into you so you’re less likely to [be] experiencing those blood sugar crashes or the rollercoaster of glucose throughout the day from eating these high carb diet foods. And if we can consume these diets that are high in nutritious foods, this is also helping us to improve our brain function and build mental resilience. And this is basically how we can battle the stress that we experience and prevent ourselves from falling into these traps of eating badly. It’s also been shown that aerobic exercise, so just going out for a walk or doing an aerobic exercise, walking, running, cycling, actually can promote the secretion of chemicals like brain derived neurotrophic factor. And it also is an outlet for relieving stress. And also, quality sleep. Although I’m not really going to talk about it particularly in this lecture, but thinking that quality sleep can help restore the mind, and a poor night’s sleep again, in turn, can impair our prefrontal cortex function when running on habits yet again, and so really trying to prioritize rest is so essential for us.   

So, I’m going to say here some of my favorite brain healthy foods and supplements that I think are really important for people to be able to consume. And firstly, I always recommend people to consume ample Omega-3s. And these are vital because these Omega-3s polyunsaturated fatty acids actually make up our neurons themselves. They maintain the neuronal membrane fluidity. And it’s also been shown that a diet high in Omega-3s is able to increase BDNF, so our brains miracle grow, our fertilizer for our neurons. And it’s been shown that our best dietary sources of Omega-3s are oily fish, such as salmon or tuna, flax seeds, chia seeds, walnuts. I mean, they look like little brains, they’ve got to be good for us somehow. But I also recommend that, for people who don’t consume these foods because of their dietary restrictions or sensitivities, that you can supplement with about a thousand milligrams a day of EPA and DHA in combination. And this is an ideal way to support your brain by maintaining the neurons’ flexibility, in a way, in terms of their structure.  

Another key brain healthy nutrient is Vitamin D3. And we think about getting Vitamin D from the sunshine, but for many of us, our seven days of vacation isn’t good enough really for maintaining our Vitamin D levels throughout the year. And in fact, for many of us living in North America, I’m in Toronto, you’re in Boston, for example. It’s probably gray and overcast and it’s cold. So, you’re covered up a lot of the time, but this means that quite simply your skin isn’t exposed to the solar radiation. And then, this means that we can’t produce enough Vitamin D ourselves. So, Vitamin D3 itself is a neurosteroid and also an antioxidant. So, it actually works in our brain to stimulate glutathione, which is an antioxidant. And it also works as an anti-inflammatory, as well as also regulating our melatonin production. So, it’s really essential for being able to control our circadian rhythms. And it’s why we can start to feel tired and lethargic and a bit craving for those carbohydrate rich foods, particularly in the winter. So again, I think it’s ideal to supplement with vitamin D3, but also, it’s found in fish, eggs, mushrooms, and also dairy products. 

So, another way of supporting your brain is to consume magnesium. And again, this is a nutrient that is often found in – found to be not enough in our diets and people are not consuming enough magnesium. And magnesium actually activates our GABA receptors, which our inhibitory… neurons are expressing. And so, this is helping us really chill out when we have a very stressful time. Magnesium can also be a sleep aid and help us with muscle recovery. The most bioactive forms of magnesium are magnesium bisglycinate or magnesium l-threonate. These are forms of magnesium that’s able to get into the brain nice and easily rather than sitting around in our gut and potentially just making our gastrointestinal processes a little bit different. So, l always recommend for individuals to supplement with magnesium, particularly in the evening. It can really help soothe you. But also, it’s found in bananas and avocados and seeds and nuts, and also quite a high component in our dark chocolate as well. So just having a bit of dark chocolate can really help us with our magnesium and let you be a bit guilt-free with that treat.   

