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New research has shown for the first time that the part of the brain used for learning, memory and mental health is smaller in people with unhealthy diets.

The hippocampus is the region of the brain associated with learning and memory skills. Researchers from Deakin University (Australia), assessed data collected on 255 participants, ages 60 to 64 years, enrolled in the Personality and Total Health Through Life Study.  The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the size of the left and right hippocampi; they also surveyed the subjects to ascertain dietary habits.  Data analysis revealed that those men and women who consumed unhealthy foods had hippocampi that were smaller, as compared to subjects who followed a healthy diet pattern. The study authors report that: “Lower intakes of nutrient-dense foods and higher intakes of unhealthy foods are each independently associated with smaller hippocampal size and function. It is becoming even clearer that diet is critically important to mental as well as physical health throughout life. This latest study sheds light on at least one of the pathways by which eating an unhealthy diet may influence the risk for dementia, cognitive decline and mental disorders such as depression and anxiety.”

These findings suggest the potential for dietary interventions to promote hippocampal health, decrease age-related atrophy, and prevent negative health outcomes associated with hippocampal atrophy. They also support the extensive data from human observational and intervention studies showing that unhealthy dietary patterns are associated with increased prevalence or risk, and healthy dietary patterns with reduced risk, of depression and reinforce the imperative to improve dietary intakes at the population level and in clinical settings for better mental health outcomes.

Comments by Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec on “You Think As You Eat”

You are what you eat more than you could ever know. This great study shows that if you eat low nutrient foods you shrink your brain, lose your memory and get depressed. On the other hand if you eat as God designed you to eat you have none of this. So what is bad food and what is good food?

Dietary patterns higher in saturated fats (animal fats) and refined carbohydrates—a Western-style dietary pattern—are independently associated with increased depression and mental symptoms. While higher intakes of nutrient-dense foods, such as vegetables, preferably raw promotes higher enzymes for metabolic function of the cells, promotes better digestion, has more antioxidant capacity and overall have more vital nutrients, vitamins and minerals and no carbohydrates that cause harm.

So to make it simple when you eat food that is high in saturated fat which is predominately animal fat or that has a higher glycemic index (sugar index) which is sugar in all forms, refined carbohydrates, cooked carbohydrates and even overly sweet fruit, this can cause an inflammatory reaction in the hippocampus part of the brain which is responsible for mood and memory.

What did the Bible say food in the beginning?

Gen 1:29-30

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. NIV

We were designed by God to eat green vegetables, vegetables, seeds, nuts and lower glycemic index fruit. This means every vegetable, seed, nut and fruit including avocados is supposed to be our diet. The fruit that God made was not the fruit of today. Modern farming has hybridized the fruit to be 100 times sweeter than it was actually designed to be so if you choose to eat fruit besides avocados, lemons and limes make sure they are not very sweet.

So all you have to do to have a healthy mind and emotions is follow 7 Basic Steps and one of the steps is eating the proper diet of vegetables, seeds, nuts and the low glycemic index fruit.

 

 

Sleep is vital to one’s health and well-being. It has been implicated that loss of sleep can directly affect the immune system and increase the risk of various cancers. The immune and hormonal systems communication seems to be a key factor in preventing cancer cells from dividing beyond the immune system’s ability to keep them in check. Melatonin and cortisol are two of the most important hormones in preventing cancer. When these hormones are balanced, the risk of cancer and the rate of its progression can be reduced. It has been estimated that up to 88 percent of cancer patients are affected by sleep disorders. Sleep apnea is more common in those with cancer than the general public and cancer patients are twice as likely to experience insomnia. A patient’s immune system can be impaired by restless nights from sleep disorders. According to researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, sleep apnea has been shown to have a strong correlation with death from cancer. Researchers found that almost 30 percent of patients reporting cancer-related fatigue were diagnosed with sleep apnea and 60 percent were diagnosed with insomnia. Researchers at Stanford and the University of Louisville School of Medicine showed that a patient’s circadian rhythm may influence cancer progression. The circadian rhythm is the night and day cycle affecting metabolism, physiology and hormonal production.

