Youth ends very early, and deterioration begins imperceptibly, varying in its onset depending on lifestyle, diet, genetics and environment.
Polluted air affects not only the cardiorespiratory system but also the brain, making learning and memory more difficult. So do loud noises and, above all, alcohol and tobacco.
This is why a strategy must be developed early on to slow down the progression of ageing, which is accompanied by subclinical inflammation and oxidation. We have the possibility to help the body in its fight against these two harmful conditions. The effects of exercise help to increase activity in cognition, brain function (at molecular, cellular and behavioural levels), as well as mood and longevity. All of this increases the health of the body, as well as mental health regardless of age.
¿Y oxidation? We fight it with food, antioxidants and exercise. They act by sequestering and eliminating free radicals. We help against it with polyphenols and flavonoids, carotenoids and vitamins C and E, zinc and selenium from food, as they are available in tomatoes, walnuts, almonds, pistachios, citrus fruits, watermelon, melon, pomegranate, garlic, onions, pumpkin, red beetroot and lemons in particular. Let's remember the gazpacho formula mentioned a few weeks ago.
Against inflammation Exercise and diet are also effective. This diet should consist of cruciferous vegetables (cabbage and broccoli), garlic, red fruits, oily fish, resveratrol from grapes and blackberries, allicins from onions, vitamins C and E, olive oil, and all the phytochemicals that give fruit its colour, as well as turmeric and marine omega acids.
Fats, despite their bad reputation, are still a major source of fatty acids.They are essential as they contain vitamins A, D, E and K. They are found in nuts and avocado and in heavy, acorn-fed ham and oil. They are essential for the brain. As are proteins, carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals for the brain, the older the better. They are all in eggs, hence the advisability of having one a day. As for the oil: it is antioxidant due to its polyphenols, it is anti-inflammatory due to oleocanthal, it is antiplatelet, prevents thrombi and lowers cholesterol, in addition to all the benefits of containing phospholipids, carotenoids, alpha-tocopherols and vitamin A.
The Mediterranean diet, the perfect diet, contains fruit, vegetables, nuts, nuts, olive oil, eggs, dairy products, fish, vegetables, tubers, pulses and cereals. Together they provide us with the amount of nutrients needed to maintain health and slow down ageing due to their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and brain function-enhancing content.
Continuing with the factors that precipitate our deterioration, it has become fashionable for young people to go binge-drinking, I think unmotivated, with few emotional resources to enjoy small and big things, so they resort to binge-drinking. What they don't see is that alcohol destroys neurons and inhibits the prefrontal cortexes responsible for anticipating, measuring consequences and inhibiting behaviours that are contrary to survival, and impairs and shortens judgement. It also damages the liver, whose function has just been discovered. It also results in decreased blood flow to the alluded to prefrontal cortex. This is important because it is the structure that generates complex thought. Therefore, it suits some social engineers to prepare them to go to communion with millstones, hence the enormous facilities that some city councils have provided, creating spaces for it. It is a depressant of the nervous system, of all brain functions and organs as a good toxic. It seems that this generation will not live as long as ours, nor will it have good health.
One young man says to another in my presence, "You're not going tonight, are you afraid of the virus?. A study of this phenomenon would not be a bad thing, so that the interested parties themselves would know what motivates them in this recreation with so much suicidal content in this one. Promotion of the fatal and lethal virus. The face of confusion and inferiority complex is produced in all contexts when a psychopath, a fanatic, a psychotic, defines us, threatens us, sells us his merchandise with his usual disqualifying arrogance, the one that sustains him, maintains his mental health. This is what is happening with the use of such epithets as "fascist" and others. The normal person is always beaten down by the forcefulness of a fanatic.
What do we need to provide our brain with for its molecular functioning? It needs neurotransmitters, some of which you may be familiar with. The serotoninwhich is altered in depression, is necessary for good mood, memory and many other functions. It is synthesised by neurons from tryptophan, an amino acid that must be supplied by the diet. It is found in chicken, milk, cheese, fish, eggs, pumpkin seeds and nuts.
For movement as central to mechanisms of reward, decision-making, learning and memory, it needs to dopamineIt also depends on the diet that provides phenylalanine and tyrosine present in blueberries, meat, bananas, cocoa, almonds. Dopamine acts immediately by signalling stimuli, acting to make us find something and achieve it by persisting in our goals, it shades our behaviour and we can generate it in the brain when we pursue a goal.
The GABA an inhibitory neurotransmitter. It contributes to motor control and plays an important role in behaviour, cognition and the body's response to stress. Research suggests that GABA helps control fear and anxiety when neurons are overexcited by external or internal stimuli.
On the other hand, low levels of this neurotransmitter are associated with anxiety disorders, sleeping problems and depression. We need tryptophan from corn, oats, brown rice, spinach, sweet potatoes, cabbage or chestnuts to provide it. That is why I have recommended taking two large spoonfuls of oatmeal at dinner for a good night's sleep.
The acetylcholine essential for short-term memory, a lack of which is implicated in Alzheimer's disease. We need eggs as a source of choline as a choline precursor.
It has been proven that people who are not fit that the state of our musculature is a sign and index of the state of our brain and heart. That the deterioration of old age is not the same for everyone. There are people who are nearly a hundred years old giving concerts, publishing books. The great maestro Rodríguez Adrados was a little over 99, and he was still publishing books until his last moment, full of faculties. Arthur Rubisnstein gave concerts when he was 96. Joaquín Achúcarro is 89 and is still at the top of the world's piano interpreters. It means that his concentration, his memory, his agility of limbs, his eyesight and his reflexes are above most people.
Two Ironman, One 90-year-old and one 88-year-old are training for the next competition in case the pandemic allows it. There is an idea of the age when people lived ten or fifteen years less, so legislators should review it and so should the citizen. These examples show that with mental, emotional and physical training one reaches an age with more capacity than most mortals.
A Manchego from Toledo at the age of ninety continues with his marathons, he started them at the age of sixty. We will have a body and a brain if we look after it from a young age. Through diet, affection, sport, mental activities and human relationships.
Physical activity benefits health in general and the brain in particular: it improves mood, concentration and memory, and also has a positive effect on the brain. protective effect against cognitive decline. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have identified an enzyme generated by physical activity and can improve cognitive functions such as memory and learning. Glycosylphosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase (Gpld1) is a liver protein produced during physical exercise. As they explain in a study in ScienceThe scientists found that the enzyme is elevated in people who exercise regularly. Together with a clear increase in the number of new neurons in the hippocampus. Thousands of musical notes in a concert without a score in a concert by Achúcarro, which would not be possible without the hippocampus.
Therefore, if it is practised from a young age, minimal cognitive losses and physical abilities appear in old age, as we see in the examples cited above.
I believe that the above is enough for us to take seriously what we eat in addition to physical exercise, of medium intensity, which is essential for the preservation of the brain and to keep the body in perfect condition, because a damaged liver cannot produce that protein which, when injected into an old animal, rejuvenates it.
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José Antonio Rodríguez Piedrabuena
Specialist in psychiatry, management training, group and couple therapies.