And my final supplement that l’ve seen a lot of people really hype about when it comes to muscle building is creatine. And this is actually an athletic enhancer because it is actually made in our body itself from amino acids. So, arginine, glycine, and methionine, but we can supplement with it so that we don’t need to use up those amino acids from consuming high protein foods. And it can actually help with our stressed-out brain as well, because it’s important for cellular energy, including our nueron function. It’s used by people at the gym because it can also help with skeletal muscle building. And it’s been shown in some studies that for individuals with age-related neurological conditions, like mild cognitive impairment, that it’s actually showing benefits there. There’s been a clinical trial that actually showed that 20 grams of creatine per day in the elderly helped individuals with their cognitive abilities. But, I would suggest for people that 3-5 grams a day of this powder in form of creatine monohydrate can actually really help fuel your brain and is very useful in periods of stress. 

So, just to summarize what we’ve gone through in this seminar. So, we’ve shown that poor diet is bad for both the mind and the body. In fact, its effects on the brain are often the most overlooked. That for individuals who have stressful jobs, like being a lawyer is, that stress can precipitate our unhealthy diet choices. And it can do this in multiple ways, and these can be psychological, hormonal, or neurobiological. And then I’m also providing information around my top four nutrients for brain health and these, this list is non-exhaustive, but I think that we need to all really pay attention to our Vitamin D3. Getting a blood test each year and looking at that is really important because you don’t want to be deficient in Vitamin D3. And it’s very easily reversed with supplementation. Our Omega-3s again are essential, as are getting a decent amount of magnesium and then also potentially considering using creatine. So, we’ve come up to quarter to. I would like to open the floor for if anyone has any questions. 

 

AMY LEVINE: 

First of all, thank you so much. This was so incredibly interesting, the science and what we can do. I think sometimes people don’t recognize that, how much food and what we consume really does have an impact on our thinking and our mood. We do have a couple of questions. One attendee asked, ‘What are some foods or drinks that help with anxiety? 

 

DR. REICHELT:

So I think that the magnesium containing ones are the best for really helping with anxiety. High magnesium foods like spinach has got a lot of magnesium in. And as I was saying as well, like dark chocolate and avocados, again, are very good because these are able to increase levels of magnesium. I think as well, anti-inflammatory foods can really assist with anxiety. Anxiety and stress kind of going very much hand in hand. I found that, you know, in particular turmeric. So, if you could, you know, have a turmeric based latte, rather than switching out, you know, I would always suggest avoiding caffeine as well, because, you know, as a beverage that can, you know, lead to a lot of hyperarousal at least of our adrenals. So, a turmeric latte I think is also quite soothing because it’s that sort of warm drink that can be used definitely as a wind-down. There’s other numerous herbs as well that can be used, particularly these passionflower, if you look for that in teas, that can assist, again, skull caps, passionflower, Valerian root. These are all sort of usually found in sort of calming teas or sleepy teas. Again, these are all stimulating inhibition in the brain, helping us to get to sleep, relax, and prevent anxiety.  

 

AMY LEVINE: 

Excellent. We have a few more questions. ‘What about the use of coffee and or alcohol?’     

 

DR. REICHELT:

Well, again, so particularly with alcohol, alcohol is used by many people as that sort of nightcap to wind down. We’ve become very accustomed to craving alcohol, but alcohol is, in effect, on our frontal lobe, the same as stress, that it shuts it down. And one of the issues is that when you’ve… consumed alcohol is that your decision-making isn’t as good anymore. And that’s when it can also really cause you to reach for the snacks and not be able to stop yourself because you’ve got alcohol in your system. Again, also, alcohol disrupts sleep and you don’t get as high a quality amount of sleep. It particularly disrupts the amount of deep sleep and REM sleep so you don’t wake up feeling as refreshed and you end up with sleep fragmentation. Again, doesn’t set you up for the best kind of day.  