Melatonin and cortisol

Melatonin increases during sleep and has anti-oxidant properties. With an altered circadian rhythm, the body produces less melatonin and the cell’s DNA may be more susceptible to cancer-causing mutations. Melatonin has another key role in slowing the ovaries’ production of estrogen. For those with breast and ovarian tumors, estrogen stimulates the cancerous cells to continue dividing. Another influential hormone is cortisol, which is high in the morning and declines throughout the day. Cortisol has a regulating factor on immune system activity, including natural-killer cells which destroy cancer cells. The Stanford study found that people who are at high risk for breast cancer have an altered cortisol rhythm, meaning those with a shifted cortisol cycle may be more cancer susceptible. It was also found that women with breast cancer who had their cortisol cycle disrupted, with peak levels in the afternoon rather than at dawn, died earlier from the disease and slept more poorly. Melatonin has also been shown to reduce the growth of prostate cancer. According to a study in the journal Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, results showed that men who had trouble sleeping were twice as likely to develop prostate cancer compared to those who slept well. The correlation was even stronger for cases of advanced prostate cancer and the risk increased relative to the severity of the sleep problems. The study implied that sleep may become a potential target for intervention to reduce the risk of prostate cancer. Approximately 15-20 percent of employees in the USA work an overnight shift. This timing of work can lead to circadian disruption including melatonin synthesis. Studies have shown a potential link between exposure to light at night and risk of breast cancer. Having proper melatonin and cortisol levels has a major impact on sleep. When these hormones are in the normal range they can help improve quality and quantity of sleep. These levels should be tested to screen for potential hormone and immune imbalances so they can be corrected before cancer has a chance to get a foothold. This should be a foundation of any alternative cancer treatment protocol.

What should you do? Try to get to bed as close to 8 PM as possible. The more premidnight sleep you get the stronger your immune system is boosted. Always remember you were designed by God do go to sleep when the sun goes down and wake up when the sun comes up. The closer you model this plan the stronger your immune system will be and the healthier you will become. What if you said that you could never go to be that early? Well maybe you would if you had cancer or were going to die. So don’t wait to you have to,  start making gradual changes now so you never get your health backed up into a corner with a life threatening disease. An ounce of prevention is worth far more than a pound of cure. Just one more note on sleep. The earlier you wake up, the easier it is to go to sleep earlier because you get tired. If you wake up at 4 AM in the morning you surely will want to go to sleep at 8 PM. Sweet dreams.

There are four major systems that control most bodily functions and when these systems are out of balance, disease will eventually manifest. These systems include in order of priority: the nervous system, hormonal system, digestive system and the detoxification system. Since the brain rules all, first priority is given to the nervous system as the master control that runs the body. One of the ways the nervous system does this is by the production of neurotransmitters, most importantly serotonin. By keeping the brain healthy with proper diet, exercise and sleep, optimal health is a natural byproduct.

The brain communicates to the rest of the body through small protein and fat molecules called neurotransmitters that make the difference between feeling full of energy and happy to feeling totally drained and depressed.

What affects neurotransmitter production?

• Hormone imbalance – Stress increases the hormone cortisol and when cortisol goes up, the serotonin levels proportionally decrease.
• Digestive imbalance – As stress increases and cortisol rises, the antibodies produced in the intestinal tract called secretory IgA decrease, which causes poor digestion and pathogens like candida, parasites and bacterial infections to multiply.
• Toxicity – A weakened digestive lining allows chemicals and toxins to enter the blood. This overloads the liver and when the liver can no longer “detoxify” these chemicals then spill over into the general circulation causing premature cell death. This is seen as organ and gland dysfunction which produces symptoms, conditions and diseases.

Serotonin is one of the most important neurotransmitters. It regulates mood, sleep and appetite and affects learning and memory. Symptoms of low serotonin include anxiety, depression, sugar cravings and insomnia.

Most people who have these symptoms get prescribed a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor or SSRI (Prozac, Zoloft, or Paxil). What people do not understand is that SSRI’s actually lower serotonin levels with chronic use. The receptor that the serotonin molecule fits into on the nerve cell membrane is like a lock and key and with overuse it becomes resistant. This means the receptor has been so overloaded that it does not want any more serotonin. The end result is that it takes more medication to get the same effect until the side effects of the medication outweigh any gain. If this is done chronically it can cause irreversibly damage to the serotonin receptor (the key does not fit in the lock anymore). What is the answer? Treat the cause of low serotonin. To balance serotonin levels naturally take a simple back-to-basics approach of proper sleep, exercise and diet.

 Sleep

When one does not get enough sleep, cortisol increases which then decreases the amount of L-Tryptophan that makes it to the brain. L-Tryptophan is the amino acid that is required for your brain to produce serotonin. When you sleep 7-8 hours you reverse this cycle and serotonin levels normalize.

Exercise

Studies have shown that exercise balances serotonin levels similarly to SSRI’s with the same benefits but without any of the side effects or serotonin receptor resistance or damage.

