Your Brain Doesn't Have to Decline as You Age

Your brain doesn't have to decline as you age. It just needs the right nutrients, says Margaret Durst.

Mental Clarity and Memory are two things that most people assume that they will lose with age. Many people suffer memory loss due to an insufficient supply of nutrients to the brain. The brain along with every other cell in the body is fed by our blood, the "life" of the body. If proper nutrients aren’t getting to the brain, they either aren’t in the bloodstream, or there is a problem with the blood delivery system. Also consider that some substances in the blood could be toxic to the brain. Read more

Get Smarter: Take That Power Nap

A midday nap dramatically boosts your brain power, according to a California study.

It may not make you popular with your boss but a snooze in the middle of the day dramatically boosts your brain power.

Medical researchers have shown that the power naps favoured by Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and Margaret Thatcher not only refresh the mind, they also make people smarter.

They found snoozing for just one hour in the day is enough to increase the brain's ability to learn new facts in the hours that follow. Read more

Top Five Secret Reasons You May Need More Vitamin C

Everyone knows that vitamin C can help to reduce symptoms of a cold if taken in sufficient quantity when sniffles first appear, but you may not know is that researchers have found evidence strongly suggesting vitamin C can be used to head off some serious diseases and disorders and may even help you lose weight.

... Here's the latest on the relatively secret but very real ways vitamin C can improve your health:

1. Burn more fat and keep pounds away.

Researchers in the Department of Nutrition at Arizona State University found that research subjects who had low blood concentrations of C burned a whopping 25 percent less fat than those who had plenty of the vitamin in their body. Read more

Vegetarian Diets Shrink the Brain

Vegans and vegetarians are famous, not only for their insufferable moralizing, but also for the bogus claims of better health. It turns out that there's a biological basis for both: their brains are shrinking.

Scientists have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain-with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage.

Vegans and vegetarians are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish. Vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause anaemia and inflammation of the nervous system. Yeast extracts are one of the few vegetarian foods which provide good levels of the vitamin. Read more

Your Brain on Exercise: How Working Out Makes You Smarter

Exercise improves your body, but it also improves your mind. Regular exercisers learn faster, remember more, think more clearly, and even recover more easily from brain injuries.

Athletes and people who exercise not only have better bods — they have better brains too, a host of studies have now firmly established.

A review of studies published earlier this month, in fact, found that a balanced diet and regular exercise can protect the brain and ward off mental disorders.

Other research has focused just on the effects of exercise. The bottom line: Exercisers learn faster, remember more, think clearer and bounce back more easily from brain injuries such as a stroke. They are also less prone to depression and age-related cognitive decline.

But why should a mindless half-hour on a treadmill affect your brain? Read more

Why Fatty Fish Is Good for Your Brain

For years, the "food police" tried to convince Americans that fat was bad for them, but that scientific consensus has been discredited. Fat is once again recognized as important to health, and as is often the case, studies show that eating nutritious food is more beneficial than taking supplements to obtain essential fatty acids.

Looking to boost your memory and concentration? You're better off eating oily fish twice a week than popping expensive herbal pills or fish oil supplements, according to a consumer survey.

Australian consumer group Choice tested several supplements and found that two weekly servings of fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as sardines and salmon, can boost brain function as much as or more than pills containing ginkgo biloba, brahmi and fish oil.

Fish oil supplements were also found to contain less of the maximum daily dietary target of omega-3. Read more