Encouraging Health

For speedier afternoon thinking, which snack should you choose — a ripe banana or a chunk of cheddar cheese?

Go for the banana. Why? High-carb/low-fat foods test better than low-carb/high-fat diets when it comes to giving you a mental edge.

Combo Effect
Both low-carb/high-fat and high-carb/low-fat diets appear to perk up people’s moods, but when it comes to things like brain processing speeds, high-carb/low-fat foods beat others to the punch. Makes sense. Carbs are a critical source of the type of energy that brains need to perform. Fat, on the other hand (especially saturated fat), seems to bog down the mind.

Go Bananas
Need more reasons to eat bananas? Besides making your wits quicker, they’ll also:

Provide you with a healthy dose of vitamin B6, a nutrient credited with helping fend off Parkinson’s disease

Bananas are rich in vitamin B6 — and very early research suggests that high levels of B6 may protect against Parkinson’s. Still, the news is not something to go bananas over just yet. The benefit applied only to smokers in the most recent study. But bananas and B6 do your body good in many other ways.

Vitamin B6 — along with folate and B12 — helps reduce levels of homocysteine, an amino acid. That’s good for your ticker, because too much homocysteine in the blood appears to up heart disease risk.

Homocysteine also appears to be toxic to nerve cells, and elevated levels have been linked to Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurological disorder that causes muscles to become rigid and shake uncontrollably.

Could B vitamins be the answer? Among nearly 5,000 people studied recently, smokers whose B6 intake was highest were 50 percent less likely to develop the brain disorder over a nearly 10-year period, compared to smokers who consumed the least amount of the vitamin. And although all three members of the nutrient trio help lower homocysteine, only B6 intake — not folate or B12 — translated into reduced rates of Parkinson’s, suggesting the B vitamin may lower disease risk by some mechanism unrelated to the lowering of homocysteine.

What’s smoking got to do with it? Oddly enough, nicotine may actually protect nerve cells in some way, and B6 may help out in that process.

Banana’s also reduce your risk of kidney cancer and help keep your blood pressure steady because they’re full of potassium.

For more healthy tips browse Encouraging Health.

bananas, brain processing speeds, High-carb/low-fat foods, vitamin B6

bananas, brain processing speeds, High-carb/low-fat foods, vitamin B6