Coffee and Chocolate Make You Smarter

From Inc.com

There's no longer any controversy: Every healthy diet should include at least some caffeine.

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Neuroscience continues to uncover new ways that coffee and (to a lesser extent) tea and chocolate, tend to make brains healthier and more resilient. 2019 has already seen some amazing research breakthroughs that are definitely worth sharing.

First, a joint study from the National Institute on Aging and Johns Hopkins University, and published last January in Neurochemical Research magazine, discovered that a methylxanthines--a class of chemical found in coffee, tea and dark chocolate (cacao)

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"has clear effects on neuronal network activity, promotes sustained cognitive performance and can protect neurons against dysfunction and death in animal models of stroke, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease."

That same study also discovered that xanthine metabolites--a chemical released when your brain processes caffeine, "may also contribute to the beneficial effects of coffee, tea and cacao on brain health."

Second, a meta-analysis of 11 studies on the impact of coffee on brain health and published in World Journal of Surgical Oncology showed that both coffee and tea (and thus, by extension, cacao) doesn't just reduce the risk of alzheimer's disease but also reduces the risk of brain cancer.

Finally, a groundbreaking study at Okayama University

"indicated that intake of coffee components, CA and CGA, enhanced the antioxidative properties of glial cells and prevents rotenone-induced neurodegeneration in both the brain and myenteric plexus."

Translation: caffeine makes your brain more flexible and resilient.

The big takeaway: if you want to keep your brain healthy both today and in the future as you age, you should be consuming coffee, tea, or cacao.

How much?

Well, chances are you're not consuming enough. Studies have shown that the ideal daily dosage of coffee is about six to eight 8oz cups, ideally consumed prior to 2pm so that it doesn't disturb your sleep.

If that sounds like too much coffee, consider replacing a cup or two with an ounce of dark chocolate. It need hardly be said that, for other health reasons, you should be consuming coffee, tea and cacao without sugar or creamer.  But you still get the brain-boost, regardless.

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The Man Who Couldn’t Remember

Our new release, Healing the Brain: Memory gives readers insight into the memory systems in our brain. They make us who we are:

This is the power of memory: a system that captures pictures, smells, sounds, events, directions--endless amounts of information every day--and then seconds or decades later calls it up for us. Memories--what we've learned and what we've done--in a large sense make us who we are. To appreciate this, think if your ability to form any new memories were suddenly cut off.

Who would you be? By studying people who've lost their memories, scientists have learned enormous amounts about how learning and memory work in healthy brains. And what they used to think was relatively straightforward they've since found is fascinatingly complex, thanks in large part to one man.

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The man known as H.M. made perhaps the most important contribution to the study of memory after an operation left him unable to form new long-term memories.

In 1953, radical, experimental brain surgery was used on a patient with severe epilepsy. The operation on "H.M." worked, but left him with almost no long-term memory. His case has helped scientists understand much more about the brain. For decades, the Connecticut native, known only by his initials, H.M., was the most famous patient in the study of memory and the human brain. He was a research participant for 53 years, first at the Hartford Hospital with William Beecher Scoville and Brenda Milner, then at the Montreal Neurological Institute, and after 1964 at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital. At H.M.’s death in 2008, his full name was revealed: Henry Gustav Molaison.

The horrendous price that H.M. paid for an operation that essentially ended his seizures was a severe case of amnesia--an inability to acquire new memories, to commit to memory even the simplest events of his day or the world around him, and then to effectively retrieve those memories. This unintentional experiment, never repeated, showed that the hippocampus and medial temporal lobes are where the brain converts short-term memory into long-term memory.

       

H.M. could remember everything that happened prior to the operation. He could remember the trauma of his childhood. He could remember going to elementary school, to high school, working in the assembly plant. What he couldn't do was hold on to new information for more than a few minutes.

Was Nancy Reagan right?

Nancy Reagan championed her "Just Say No" program in the '80s, drawing praise and criticism. In one way she was right. For an addicted brain, saying no is incredibly difficult. However, for a non-addicted brain, saying no may be the only effective prevention option. Read this excerpt from Healing the Brain.

III. PREVENTING DRUG ABUSE: THE BEST STRATEGY

Why is adolescence a critical time for preventing drug addiction?

As noted previously, early use of drugs increases a person’s chances of developing addiction. Remember, drugs change brains—and this can lead to addiction and other serious problems. So, preventing early use of drugs or alcohol may go a long way in reducing these risks. If we can prevent young people from experimenting with drugs, we can prevent drug addiction.

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In high school, teens may encounter greater availability of drugs, drug use by older teens, and social activities where drugs are used.

Risk of drug abuse increases greatly during times of transition. For an adult, a divorce or loss of a job may lead to drug abuse; for a teenager, risky times include moving or changing schools. In early adolescence, when children advance from elementary through middle school, they face new and challenging social and academic situations. Often during this period, children are exposed to abusable substances such as cigarettes and alcohol for the first time. When they enter high school, teens may encounter greater availability of drugs, drug use by older teens, and social activities where drugs are used.

At the same time, many behaviors that are a normal aspect of their development, such as the desire to try new things or take greater risks, may increase teen tendencies to experiment with drugs. Some teens may give in to the urging of drug-using friends to share the experience with them. Others may think that taking drugs (such as steroids) will improve their appearance or their athletic performance or that abusing substances such as alcohol or MDMA (ecstasy or “Molly”) will ease their anxiety in social situations. A growing number of teens are abusing prescription ADHD stimulants such as Adderall® to help them study or lose weight. Teens’ still-developing judgment and decision-making skills may limit their ability to accurately assess the risks of all of these forms of drug use. Using abusable substances at this age can disrupt brain function in areas critical to motivation, memory, learning, judgment, and behavior control.  So, it is not surprising that teens who use alcohol and other drugs often have family and social problems, poor academic performance, health-related problems (including mental health), and involvement with the juvenile justice system.

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