This summary from the Dana foundation is much clearer than the abstract. I'm not sure how to use this information but we need more studies on it for stroke rehab.
Several studies have demonstrated that regular exercise helps protect the brain from age-related decline. But in a recent essay published in the March 2012 issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience,
Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Aging,
argues that diet is just as important. Specifically, he cites results
demonstrating that intermittent fasting—one day on food, the next day
off of it—can also protect the brain. So why might abstaining from food
every 24 hours be such a brain benefit?
“Fasting is a challenge
to the nervous system, to the energy regulating systems,” says Mattson.
“And what we’re thinking, from the standpoint of evolution, is that
animals living in the wild, including our ancestors, often had to go
extended time periods without food. If you haven’t had food for a
while, your mind becomes more active—it has to become very active, to
help you figure out how to find food.”
That activity manifests
itself in neuroplasticity; in mouse models, Mattson and colleagues have
shown that intermittent fasting helps protect the brain from both
oxidative stress and direct injury. Those protective effects result in
the upregulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) as well as
anti-oxidants, DNA-repair enzymes, and other gene products that help
promote plasticity and survival of neurons over time.
“It makes
evolutionary sense that caloric availability would have an impact, not
just on brain regions involved in metabolism, such as the hypothalamus,
but also on brain regions involved in learning, such as the
hippocampus,” says Alexis Stranahan, a professor at Georgia Health Sciences University and Mattson’s co-author on the Nature Reviews Neuroscience essay.
“Your mind needs to be sharp if you are looking for food. At the other
end of the spectrum, it also makes sense that an overabundance of food
would dull the senses, making it harder to form associations.”
In
the past, some studies suggested that caloric restriction promoted good
health—and researchers have seen improved outcomes in animal models of
Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, stroke and Huntington’s
disease by simply reducing the number of calories an animal eats each
day by a significant percentage. But Mattson argues that, when it comes
to the brain, fasting may be more effective. “We find that the
intermittent fasting increases neurogenesis while limited daily
reduction in calories has very little effect,” he says. “BDNF levels
are increased in response to both exercise and intermittent energy
restriction.”
Abstract here:
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v13/n3/abs/nrn3151.html
No self-medication here.
I hope this urine test pans out quickly. I know of so many stroke survivors who were sent home from the ER because they did not present with typical stroke symptoms.
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