So often our first response to illness is to take drugs, have surgery, or just throw up our hands in despair. This is especially true when it comes to brain function, and devastating illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease. But it’s the wise person who remembers that good food was one of the original prescriptions for good health, boosting brain-power and slowing down the aging process. 

Fernando Gómez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery and physiological science at the University of California, Los Angeles, specializes in the effects of sleep, food, and exercise on our brains. He recently analyzed more than 160 published scientific studies to see what they said about diet and the brain.

In his comprehensive analysis, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, he found that omega-3 fatty acids are crucial nutrients for improving learning and memory and fighting depression, mood disorders, and even schizophrenia and dementia. Plus, these fatty acids are thought to be deficient in kids with learning disorders and some behavioral problems.

Fish, especially fatty fish like mackerel, is packed with omega-3s, and most experts recommend that we eat at least two servings of fish per week. Salmon is especially good, because it contains high levels of DHA, an important omega-3. But omega-3s are also found in supplements made from fish oils, including Animi-3, available only with a prescription, but probably the purest form of omega-3s one the market.

Gómez-Pinilla is part of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center, and he says that omega-3s, which make up most of the mass in the brain, help the brain synapses communicate with each other, and thus are vital to good brain function.

Getting enough of omega-3 in your diet is a no-brainer.

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Barbara S. Levine, R.D., Ph.D., has been a researcher, consultant, and teacher of nutrition at some of the most prestigious medical institutions in the country. Dr. Levine is a DHA & B Vitamin Center scientific advisory board member and director of the first NIH-funded Nutrition Information Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Weill-Cornell Medical College, The Rockefeller University, Hospital for Special Surgery, and Strang Cancer Prevention Center.