Mind Diet: Preventing Dementia with Healthy Lifestyle Choices

The Mind Diet promotes brain health by maintaining healthy blood vessels through the combination of Mediterranean diet and foods to prevent high blood pressure.

### Strategies for Preventing Dementia and Maintaining Brain Health
* 🧠  Dementia risk factors include aging, genetic vulnerability, and various forms of dementia, with **Alzheimer's disease being the most common type**.
* 💓  To prevent dementia, it is crucial to keep the brain healthy, as the brain's health is closely related to **vascular health**.
* 🩺  Managing **blood pressure, blood sugar, and conditions like high cholesterol** is essential for maintaining **healthy blood vessels**.
* 🏋️‍♂️  Regular exercise, which helps improve coordination and strengthens the heart and blood vessels, is highly recommended for **brain health**.
* 🧩  Stimulating the brain by engaging in activities that challenge it, such as **learning new things** and **socializing**, is effective in **maintaining brain health**.
* 🍇  The Mind Diet is beneficial for brain health as it contains antioxidants that help maintain **healthy blood vessels**.
* 🚭  Avoiding behaviors that cause oxidative stress, such as **excessive drinking and smoking**, and consuming a variety of foods in **moderation** are important for brain health.
* 🧘‍♀️  It is essential to enjoy and maintain healthy lifestyle habits, and taking time to **reflect on oneself and what brings peace of mind** is crucial for leading a **fulfilling life**.

In fact, there is a diet that helps with brain health. It's called the Mind Diet. It is designed to prevent risks related to cognitive function, such as dementia, by maintaining healthy blood vessels. What are the characteristics of people who are prone to dementia? Well, they are usually older, with slightly more women affected than men. Additionally, there are individuals who are genetically vulnerable. For example, in movies, you may see someone in their 40s or 50s developing a rare form of Alzheimer's disease due to possessing certain genes. Nowadays, there are works depicting the process of dementia in movies.

There are many of these coming out, so there are such things I mentioned earlier related to all of those risks that we cannot change. There are factors that cannot be changed, but there are also factors that can be changed. Usually, when we talk about dementia, there are various forms of dementia, over a hundred different types. Among them, the most famous type of dementia is Alzheimer's disease. So, in the case of Alzheimer's disease, there are genetic factors, like the APOE4 gene, that are somewhat related. In fact, in terms of genetics, there are cases that cannot be prevented. But what we are thinking about is whether it will be Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, or other types of dementia, how can we deal with the risk factors we have.

Whether you have it or not, I try to change everything I can in life to prevent dementia from occurring, or even if it does, to make it happen slowly. That's the key. So, in fact, as you get older, the risk of dementia increases, so as you age, you need to take measures to prevent dementia, and you also need to know about dementia itself. In the past, there were not many people with dementia because life expectancy was not long. Nowadays, life expectancy has increased globally, so there are many cases where oneself or family members suffer from dementia. Is there a way to prevent dementia? Keeping the brain healthy is almost the same as keeping the heart healthy. Why is that? Of course, this directly relates to vascular dementia.

The dimension and Alzheimer's disease are closely related, but Alzheimer's disease is the same. We need to keep our brains healthy to reduce the risk of dementia. The brain is very similar to the heart in many ways. In what way is it similar? Well, there are many blood vessels in the brain. When we think of the brain, we usually think of it as a lump of fat, right? Because the brain has a lot of nerve cells that are covered by lipid membranes. So, when we think of an animal's brain, it's easy to just think of nerve cells. But nerve cells also need blood, right? The brain also needs blood supply. Therefore, a large amount of blood is supplied to the brain, and blood vessels are distributed extensively.

The heart comes next. So, to keep the brain healthy, what should be healthy? The blood vessels need to be strong. So, if the blood vessels are strong, the heart is also strong, and if the blood vessels are strong, the brain is also strong. However, even just looking at the blood vessels that are visible, as you age, for example, in the forehead area, you can see blood vessels protruding, right? So, if you think about those visible blood vessels, they may not be supplied only by what is visible to the eye, right? So, if you think about that, you should think about how to keep your blood vessels healthy. So, what is the most important thing to manage first? The first thing you should manage is blood pressure, and the second is blood sugar. Because if high blood pressure is maintained, then it will obviously be critically bad for brain health. For example, even before reaching dementia, it will be much more fatal than that.

