The Popular Diet One Neurosurgeon Swears By as a Way to Boost Your Brainpower

In this excerpt from his new book Neurofitness , Dr. Rahul Jandia explains why intermittent fasting is so good for the brain. Perhaps there is a reason why most of the world’s major religions call for periodic fasting. Intermittent hunger clears the mind, awakens the senses, and improves brain functioning. Plus it lowers your blood sugar, reduces your insulin levels, and helps you lose weight by reducing total calories. What’s not to love? Well, the hunger. But it only lasts for a short time! Consider our prehistoric ancestors, the hunters and gatherers who survived through feast and famine, abundance and scarcity. The real “ Paleo diet ” didn’t consist of just large hunks of meat. Many were the days and weeks they failed to catch an auroch or boar and went to sleep hungry. Lose 10 Pounds in 3 Days Diet Best Brain Boosting Supplements But with the hunger pangs come benefits. Going without food for even a day increases your brain’s natural growth factors, which support the survival and growth of neurons. Evolution designed our bodies and brains to perform at their peak as hybrid vehicles. Metabolic switching between glucose and ketones is when cognition is best and degenerative diseases are kept at bay. As a recent paper in Nature Reviews Neuroscience put it: “Metabolic switching impacts multiple signaling pathways that promote neuroplasticity and resistance of the brain to injury and disease.” RELATED: The Healthiest Way to Do Intermittent Fasting, According to a Nutritionist So how do you do it? Not by overloading on glucose or ketones [the energy source produced when the liver burns fat], but by altering the cadence of eating and letting the body do what it was designed to do during times of food scarcity. I’m not talking about caloric restriction, which extends longevity […]

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