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Preventing Brain Drain

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CBN.com The mind is the last frontier of medical science. Your brain contains thousands of unexplained mysteries. Researchers remain humbled by its complexities as they try to pinpoint the exact areas of the brain responsible for how you speak, experience love, learn to hate, and express creativity.

Because of the complexity of neurological function, your brain is very sensitive to silent inflammation. Since the brain has no pain receptors, silent inflammation could transform into full-blown inflammation (enough to cause pain in other parts of your body), and you would still never know it. That’s what makes neurological disease so terrifying. You may have no idea your brain is under inflammatory attack until it’s too late, and irreversible disease has set in. The dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease, for instance, currently cannot be reversed once the damage is done. New medications may be able to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s but still can’t return the brain to its normal functioning state.

Your best defense against the brain drain, therefore, is a strong offense. That means keeping silent inflammation under control on a lifetime basis. High-dose fish oil is your primary anti-inflammatory “drug”*. Unlike pharmaceuticals that have a difficult time crossing the blood-brain barrier, the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil have no problem crossing that barrier. In fact, 60 percent of your brain’s dry weight is fat, and much of this comes from DHA. This DHA is a critical component necessary for nerve conduction, visual fidelity, and energy production. This is why your grandmother often referred to fish oil as brain food.

If fish oil is so important, then isn’t it possible that a lack of fish oil in the diet will compromise your brain function? Wouldn’t you be more prone to neurological disease due to silent inflammation? The answer to both questions is a resounding, “Yes!”

Previous population studies have pointed to the fact that people who live in countries where fish consumption is very high (such as Japan) have the lowest rates in the world of heart disease and neurological disorders like depression. Yet, the amount of fish oil in the American diet has been steadily decreasing over the past century. It is estimated that our consumption of EPA and DHA is only five percent of what it was 100 years ago. During the same time period, we have had a dramatic dietary increase in pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats coming from vegetable oils. This fact, coupled with a dramatic increase in our insulin levels, should not make it too hard to figure out why our rates of neurological disease are skyrocketing. We simply have much more silent inflammation in our brains than we had in the past.

With the recent advent of ultra-refined EPA/DHA concentrates, we now have the ability to safely raise our levels of DHA and EPA in our brain. If we can raise these levels of anti-inflammatory fatty acids high enough, we should be able to lower our risk of developing mental disorders caused by silent inflammation. More importantly, we may finally have the power to reverse the effects of these conditions if they’ve already debilitated our mental function. So, this is really the defining moment for these new purified grades of patented fish oil. We now finally have a product that we can take in high enough amounts to combat silent inflammation in the brain. Just like elderly people who can regain their lost muscle mass by working out with weights, I believe people with brain disorders can regain their brain function by following my dietary recommendations to reach the Anti-Inflammation Zone.


Excerpted from The Anti-Inflammation Zone - Reversing The Silent Epidemic That's Destroying Our Health. Copyright © by Barry Sears, Ph.D. Used by permission.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. As with any natural product, individual results will vary.

For more information about Dr. Barry Sears, his incredible fish oil supplements, or the popular Zone Diet, please visit www.zoneliving.com.

If you purchase any Zone Labs, Inc. products, part of the proceeds support CBN ministries.

 

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About The Author

Barry
Sears

Dr. Barry Sears is a leader in the field of dietary control of hormonal response. A former research scientist at the Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Sears has dedicated his efforts over the past 25 years to the study of lipids and their inflammatory role in the development of chronic disease. He holds 13 U.S. Patents in the areas of intravenous drug delivery systems and hormonal regulation for the treatment of cardiovascular disease.