Food

Recent research backs a higher polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) diet along with carbohydrates in the form of low-glycemic index vegetables for balancing serotonin levels and maintaining cell membrane fluidity so the serotonin receptor works more efficiently. This also increases the nutrients entering and toxins exiting the cells. This diet includes raw seeds, nuts, avocados, olives, sprouts, sea vegetables, a mix of all vegetables and plenty of green vegetables.

To balance the nervous system one must start with neurotransmitter balance; this is done not with medication nor with supplementation but first with the most beneficial changes that come from sufficient sleep, adequate exercise and a diet higher in PUFAs and low-glycemic index vegetables.

 

The two mental /emotional causes of cancer are acute high stress traumatic shocks and chronic long term negative stress called distress. Traumatic shocks, which are totally unexpected, cause a mind, brain and body reaction that can trigger the formation of cancer. With having a personal relationship with the Living God and by knowing how to prepare for shocks one can either prevent or heal the emotional root of cancer.

The first mental/emotional cause of cancer is chronic distress or negative stress that causes the hormone cortisol to go out of balance and weaken the immune system. This opens the door to cancer growth.

The second type of stress that can stimulate cancer formation is emotional traumatic shock. Many cancers can be linked to an emotional trauma one to two years before the onset of the cancer. These traumatic shocks actually cause a lesion in a very specific area the brain (which can be seen on a CT scan) which corresponds to a very specific organ, gland or tissue in the body. In a sense the unexpected shock blows a fuse in the brain which causes a stress response in an associated organ which we know as cancer. Each type of cancer can be associated with a particular area in the brain that also correlates to a particular emotion or thought, hence the true brain, mind, emotion, body connection.

Emotional causes that can trigger cancer

• Loss of spouse (divorce or death) or loss of child (separation or death) can trigger breast cancer
• Fear of death (including the shock of being diagnosed with cancer) can trigger lung cancer
• Loss of territory (wife leaves or man loses his job) can trigger prostate cancer
• Failure to let go of some past issue can trigger colon cancer
• Failure to accept the situation can trigger stomach cancer

The first way to prevent cancer from an emotional shock is to see everything in one’s life from a spiritual perspective. A personal relationship with the Family of God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) should empower one no matter what happens in one’s life. If a woman unexpectedly gets divorced by her husband, this is a shock to her system causing her to question her value, but if she is confident in who she is and trusts God for her future, then she will rise out of that trauma better then when she went into it. She has grown stronger in her relationship with herself and with God. This is better than staying stuck in the “why me” mindset which causes more stress and more disease promotion. Things do not just happen; they have a purpose to mature one in one’s life journey. Situations that come into one’s life are not meant to just leave so that one can get back to where one was but instead to make one better and grow one stronger than one ever was.

The second way comes from being prepared. A prepared person contemplates all possibilities in their life so they expect the best but are ready for the worst. If the doctor diagnoses one with terminal cancer, rather than just accepting this situation as final, it’s better to seek the truth that can set you free. Many people have healed cancer with alternative cancer treatment when there was no hope medically. To prevent emotional trauma one must change one’s perception of the event. There is a saying “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.” If one sees the situation as a weight to grow one stronger, then stronger one will become in body, mind and spirit.

How can you live a stress-free life and prevent cancer and other health problems? By learning to manage your cortisol stress hormone levels and by putting the mental/emotional stress in your life in the proper perspective. Once you know how to balance the physical factors of sleep, diet and exercise along with the mental and emotional stresses in your life then you will restore health in your body and mind. This is critical in any alternative cancer treatment.

It is a fact that high stress is a major contributing factor to cancer and many other diseases. The question is how does stress cause cancer? To answer this, one must look at what the stress response does physiologically in the body. Hans Selye, the father of stress research, said there are two types of stress, distress and eustress. Distress is a longer, more damaging response which negatively affects the organs, glands and systems including the immune system. Eustress is a short term beneficial stimulus to the system. If you run up and down the stairs ten times you feel invigorated. Now if you run up and down the stairs one thousand times you are exhausted and totally drained, so eustress is health boosting whereas distress is health depleting.

The stress response is controlled by the brain via the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis or HPA axis. The hypothalamus, which has been called the brain of the brain, is the part of your brain that senses biochemical changes similar to the thermostat in your house. If certain biochemicals go high or low, it triggers the brain to respond. The hypothalamus does so by telling the master hormone gland, the pituitary, to send messages to the adrenal glands to secrete a hormone called cortisol. When cortisol is at the proper level it is anti-inflammatory and promotes health. When cortisol goes too high with acute stress or too low with chronic stress, it causes your immune and digestive systems to shut down, inflammation to increase, blood sugar to rise, hormones to go out of balance and bones to become osteoporotic. When cortisol stays high or low it predisposes you to cancer and many other diseases.

