Grain Brain

The book's author is a world renowned neurologist and a fellow of the American College of Nutrition.  Dr. Perlmutter treats his patients with little or no medication.  Rather he perscribes changes to their diets.  Pretty amazing when you consider that his patients have conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyper Active Disorder (ADHD), migrain headaches, and cognitive decline.  High carbohydrate diets, if left unchecked, lead to dimentia and Alzheimer's disease as well. Also, he points to evidence linking high carbohydrate intake to depression, compulsive behavior like suicide and violence, inability to learn, and delayed growth in children.  

The American College of Nutrition is also unique in that it does not take any funding from corporations.  I think we can all agree this may make their research a bit more objective than research showing that high fructose corn syrup is just fine to eat, according to Con Agra.  They have a bi-monthly research journal that just might be worth checking out.

Perlmutter dives into the evidence that shows humans actually thrive on a low carbohydrate, high fat diet.  He states that the ideal human diet is only 10% carbohydrate and upward of 50 or 60% of calories from fats.  In fact, our brains are made up entirely of fat and cholesterol.  High carbohydrate ingestion causes brain inflammation and shrinkage.

So the same high carbohydrate foods that make our waist lines bigger also make our brains smaller.  The fatter you are the smaller your brain is.  Also, cholesterol levels are not in any way a marker of cardiovascualr health. The fact that we should strive for low serum cholestero levels is simply not true.  Our brains are made of cholesterol.  The higher our serum cholesterol levels are the better our cognitive function is.  Really, I am not making this up.  I highly encourage you to read the book.