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.

It turns out that nutrients from scaly fish could help humans with scaly skin, according to a new study in the British Journal of Dermatology.

In the study, German researchers assigned 53 eczema sufferers to receive either DHA supplements or supplements of a non-omega-3 fatty acid. After only eight weeks of supplementation, the group taking DHA showed a significant drop in the uncomfortable symptoms associated with eczema:

• Dryness
• Itching
• Redness 

DHA has long been known to improve eyesight and brain power, as well as reduce heart disease. But this study suggests that it is the omega-3 anti-inflammatory benefits that are at work against the eczema.   

DHA is found most abundantly in oily fish, such as sardines and mackerel, as well as supplements such as Animi-3, which is specially formulated with highly purified, DHA-dominant omega-3 fatty acids.  Two to three servings of fish a week, or the amount of supplements recommended on the label would be sufficient, and may lead to smoother skin.

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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.

Each year, approximately 565,000 Americans suffer a first heart attack, and another 300,000 people in this country suffer their second or third heart attacks. Many of them die.

New research suggests that high doses of folate, a B vitamin that is also known as folic acid, may potentially keep these 865,000 people alive and healthy.

For years physicians have been telling expecting mothers to take folic acid to prevent their babies from developing a devastating birth defect known as spinal bifida. Moreover, other studies in recent weeks have shown that folic acid may also help prevent dementia and premature births.

Folate’s role in heart health was further explored in a recent study conducted by researchers at John’s Hopkins University and other organizations that was published last week in the medical journal Circulation. Using an animal model, subjects that had received higher doses of folate had stronger hearts during a heart attack. Additionally, the scientists discovered that injecting subjects with folate in the minutes following a heart attack was very helpful during recovery.

While no one knows exactly why folate seems to have a protective effect, the researchers speculate that it has to do with the nutrient’s role in boosting the mitochondria that are essential for maintaining healthy blood vessels:  Folate may act as a store of energy in the heart that gives much needed fuel to the organ when it is being starved of oxygen at the time of a heart attack.

This research further supports the understanding that folic acid supplementation is essential and opens the door to potentially life saving cardiovascular treatments.

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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.

You’re mother was right — it’s never too late to take your vitamins.

It’s well known that not having enough of the B vitamin folate could put an older person at risk for the troubling problems of dementia. But a new study suggests that even people who aren’t officially “deficient” are more likely to develop the disease, which causes anxiety, melancholy, poor memory and loss of bodily functions.

The study, published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, centered on more than 500 South Korean men and women ages 65 years and older. Half of the participants involved in the study lived out in the country, while the other half lived in a city.

Two-and-a-half years after the study began more than eight percent of the people had developed dementia, including nearly seven percent who had Alzheimer’s disease. The researches identified a common characteristic:

The lower a participant’s folate levels, the more likely they were to have dementia.

This could be because the nutrient is essential for keeping new cells fit and working well. In general, Koreans participating in the study had higher folate levels than people in Western countries such as the United States and England; one can infer this is because the local Korean diet includes many leafy greens.  It is important to note the word “folate” is derived from “folium” or “leaf.”).

The study suggests there two simple ways to reduce your risk of dementia:

1. Eat more folate-rich foods such as fortified breakfast cereals and bread, liver, (3.5) ounces of chicken liver supply nearly twice the minimum daily requirement of folate), eggs, beans, sunflower seeds, asparagus and leafy green vegetables and citrus and melons.
2. Take a folic acid supplement so that you’re sure to have enough folic acid in your diet.

Folic acid is a synthetic form of folate that is available in many folic acid supplements. Animi-3 is a prescription nutritional supplement that contains 1 mg of folic acid, the amount needed to lower homocysteine, which is thought to be a risk factor for dementia and cardiovascular disease. 

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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.