Parkinson’s Disease, Nicotine, and Green Peppers?

I love all the new research on how what we eat can help us control brain health.   So, when this new study came up with promising news about controlling Parkinson ’s disease (the disease I watched systematically destroy my dad’s mind and body) through diet, I was eager to learn more.

These words jumped right off the page of a study out of the University of Washington:

“Eating peppers twice or more per week was consistently associated with at least 30 percent reduced risk of developing Parkinson’s disease,” according to the study’s lead.  http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/05/08/do-peppers-reduce-risk-of-parkinsons/

This revelation stunned me:

Peppers are good for reducing Parkinson’s Disease because they are a dietary source of…. Nicotine!  http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/05/08/do-peppers-reduce-risk-of-parkinsons/

What?!?!?    Let’s take a step back and simplify.   All tomatoes, peppers of the red, green, yellow, and chili varieties, eggplant, cauliflower, and tomatillos are part of the Solanaceae, or nightshades, family of flowering plants.  Tobacco, some teas, some spices, and a whole bunch of weeds are also in the nightshades family.   All in the nightshades family contain some nicotine and nicotine, in controlled amounts, has been linked to pretty significant reductions in Parkinson’s Disease and here is why – nicotine stimulates dopamine production and Parkinson’s Disease is directly linked to dopamine production.

So, what do we do with all of this?   Evidence is piling up pretty quickly so it is wise not to ignore this.   On the other hand, researchers don’t know that it is nicotine, exactly, and not some other compound common to those in the nightshades family (peppers and tobacco in particular).

Bottom line is that it is easy to hedge your bets!   Those foods that contain nicotine actually taste good.   Make sure you add plenty of tomatoes, peppers of all kinds, eggplant, cauliflower, and tomatillos to your cooking.

Here is my version of a Parkinson’s busting stuffed pepper recipe with Cauliflower Mash on the side — I added some anti-inflammatories through a few spices for good measure .  Enjoy!

 Stuffed Peppers

6 fresh sweet peppers (green, red, or yellow)

1 package of pre-made brown rice and quinoa

4 cups of fresh salsa from the refrigerated section of the grocery store

1 4 oz. can of diced green chilis for mild spice or diced jalapenos  if you prefer to kick it up

½ pound of ground turkey

Salt, pepper, ginger powder, turmeric powder, garlic powder

 Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.   Put about a ¼” of water in the bottom of a large glass baking dish.  Brown the ground turkey in a skillet over medium heat.   Add a pinch of salt, a pinch of black pepper, and a shake or 2 of ginger, garlic, turmeric, and onion powder to taste.   Add salsa and pre-made brown rice and quinoa to the ground turkey.   Add either green chilis or jalapenos.    Stir well.

Split the peppers and clean out all the seeds and veins and place them, round side down, in the baking dish.   Fill the pepper halves with the turkey mixture.   Cover the baking dish with foil and cook for 2 hours or until the peppers are soft.

 Cauliflower Mash

You are looking for this consistency.

1 head of cauliflower

1 tsp nutmeg

Salt and pepper

 Fill the bottom of large, deep pan with water.   Place a head of cauliflower, stem side resting on the bottom of the pan, in the pan.   Cover the pan and bring water to a boil.   Steam until it starts to get soft.   Remove from heat and carefully transfer the head to a blender or food processor.   Add about a tsp of nutmeg and a pinch of salt and a pinch of black pepper.   Blend on high until smooth.

Spoon the cauliflower mash on the plate, place pepper half on top, and enjoy!

 

Food’s Effects on Brain Chemicals

Geek Alert

The brain’s communication chemicals, neurotransmitters, are effected by just about everything we do – what we eat, what we think, and what outside chemicals we introduce. The following is a pretty technical summary of what is happening to 4 very specific chemicals in your brain and how that brain chemistry can be influenced by diet. It is important to know that your actions have chemical consequences in your brain. Some of you might be interested in more details than that so take what you need from this piece.