People in their late 40s and 50s who are still relatively young suddenly experience symptoms like a stroke one day, but if they cannot receive treatment quickly, they may suffer from aftereffects. For example, they may have difficulty speaking or encounter issues with moving parts of their body. These symptoms are often caused by some kind of brain damage. For instance, a stroke can occur when blood vessels become blocked or burst. If blood vessels are not managed well, the risk of developing dementia increases even before reaching that stage, leading to a higher risk of stroke. Therefore, how can we maintain healthy blood vessels? By controlling blood pressure and, for those with conditions like high cholesterol, even taking medication to lower cholesterol levels, reducing the risk of complications from conditions like high cholesterol before addressing other issues.

People with diabetes, of course, diabetes is a condition that the older you get, the higher the risk increases. However, if you have diabetes and continue to have meals that cause blood sugar spikes, keeping your blood sugar unstable, it's obviously not good for the brain. So, it's important to maintain stable blood sugar levels, minimize blood sugar fluctuations, and follow such dietary habits. Also, if you feel anxious, there are things like continuous blood glucose monitoring once a year. Attach it and see how your usual diet affects your blood sugar levels, which foods cause the most fluctuations. By understanding these, you can live a healthier life while preventing dementia. Besides that, think about how to stimulate your brain in addition to these.

Now, in fact, it varies for each person, but the best way to stimulate our brains is to move. You need to exercise. When you exercise, you should do strength training, of course. But when you exercise, you need to learn the movements first. When you learn the movements, your coordination will improve. When you exercise, it's good for your heart and blood vessels, so naturally, it's good for your brain. By exercising to maintain muscle strength, it helps to keep your blood sugar levels low. So, exercising is really important. Our human brain is very different from a computer. Comparing the human brain to a computer may be a flawed analogy. Computers just sit there, but we move. Therefore, the brain needs to be constantly stimulated and given signals while moving to maintain better health.

When you think about the brain, it is connected to every part of our body. So, by moving all these parts, you keep stimulating the brain to keep it healthy. Remember this. Also, another thing is that you need to use your nerves a lot. What uses a lot of nerves? When there is someone next to you, it uses your nerves. So, it's good to keep meeting different people. Meeting different people and having conversations with them constantly is a challenging task. You have to listen to what the other person is saying, think about what you will say, and respond appropriately in between. How refreshing and stimulating is that for the brain! So, it's good to meet many people. But now, if I add one or two things that I personally recommend here, as you get older, it's good to make your brain a little uncomfortable from time to time. For example, what.

I'm saying that instead of just doing the same things all the time, please give me some new experiences. I'm asking to shake up my brain, but my brain tends to resist easily giving in to things I want to do comfortably. So, don't do that. Let me try something new like learning a foreign language or learning a foreign culture. It's good to try things like joining a certain group or learning to dance if I've always been interested in it. Don't do things like saying that meditation is good for the brain. Even though I don't know what meditation is and it's not fun for me, do meditation, then do some crossword puzzles, saying it's good. Oh, I hate crossword puzzles the most. Things like crossword puzzles are unnecessary. Among the things I like, but haven't been able to do.

You know, I really want to learn to play a musical instrument, but I haven't done it. If I find something that stimulates me, like doing activities that I enjoy, it can be helpful. So, make my brain a bit uncomfortable, and secondly, as I mentioned earlier, let's do things that my brain likes. For example, eating food is a fresh stimulus to the brain. It's not about eating a lot, but trying new foods. When you smell a new scent, exotic foods that I haven't challenged before, just by eating those, the taste, the smell, these things can stimulate me. So, when you don't easily expose yourself to stimuli, the brain becomes more and more depressed and less useful. So, if you need a hearing aid, you need a hearing aid.