What causes cortisol to go out of balance?

1. Mental/emotional stress (distress)
2. Lack of total sleep and pre-midnight sleep (four hours is ideal)
3. Diet high in sugar, starch or acid forming foods
4. Too little or too much exercise

Cancer can form when cortisol becomes chronically high or low because adrenal exhaustion causes immune system suppression and your immune system is what keeps the individual cancer cells (which everyone has), from growing into colonies called tumors.

The most important stress management plan starts with proper sleep, diet, and exercise along with learning how to change your perception of the situation. When you change your perception you can change your reality and your health. To reduce the mental/emotional distress one must live fully in the moment without spending time thinking about the “if only I would have” past or the “if only I could” future. If you had excruciating pain in your body, what does your mind say? “I am going to die if I do not get out of this pain”. But is this really true? Can you endure the pain for one second? The answer is yes and this is how you will endure any storm in your life, by living one moment at a time instead of living in the past or the future. This type of living keeps your cortisol and immune system in balance and keeps you healthy in mind and body.

Previously, a number of studies suggest that having a purpose in life – the sense that life has meaning and direction – may reduce a number of adverse health effects. Researchers from Rush University Medical Center (Illinois, USA), and colleagues studied autopsy results on 453 older adults, who participated in the Rush Memory and Aging Project. All of the participants underwent annual physical and psychological evaluations, including a standard assessment of purpose in life – where purpose in life was judged on a five-point scale (higher scores indicated a greater purpose), with the average score at 3.5. Participants were followed until they died, at an average age of 90 years.  At the study’s start, 114 subjects were affected by stroke.  At autopsy, 154 individuals had macroscopic infarctions (areas of stroke damage visible to the naked eye) and 128 had “microinfarcts” (areas of damage visible with a microscope).  The team observed that for every one-point increase in the score of purpose in life, the likelihood of having one or more macroscopic infarctions decreased by about 50%.  The study authors write that: “Purpose in life may affect risk for cerebral infarcts, specifically macroscopic lacunar infarcts.”                                  

–Stroke

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “Purpose in life tied to healthier brain”:

What is your purpose in life? This is the million dollar question or to say it another way, this is what will determine how long your brain stays healthy.

You need to really ponder this question before you answer. Most people would answer with responses like these:

• To be healthy

• To be happy

• To have a great marriage

• To have healthy and happy children

• To have a great job that you love

• To be financially secure

 

All these are great answers but they still not do not answer the question: What is your purpose in life?

Westminster Catechism states the purpose of man:

• What is the chief end of man?
• Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
• What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?
• The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.
• What do the scriptures principally teach?
• The scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

Let see what Jesus says about this God designed life in you or as He calls it “eternal life”:

John 17:3-5

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. NIV

So this God designed purpose is eternal life and that come from knowing God the Father and Jesus Christ His Son. We also see according to Jesus how to glorify God- it is done by completing the mission for which you were sent here. You were not sent here for you but to do something for HIM but only done from HIS Spirit in you.

Last Jesus make it clear how you should live your life when He was asked a question:

Mark 12:28-31

“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.   Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’   The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” NIV

So Jesus made it very clear. Your purpose is to love God with every part of your being and love others as He would love them. Did you notice there is nothing in there about you?

That is why Jesus said when you seek first and foremost God’s purpose everything will be given to you or you can say it this way: when you are about the Father’s business the Spirit of God can flow unblocked in your life. You never have to think about you when you are constantly thinking about Him.

Matt 6:33

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.NIV

So to sum it all up it is very simple. You were designed to live as a son or daughter of God being about the FAMILY business. This is accomplished when your eyes are fixed on Jesus and you are constantly listening to the Holy Spirit speak to your heart through the written and spoke Word of God and obeying this Word with action steps taken by faith. Live this kind of life and you will surely have a healthy brain and a healthy body because you are not focusing on you but Him and when you get yourself out of the way the Spirit can flow unhindered in your life. The more you focus on you the more you block the Spirit of God in your life.

Not my will (I, me, my, mine) but your will be done!

 

When you go to bed, and how long you sleep at a time, might actually make it difficult for you to stop worrying. So say researchers at Binghamton University in the US, who found that people who sleep for shorter periods of time and go to bed very late at night are often overwhelmed with more negative thoughts than those who keep more regular sleeping hours.