And that kind of day, as well, that you’re not really set up for is usually the one where you reach for the multiple coffees as well. And coffee, caffeine is, you know, it’s so ubiquitous in our diets. I would never say to somebody, don’t drink caffeine. It’s actually a cognitive stimulator to one point, but also it has a very long, like as we refer to in pharmacological terms, we say caffeine has a long half-life. So, caffeine actually stays in our system for about easily over six hours. So, you don’t want that stimulation on board late into the afternoon. So, l always tend to encourage people to restrict their caffeine consumption to prior to 12, because if you’re starting to think about wind-down times, you don’t want to have too much caffeine present in your system that’s stimulating your brain as well as your cardiovascular system later on into the evening. So importantly, I think that it’s always best to be mindful of your caffeine intake. Another way that you can kind of get around it is, you know, drinking electrolytes in the afternoon can usually help people with, you know, potential, you know, alterations in cognitive function. So, our brain needs electrolytes so you can supplement in some electrolytes in the mid-afternoon, it’s not going to stimulate your brain in the same way as caffeine. Also, later on, as well having something like a matcha latte or matcha tea, again it has some caffeine in it, however it also has L-threonate in and that can help with stress, again preventing these crashes or you know this prefrontal cortex going offline, which you really don’t want when you’re trying to make important decisions and think on your feet. 

 

AMY LEVINE: 

So just want to read a couple of comments. One person wrote, ‘Thank you for giving permission to eat my dark chocolate in moderation, of course.’ And somebody else mentioned, ‘This was really great. Thank you so much.’ We do have a couple more questions. ‘How often should we have these essential nutrients?’     

 

DR. REICHELT:

So, for Omega-3s, you can look up your dietary recommendations. I think that it’s important to be getting them in sort of every day because then you build like a supplement routine in and when you, it’s not the end of the world if you miss a day, but you do need to be eating a balanced diet. And for individuals who aren’t consuming their, like, two or three portions of fish per week, or you’re concerned about the quality of the fish because there’s so much pollution in our oceans now that there is that concern around heavy metals getting into the foods and particularly in the fish, I think an Omega -3 every day isn’t a bad thing. For Vitamin D3, it’s an oil-based vitamin. So again, if you take it every day, you’re just building up that stores and particularly if you find out that you are in a way deficient in Vitamin D, which a lot of people are, it’s like 60% of the population, that this is then allowing us to build up these stores. Magnesium is again, a lot of vitamins, if they’re water soluble, if you take too much of them, you pee them out because they’re excreted through your kidneys, and they don’t hang around your system very long. So again, I would suggest people building this into sort of a routine again with creatine as well. But as well, I think overarchingly, if you’re eating a good diet, 75% of the time, 80% of the time, don’t beat yourself up if you have that treat every now and again, it’s not the end of the world. And you, in terms of how you’re eating, I think the majority of the time just eating well. We know that it’s hard, but it’s no need to beat yourself up if you do have a bad day or you do just be like, I just have no ability to cook a healthy meal right now or I’m just going to buy something to eat because I just need to get home without passing out. It’s not the end of the world. And every day is a new day, and your health is a journey. It’s not definitive that suddenly you’re off the wagon. But obviously it’s important for you to be able to take home these messages that there’s lots of nutritional hacks and ways to get around how you’re feeling. 

 

AMY LEVINE: 

And another question is, ‘How do you feel about vegan diets?’ 

 

DR. REICHELT:

I think that a whole food, plant-based diet is great because it’s very high in a lot of nutrients. And if it can be supplemented with the right forms of, you know, vitamin B12 is often seen to be deficient, but for numerous people that can be easily supplemented. I think that you can get a lot of excellent protein as well from plant-based sources. And as long as a vegan diet is being consumed, that is that whole food version of a vegan diet, as opposed to the junk food vegan diet, because there’s a lot of junk food that can be classed as vegan as well. So, I think that it can be a healthy way of eating. And particularly for, mostly for adults because I have spoken to numerous people who’ve said that children, particularly with calcium needs, that it is better for children to not be consuming a vegan diet. But I think that as long as it’s taken in a healthy way and again, being mindful of what you’re consuming, be it your health reasons or for your ethical reasons, I think that eating what makes you feel best is the right way to go. 

 

AMY LEVINE: 

Excellent. And we have five minutes left. So, one person asked for weight loss programs. Do you recommend one with psychological components such as Noom? What about Weight Watchers? 