You have to wear it. Because if you don't have a hearing aid, you won't hear well. But if someone who used to hear conversations well suddenly doesn't hear well without a hearing aid, and continues like that, they won't be able to hear conversations, so they won't have to use their brains, and because there is no stimulation, the brain cannot be kept healthy. So, if our parents need to wear a hearing aid, providing a hearing aid is more important than any supplement. Therefore, in order to keep the brain alert and healthy, it is necessary to hear well and participate in conversations. Is there any food that can clean the blood vessels and is related to brain health? In fact, there is a diet that helps brain health, called the Mind Diet. So, in fact, there is a diet to prevent the risk of developing any cognitive impairment related to brain health.

As you mentioned, it is related to maintaining healthy blood vessels by making them stronger. What will make them healthy? Basically, it combines the Mediterranean diet and a diet to prevent high blood pressure. The Mediterranean diet consists of olive oil, nuts, and fish, as you all know. Then, the diet to prevent high blood pressure includes garlic. So, to prevent high blood pressure, it is recommended to eat a lot of vegetables and fruits. When these two are combined, simply put, it means to eat more Mediterranean diet plus berries and lots of vegetables. Why is this good for blood vessels? Vegetables and berries contain a lot of antioxidants. For example, what we eat as medicine...

When you consume too many antioxidants, it can sometimes be problematic, but typically, antioxidants found in vegetables or berries are not fully absorbed when eaten. They are taken in and then excreted. This helps maintain the health of certain brain blood vessels and can prevent damage caused by excessive oxidative stress to the brain. Personally, berries such as strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries are not biologically classified; they are just commonly named as such. Although they are not directly related, they have similar benefits when consumed. Therefore, I personally recommend consuming blueberries a lot from spring to summer.

You can eat a lot of blueberries because they are expensive. It's hard to eat a lot of them every day, but if you can eat just a handful a day, you will be very happy. Even if you eat blueberries, the antioxidants in them like anthocyanins are not fully absorbed. After eating them, if you go to the bathroom, you can see that the blueberries you ate are just excreted without being absorbed. It's true. If you eat too many at once, you may get diarrhea or feel sick. However, if you eat a lot of these, it can definitely help reduce the oxidative stress on our bodies. For example, eating a lot of berries and vegetables that are helpful to our bodies can have the effect of reducing this oxidative stress. That's why it's good to eat a lot of these kinds of berries and vegetables that help our bodies. On the contrary, if you excessively stress our bodies with oxidative stress...

Some behaviors that are often given in return are harmful, and the representatives are alcohol and cigarettes. Alcohol and cigarettes, well, when you don't usually drink alcohol and suddenly have some at home before going to bed, eat a handful of blueberries, and when you wake up, you don't necessarily get rid of the hangover, but your condition is definitely better than the days you drank and didn't eat. Your face is less swollen, too. So, when I see this, it's not like I recommend drinking and eating berries, but I personally like to eat them. Actually, why is it important to eat such things on a regular basis? Because those antioxidant-rich berries like blueberries can definitely help with vascular health. It's not just berries, for example, in the summer, there's buckwheat noodles.

There are also special buckwheat noodles like Pyongyang cold noodles and buckwheat noodles made with bitter buckwheat. These contain more routine acidic substances, which are very good for the blood vessel walls. So, when you eat these, for example, for those who feel stiff, that stiffness goes away quickly. Because you ate something good for your blood vessels, the part where the blood vessels are stretched out kind of contracts. So, in summer, you can actually eat all year round, but in summer, having Pyongyang cold noodles, buckwheat noodles, and such is not about having two or three bowls, but occasionally having one bowl at a time is good. So, consuming a variety of foods that are good for your health and avoiding overeating, excessive drinking, and sleeping too little is helpful for your health.

Also, smoking a lot of cigarettes is all connected. If you drink a lot and smoke a lot, you can't sleep well. So, you should avoid these things a bit and do what you should do. It's very simple. It's very simple, but it's the most effective way to reduce the risk of dementia. What I want to emphasize the most is that whatever it may be, healthy lifestyle habits should be something you can do and enjoy. You need to enjoy it to continue. So, I don't think watching too many YouTube videos about health is good. Why is that? Because, oh, watch this. What I'm telling you now is to watch a lot, but what does that mean? If you only watch and don't act, nothing will change. So, when you watch, watch a lot of things that can give you a little more strength to act. Watch more and then move your body a little more.

