Nutrients for Brain Health & Performance

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we are talking all about food and the brain. We are going to talk about foods that are good for your brain in terms of focus, in terms of brain health generally, and the longevity of your brain, your ability to maintain cognition and clear thinking over time. We are also going to talk about why and how you prefer certain foods to others. And I'm going to talk about the three major signals that combine to drive your food choices. I'll give you a little hint of what those are. One of those signals comes from your gut and is completely subconscious. This is not the gut microbiome per se. These are neurons in your gut that are sending signals to your brain that you are unaware of about the nutrient contents of the foods that you're eating. The second signal is how metabolically accessible a given food is, meaning how readily that food can be converted into energy that your brain, not your body, but that your brain can use. And the third signal is perhaps the most interesting one. It's the signal of belief. It's the signal of what you perceive and believe the food that you're eating to contain and what you think it can do for you health-wise and energy-wise. And that might sound a little wishy-washy or vague, but we're going to provide mechanistic data to support the fact that you can change what you eat, so much so that you can drive your brain and your body to crave foods that are good for you or at least better for you than the foods you might currently be eating. This is an incredibly powerful mechanism that we all have. It's one that I think is very underappreciated. And today I'm going to review the data from both animal models and fortunately more recently, human studies that really do underscore the fact that you can control your desire for particular foods. Before we dive into today's topic, I just want to briefly touch on some key takeaways from a previous episode, which is the episode on time-restricted feeding, also called intermittent fasting. The key elements of time-restricted feeding that will benefit your health the most in terms of weight loss or maintenance, fat loss, organ health, quality sleep and cognition are that the feeding window begin at least one hour after waking, you could push that feeding window out to begin later, but at least one hour after waking and that it end at least two and ideally three hours before going to sleep. Some people can end that feeding window much further away from the beginning of sleep, meaning they're finishing their last bite of food, for instance, at 6 p.m. and they're not going to sleep until midnight. But many people struggle to get quality sleep if that feeding window is set too early relative to when they go to sleep. So begin the feeding window at least one hour after waking, end the feeding window at least two hours before going to sleep. And a key feature based on the scientific research is that the feeding window itself fall more or less at the same period of each 24-hour day from day to day. Meaning, if you are going to eat over an eight-hour period, that's your feeding window, you wouldn't want to start that feeding window at 10 a.m. one day and end it at 6 p.m. And then the next day start at noon and end it at 8 p.m. and the next day, started at 2 p.m. and ended at 10 p.m. and so forth. As much as is reasonably possible, if you want to extract the maximum benefit from time-restricted feeding, the idea is to keep that feeding window at more or less the same phase, as it's called, of each 24-hour day. If it slides around a little bit for social reasons or whatever reasons, it doesn't seem to be a big deal, but you don't want it sliding around by many hours from day to day. Because of the way that that feeding window impacts other genes, called clock genes, that regulate a bunch of other processes in the body. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need, and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman and claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year's supply of vitamin D3K2. There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3 is essential for various aspects of our brain and body health. Even if we're getting a lot of sunshine, many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3. And K2 is also important because it regulates things like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body and so on. Again, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer of the five free travel packs and the year's supply of vitamin D3K2. Today's episode is also brought to us by Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the exact ratios of electrolytes are an element and those are sodium, magnesium and potassium, but it has no sugar. I've talked many times before on this podcast about the key role of hydration and electrolytes for nerve cell function, neuron function, as well as the function of all the cells and all the tissues and organ systems of the body. If we have sodium, magnesium and potassium present in the proper ratios, all of those cells function properly and all our bodily systems can be optimized. If the electrolytes are not present and if hydration is low, we simply can't think as well as we would otherwise. Our mood is off, hormone systems go off, our ability to get into physical action, to engage in endurance and strength and all sorts of other things is diminished. So with Element, you can make sure that you're staying on top of your hydration and that you're getting the proper ratios of electrolytes. If you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinklmnt.com and you'll get a free element sample pack with your purchase. They're all delicious. So again, if you want to try Element, you can go to elementlmnt.com/huberman.