There are 4 neurochemicals that directly affect how we think and how we feel and, in varying degrees, can be regulated through diet: serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine. Let’s take a closer look.

Acetylcholine plays a critical role in memory and learning and deficits have been linked to cognitive decline. Studies have shown that higher choline intake (the precursor for acetylcholine) can be associated with better cognitive functioning and reduced markers for dementia. Deficits in acetylcholine have been related to Alzheimer’s and other forms of progressive dementia. Some of the best sources for choline are egg yolks, liver, and wheat germ.

Dopamine and norepinephrine both help regulate information flow in the brain. How well you concentrate, how alert you are, how quickly you react to potentially dangerous situations, and overall processing pleasure and pain are all tied directly to levels of these 2 neurotransmitters. It is possible to boost how much your dopamine and norepinephrine your body produces through foods containing tyrosine (the building block for both neurotransmitters). Poultry, soy protein, avocados, bananas, low-fat dairy, lima bean, seaweed, and many seeds like sesame, chia, hemp, and pumpkin seeds all contain tyrosine. Even though the jury is still out on what diet alone can do, we do know that exercise in conjunction while avoiding certain foods that are heavy in refined, simple carbohydrates and fats can make a measureable difference.

Serotonin helps regulate things like learning, mood, sleep, and constriction of blood vessels. Deficiencies in serotonin can create problems in every day functioning and it is important to understand the role of food, not just prescription drugs and supplements, in regulating serotonin levels. Tryptophan, omega-3 fatty acids, complex carbohydrates and vitamin B6 all play vital roles in developing serotonin and keep healthy levels of this neurotransmitter. The key is getting the right balance of amino acids along with tryptophan. – tryptophan alone from raw foods does not seem to have a great enough impact on serotonin levels so make sure to focus on accompanying those foods with healthy amounts of complex carbohydrates found in grains and some fruits. There is no study or formula that outlines that “right” amount or ratio however you will find foods high in tryptophan, omega-3s, and vitamin B6 all over lists of brain healthy foods. It is that interaction that is important. According to the Livestrong Foundation (a great source for dietary information) the following foods contain tryptophan: red meat, milk, cottage cheese, string cheese, provolone cheese, Swiss cheese, yogurt, seeds, bananas, soybeans, tofu, soy products, tuna, clams, oysters, crabs, turkey, egg whites, spirulina, cheddar cheese, pork chops, lamb and potatoes.

Engage Your Senses

Build Your Cognitive Reserve: Part 3

Adults tend to primarily use only one or two senses to understand the world.   You can both heighten an experience and build up your reserves by simply engaging your senses more fully.   Close your eyes and experience the rest of the world – hear the sounds; feell the textures, the temperature, and the shapes; taste the flavors; and take in all the aromas.

When you enhance experiences from a sensory perspective, you create new information processing pathways in your brain.  Think about it.   Information is processed in different parts of the brain – vision and hearing process so much information they have their own compartments (visual cortex and auditory cortex).

Stop and smell, feel, and taste the roses!

Here is the much simplified version of what happens.  Information comes in through our senses and is sorted and routed, via neural pathways, to the part(s) of the brain that can handle the information best.   When you just see an item (a rose), the associated information is sent on that path for processing – this is a perfectly formed, pink rose.   Smell it and the information must be sent on a second set of routes for processing.  Feel and taste the petal and you have now opened up an entire network of neural pathways.  By creating a fuller sensory experience you are feeding those parts of the brain (and those pathways) by keeping them active.  However, you not just sending the information down separate sensory pathways – you are also creating associative pathways.  You now have a perfectly formed fragrant, pink rose with silky petals that taste slightly bitter but floral.  From this one experience, you gathered pieces of information that were processed separately through a series of neural pathways and a string of associative information that travelled through a network of pathways as well.

Tuning in to your senses will allow you to make new associations and activate multiple parts of the brain while doing something restful and nourishing!

Spice up your sensory life with flavors.

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