You can eat healthier, manage your diet better, and feel happier if you watch things that help you with that. It's not helpful to see things like Eat this and you'll die. Because it doesn't make life enjoyable. So, I strongly recommend that you watch things that can make your life enjoyable and healthy. I would like to give a word for the viewers of Shinsaimdang. The most important thing for our health is actually knowing who we are. Knowing who you are is crucial in life. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about this. When you look at yourself, how you see yourself, and how others see you, it can bring peace of mind and stability to your life. So, when you look at these things, you can live your life with a sense of peace and stability. That's why it's so important to listen to what others say.

What kind of life should I live? I should live like this, I should eat this, I should do this exercise. Don't be swayed by such things. Instead, take some time when you have the chance to think about what I think my best self looks like, what my favorite things are, and what brings peace to my mind. Just sitting quietly and pondering about these things when you have time can give life a certain value. It can become a life worth living, where I can face tomorrow energetically while living today. So, in that aspect, I really recommend taking breaks for yourself where you can have those thoughts. Even if it's just 5 or 10 minutes a day, take that time. Write at least one page a day, and if possible, write at least one line a day. I really want to emphasize this. In fact, I

I used to think that life had changed a lot. In the past, I had a compulsion to read a lot of books, but now I feel happy even if I just read one page. Now that I work as a food writer, I write a lot about food. Reading, writing, and putting energy into my life has become a part of my life, making it much more comfortable. Another thing is that the more I have conversations with good friends, the more I feel a sense of stability. The feeling that there is nothing more needed from people, so if you have such people around you, keep them close. And if you don't have them around next week, be sure to find someone who can listen to whatever you say and comfort you. You should have at least one friend like that around you.

I want to make sure to say I will do it [MUSIC]

혈관 깨끗이 싹싹 청소하는 ‘이 음식’ 치매 예방하는 최고의 음식입니다 (정재훈 약사 / 4부)

* 출연신청 & 제휴 및 광고문의 : ssid@dpnstud.io


신사임당

The Mind Diet: A Key to Brain Health and Dementia Prevention

The Mind Diet is designed to maintain healthy blood vessels and prevent cognitive function risks like dementia.

Dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, is more common in older individuals, with some genetic vulnerability, but keeping the brain healthy can help reduce the risk.

As people age and life expectancy increases globally, there is a growing need to take measures to prevent dementia, with keeping the brain healthy being crucial in reducing the risk.

Maintaining Brain Health Through Strong Blood Vessels and Exercise

Strong blood vessels are crucial for a healthy heart and brain, making it important to manage blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

Proper management of blood vessels can help prevent fatal conditions like stroke and reduce the risk of dementia.

Exercise is essential for stimulating the brain, improving coordination, and maintaining healthy blood vessels and blood sugar levels.

Stimulating the brain through physical movement and social interaction is crucial for maintaining its health.

It's also important to step out of the comfort zone and try new experiences to keep the brain active and engaged.

Additionally, the Mind Diet is recommended for promoting brain health and reducing the risk of cognitive impairment.

The Impact of Berries and Vegetables on Vascular Health

A combination of the Mediterranean diet, high in olive oil, nuts, and fish, with a high-antioxidant diet including berries and vegetables, can help strengthen blood vessels.

The antioxidants found in these foods, such as blueberries, strawberries, and vegetables, are not fully absorbed by the body, helping to reduce oxidative stress and prevent damage to the blood vessels.

Regular consumption of these antioxidant-rich foods is important for vascular health and can help counteract the negative effects of oxidative stress from behaviors like alcohol and cigarette consumption.

Buckwheat noodles, like Pyongyang cold noodles, are rich in acidic substances that are beneficial for blood vessel health.

Consuming these noodles can help reduce stiffness and promote blood vessel elasticity.

In addition to diet, adopting a healthy lifestyle, avoiding overeating, excessive drinking, and smoking, and staying physically active, can significantly reduce the risk of dementia and contribute to overall well-being.

Living Your Best Life: Finding Peace and Energy

Take time to reflect on your best self, favorite things, and what brings peace to your mind for a more fulfilling life.

It's important to prioritize self-care and take breaks for personal reflection, even if it's just for a few minutes each day.

Engaging in activities like reading, writing, and spending time with good friends can bring comfort and stability, contributing to a more comfortable and energized life.