People are said to have repetitive negative thinking when they have bothersome pessimistic thoughts that seem to repeat in their minds. They feel as though they have little control over these contemplations. They also tend to worry excessively about the future, delve too much into the past, and experience annoying intrusive thoughts. Such thoughts are often typical of people suffering from generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and social anxiety disorder. These individuals also tend to have sleep problems.

Previous studies have linked sleep problems with such repetitive negative thoughts, especially in cases where someone does not get enough shut eye. Researchers set out to replicate these studies, and to further see if there’s any link between having such repetitive thoughts and the actual time when someone goes to bed.

They asked 100 young adults at Binghamton University to complete a battery of questionnaires and two computerized tasks. In the process, it was measured how much the students worry, ruminate or obsess about something — three measures by which repetitive negative thinking is gauged. The students were also asked whether they were more habitual morning or evening types, preferring to hold regular hours or to have a sleep-wake schedule that is more skewed towards later in the day.

The researchers found that people who sleep for shorter periods of time and go to bed later often experience more repetitive negative thoughts than others. This was also true for those students who described themselves as evening types.

“Making sure that sleep is obtained during the right time of day may be an inexpensive and easily disseminable intervention for individuals who are bothered by intrusive thoughts,” remarks lead researcher.

The findings also suggest that sleep disruption may be linked to the development of repetitive negative thinking. Researchers therefore believe that it might benefit people who are at risk of developing a disorder characterized by such intrusive thoughts to focus on getting enough sleep.

“If further findings support the relation between sleep timing and repetitive negative thinking, this could one day lead to a new avenue for treatment of individuals with internalizing disorders”. “Studying the relation between reductions in sleep duration and psychopathology has already demonstrated that focusing on sleep in the clinic also leads to reductions in symptoms of psychopathology.”

This study is part of a line of research examining the relations between sleep behavior and mental health

–Cognitive Therapy and Research

Dr. Keith & Laurie Nemec’s comments on “To Get Rid of Stress Just Go to Bed Earlier”:

What this study shows is so simple, so basic yet so misunderstood. We at Total Health Institute have been helping patients restore their health for the last 30 years. In this time we have seen what the triggers of disease are and what produces health. What we have found is that you simply cannot ignore or skip basics of health. One of those BIG basics is sleep. We have heard the excuses so many times some of which include:

• I get by just fine with 5-6 hours of sleep and I usually go to bed around 11PM to midnight. I feel great so that is just how my body works.
• I am just a night person. I cannot fall asleep before midnight.
• I go to bed at midnight but sleep to 8 in the morning and I feel good.
• I have too much to do to get to bed before 11PM.
• Or one person who says hes goes to bed at 2AM each night (or morning we should say) and wakes up at 6AM and feels good and has been doing this for the last 20 years.

There are two issues we will address with sleep. The first is the mental/emotional ramifications the second are the physical repercussions of incorrect sleep time.

What this study is saying that you are going to be more mentally stressed if you do not get to bed early (between 8-9PM). The longer you are up the more the mind can consciously and subconsciously ponder on negative events of the past and of the potential future.

What happens when you go to bed early between 8PM and 9PM is that first of all the REM or deep sleep pattern that produce your brain waves becomes more balanced.

Second you mentally and emotionally “detoxify” all the mental and emotional garbage that you picked up from being exposed to toxic people in a toxic world.

Third as this study showed that negative thoughts repeat more and more the later you go to sleep. Important to note here is these thoughts do not have to be consciously noticed, many times they are repeated in the subconscious mind as a bad program being repeated over and over and over. What this means to you is even though you are not aware of it your subconscious mind which affects your mental and physical health 100 times more than your conscious thinking aware mind, is producing 100 times more negativity and stress to your whole system simply because you chose to go to bed after 9PM. The medicine is so easy and doesn’t cost much either, just get to bed early.

Now about the physical side of sleep. Your body works on a circadian rhythm and this rhythm is tied into the sun. When the sun goes down you are physiologically and hormonally going into a repair, maintenance and healing phase. This is what all humankind had experienced until the invention of the the light bulb which enabled everyone to stay up as late as they wanted. This is why shift workers have at least a 60% increase in cancer risk and with a trend of increasing risk with increasing number of years of work or with more hours per week of shift work.

Also most healing and repairing of your cells occurs before midnight so the more premidnight sleep you get the more you heal and the healthier you will always be. No excuses, no short cuts, JUST DO IT.