 

DR. REICHELT:

I have looked at Noom and Weight Watchers. I think that for a weight loss plan in general, I mean, there is the… they need to be very much tailored to an individual. I think it’s not one size fits all. I think that in terms of the psychological component, it’s obviously important to be able to recognize portion control and what you’re eating and that kind of mindless eating as well that people get very – you can think, ‘Walnuts are healthy. I’m going to eat loads of walnuts,’ but they’re actually really high in fat and high calorie density. So, it’s making sure that if you are going to embark on a weight loss journey, that you’re doing it in a mindful way and losing weight in a careful, slow way. And sometimes for individuals as well, that not all diets really suit them. I think that the importance of things like Noom Weight Loss is education around portion control, education around what’s good in foods. You can lose weight by, they used to do the slim fast diets, buying the shakes, and just completely nutritional replacement plans. But I think that there are numerous diets that can work for individuals, and it also changes according to your gender, also your age group, your activity levels really what you’re looking for in terms of a weight loss plan. 

 

AMY LEVINE: 

Next question is this person’s endocrinologist has suggested that a gluten-free diet would be better than taking Vitamin D supplement. What are your thoughts on a gluten-free/low gluten diet? 

 

DR. REICHELT:

I think that if your endocrinologist is telling you to avoid gluten, then you may have a sensitivity towards it. And then that could also be disrupting some of your intestinal permeability and how you’re digesting foods. And individuals do become sensitive to, or have sensitivities to gluten, and see improvements through not consuming gluten in their foods. So again, I think it’s whatever you do that makes you feel better in yourself. I don’t know why they would suggest doing that instead of taking Vitamin D because Vitamin D is a lipid soluble vitamin but I think that, you know, there’s numerous professionals out there who have their suggestions and I think also testing yourself or getting tested appropriately is really important if you are experiencing any kind of digestive issues. 

 

AMY LEVINE: 

Another comment: ‘So helpful, clear explanation, logical, thank you.’ Another question: ‘Do you need to combine D3 with K2?  

 

DR. REICHELT:

Not necessarily needed to be combined, it’s just that they’re two oil soluble vitamins, so it’s easier to take them both at the same time because they’re then in the environment that makes them most bioavailable in terms of their absorption. It’s the same, I always suggest to people taking their Omega-3s, because they’re an oil, along with Vitamin E, Vitamin D3 and K2 as well. Because if you feel like you need to supplement K2 as well then you’re kind taking them all in the right environment for them to be absorbed the best, and it’s also best with your D3 to take that with some food that has got a bit of fat in it as well. It aids the absorption in the gut. So, some people take it with a spoonful of Greek yogurt that’s not fat-free. Just really helps. I always think, like goes with like. Rather than with the water-soluble vitamins, you can take those just with any liquid. 

 

AMY LEVINE: 

Well, thank you. I see it’s one o’clock. I know we have a hard stop. There are a couple more questions. So, I would encourage folks, if they want to email Dr. Reichelt, they can do so. Do you have an email that you want to share or should they maybe go through me and I can relate those over to you?  

 

DR. REICHELT:

Oh yeah, If you can still see my screen at the moment, it’s just at the bottom. It’s amy@cognitionnutrition.ca and that fields straight through to my professional email. 

 

AMY LEVINE: 

Okay, excellent. Again, thank you all for joining us. Especially, I appreciate for a lawyer’s perspective, brain fog, especially if they’re going to court, they’re working on a big deal. These are things to keep in mind, again, clear thinking, because this is clearly a profession where you need it. Thank you so much. Again, I want to be considerate of your time. We really appreciate it. It sounds like we’ve gotten some great feedback. 

 

DR. REICHELT:

Thank you so much. It was wonderful. Thank you for inviting me to chat. And I hope that l’ve been able to provide some valuable knowledge to everyone.  

 

AMY LEVINE: 

Absolutely. Thank you again. And if you want to hop off, just to let folks know that a link will be provided in just a couple of days. And so you can also go to our website and see the recorded version. All right. Thank you all for coming. And we will see you next month. Bye.